"stiffened" poems
The night is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole --
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.
Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus
He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness
Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions.
Over and over the old, granular movie
Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days
Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams,
Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful,
A garden of buggy rose that made him cry.
His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks.
Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars.
He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue --
How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening!
Those sugary planets whose influence won for him
A life baptized in no-life for a while,
And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby.
Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods.
Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good.
His head is a little interior of grey mirrors.
Each gesture flees immediately down an alley
Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance
Drains like water out the hole at the far end.
He lives without privacy in a lidless room,
The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open
On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations.
Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats
Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments.
Already he can feel daylight, his white disease,
Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions.
The city is a map of cheerful twitters now,
And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank,
Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.
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I remember you
from your beautiful smile
your cinnamon scented hair
your contagious laughter
your nail-biting addiction
your pointless insecurities
to our silly inside jokes
our dumb little fights
our peculiar bets
our goofy text messages
through tears and smiles
you were the only one who understood
my unspoken words
my concealed pain
my unexpressed happiness
my puzzled feelings
counting your days
we recalled our mischievous memories
when we danced in the rain
when we rang doorbells and ran away
when we pranked the gullible ones
when we stole Ikea pencils
when we fangirled over stunning guys
when we were together
everything turn into excitements
moments with you
I remember them all, Grace
it was a week before December twenty-fifth
when the monstrous cells stopped your heart
a glimpse of smile
appeared upon your face
as you're being taken
far away from us
skin turned pale
body stiffened
tears flooded my sight
there were wailing across the room
time flies like a bullet train without you
it's a rainy day today
you've always loved rainy days
sinking my knees in the dew-wet grass
raindrops whisper in my ears
as I brush off the gray snow from your stone
I still remember you, Grace
I still do
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 5:27 AM UTC
Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.
Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.
They would no guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-littered ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:
Time has transfigures them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
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into the smiting
sky tense
with
blend
ing
the
tree leaps
a stiffened exquisite
i
wait the sweet
annihilation of swift
flesh
i make me stern against
your charming strength
O haste
annihilator
drawing into you my enchanting
leaves
6.1k
Singing birds are often better off caged, and maybe I’m no different. Maybe it’s safer, biting my tongue and shoving my hands deep in my pockets when the urge to delineate my woes shivers its way up my spine, shaking the rust from the back of my teeth and loosening the hinges on my jaw. I’m constantly reminded that the world outside my mind is far too dangerous, too brutal for my fragile thoughts, for my feeble words. But every now and then those words get the better of me. They convince me that their songs are worth hearing, that they’ll survive the hell that awaits them. Then, eager and hopeful, they jump off my teeth like a diving board, spreading their wings and gliding out into the world of the unknown, the world of wars waged to divide and battles fought to conquer. I watch as they hang suspended in the air, wings spread, small and beautiful against the ominous background, innocent if only for a fleeting moment. But, of course, beauty has no place here.
I cringe as the shots ring out from all directions, as everyone around me opens fire upon my winged thoughts. I shut my eyes tightly against the firing of guns, arrows, cannons: delivering the message loud and clear that the airspace between me and the world is better left unclouded by my superfluous banter. I try not to watch as they drop from the sky, my unsuspecting words, but my eyes force themselves open. Wings broken, hearts still, they crash to the ground, silenced.
I want to gather them one by one, my feathered thoughts, gently in my hands; I would take them somewhere safe and give them a proper burial, for they were once so near and dear to me. But I’m afraid of what lies in the battlefield. I’m afraid of the landmines and the barbed wire and the trenches. So I bow my head, refasten the locks on my sore, stiffened jaw, and turn my back on the carnage, on the dirt and grass and the haze and smoke. I turn from my defeated birds, form the bodies of my barely spoken words, and I leave them.
Oct 31, 2012
Oct 31, 2012 at 3:19 AM UTC
The shadows have their seasons, too.
The feathery web the budding maples
cast down upon the sullen lawn
bears but a faint relation to
high summer's umbrageous weight
and tunnellike continuum-
black leached from green, deep pools
wherein a globe of gnats revolves
as airy as an astrolabe.
The thinning shade of autumn is
an inherited Oriental,
red worn to pink, nap worn to thread.
Shadows on snow look blue. The skier,
exultant at the summit, sees his poles
elongate toward the valley: thus
each blade of grass projects another
opposite the sun, and in marshes
the mesh is infinite,
as the winged eclipse an eagle in flight
drags across the desert floor
is infinitesimal.
And shadows on water!-
the beech bough bent to the speckled lake
where silt motes flicker gold,
or the steel dock underslung
with a submarine that trembles,
its ladder stiffened by air.
And loveliest, because least looked-for,
gray on gray, the stripes
the pearl-white winter sun
hung low beneath the leafless wood
draws out from trunk to trunk across the road
like a stairway that does not rise.
4.7k
These berries are bruises
Fading birthmarks I have still
Fresh from that morning you opened my curtains
Rolled down your window
Promised me honey and a candy-colored life.
These berries are bruises
You made me breakfast in bed.
Too early you lifted my tent,
brought a full spread:
Fruit, toast and black coffee--
But when I tilted my lips
You drunk first of my womanly cup.
Pouring out hot, bitter slick
My lips swelled blue blister
I stiffened under your dead weight,
I killed my tongue.
I tried to keep dreaming of
Hands to knead me
And butter the softness of these
Blueberry scone hips,
But instead you picked all the berries out
Your greed a mouthful,
The growing woman inside me leavened--
Watching you stain my girlhood,
Popping one fruit bead after another
******* the seeds from my teeth.
Jan 31, 2012
Jan 31, 2012 at 2:25 AM UTC
The barbaric queen, her abilities stiffened
His presence strickened by her directed speech
Could it be her brick fence weakend
Love had made it's way into the leaks
Thoughts become lies, diminishing her kingdom
****** passion, a caused lusting
Touching her breast
Carressing her hips
Legs shake, she is a disgrace
The guards ushering him from her towering mattress
Empathy made her a mockery
A hatchet to the soul, he is nonexistent and undesirable
Her long webbed veil, disguises her weeping
Her eyes blackened, she is a demon bleeding
Halo misplaced, in dismay
She is a woman rigid and prevailing
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 4:01 PM UTC
September speaks in dull sand flecks
and billowing my stiffened skirt to kneecaps
rested on for prayer, grinded on for ***
It pokes and I’ll awake –
I am just like a ***** in the autumn morn
first torn, the first born of a hundred
encounters of which I would not believe
it could be the opus of.
Ladies lose physical barriers, but they
do not evade a September when orchards are
trimmed and all that’s beneath is unveiled:
see it with my glass eye. No dust inside.
See it with your honey bulbs –
the foothills, the knees married to the floor
where stars first aligned, so I ****** you off.
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 12:04 AM UTC
He heard a last echoed clink of liquor-laden ice-cubes,
Stuck between two stools that screamed for company,
I gazed across his vacant stare to the barman –the silent DJ,
Professionally ignorant as I gestured my hoarse thirst,
I waited a little minute, another minute an’ just one more,
Enter our businessman, full-schedule, long-hauled to drink,
With a rib-eye steak of a face an’ breath surely barbecued,
Two satisfied cheeks, pink-puffed with brows fit for burial,
Teeth ground with tension but brighter than the lighting
A fungal-lung nose perched upon a smile that I could smell,
He plumbed himself wet-shave close to my stiffened neck,
“..Hana Drink..?” (Silence) best to follow the DJ’s example,
(Bullish huffs) (Lips licked) “.. Ya’ll wantin’ a drink, Mister?..”
Flustered by the company, I replied “..Non, Je think eh Je chi..”
A retort of sorts, faux languages not my degree, “..Leaba..Bed!”
Spluttered just at the end – an insulting first impression,
He seemed nervously joyous, loosened from being himself,
Yet his trouser belt buckled, pulled tight to conversation level,
An’ Redwood-trunk hands, alive with the latest deal struck,
“..Bedtime for us..” he bare-bawled, splitting my weary eyes,
His numbed arm clumsily flung around me, “..bedtime for us!..”,
DJ unmuted, the music paused, I mouthed softly “..just the bill..”
(Silence)
“..Who’s Bill?.. a friend?…Is he cute?.. So this drink?” I panic still.
Dec 30, 2013
Dec 30, 2013 at 11:15 AM UTC
I don't recall the moment responsibility grew arms hugging
with gnarled fingers, while burdened skies wrap like a promise,
with its soft tenor of lies and seduction.
Disowned, I remember the drunk old lady who hung
over my shoulders puking responsibility, as if to discharge
toxic waste on a pre-mature baby struggling in labor, while death
chokes the innocent, lost in love's knowledge.
She could have warned me, even better, ridiculed me rather
than put my head on a bludgeoned block allowing me to become
a scapegoat for all the past, present and future mistakes:
Some, of which was manufactured in threads of innuendo
by off-loaders.
These bones of mine are exposed in the twilight of their naked
prejudice, and 'I swear I could hear clouds' curse my name, chanting
wrath, creating chaos through veins of pride, before darkness
fell feasting off my flames.
There is nothing like hollow skeletons of the dead rustling
around in graveyards alone. I stopped to think despite efforts
of going solo; how I miss the stony silence of that skull, bent
with anger seeking solace from my venomous touch.
It would be a blessing to retreat into silent reveries
where I am alone, I am alive, the dead are no more, to wrestle
ghosts with words spoken into the heavens asking,
"is there enough forgiveness left for me?"
I don't want to remember her dead face, how it looked
when her neck snapped while life drained from her stiffened eyes.
I want the abstracts of my life to fit.
So, I howl upon her bitter pill - release me...
7/11/2012
Nov 6, 2012
Nov 6, 2012 at 3:46 PM UTC
Oh, Winter...
She says, “Come hither...”
She is an alluring *****
with her pure and virginal whites,
chaste as an egg. Mm hmm.
Her flash frosts,
her intricate, fleeting diamonds,
her dew when she warms
drips and drops into ******* spears...
She pulls you in.
She pulls on you,
draws you,
milks you to the core.
She whispers “Come hither...”
in her squalls,
but she leaves only shells.
Such small feathered things,
stiffened and dead,
touched by Winter’s hand.
But she is beautiful,
and you...
You can not help yourself.
Dec 13, 2017
Dec 13, 2017 at 12:29 AM UTC
3 inches of dust
Coat my nails
Been so long
Since I’ve
Caressed
The golden waves
Stiffened wrists
Cardiac arrest
From ocean eyes
Depths unknowing
Only paper to guide
A pale hand
Towards a wizened tree
That used to scream
Songs so lovely
Core is rotted
Pesticides poisoned
Blood giving life
Through the roots
But not the right kind of life
The dead kind of life
Bounty dead
An innocent deer at the base
Her throat slit
And an arrow through her eye
The taste of salt
Still on her tongue
Oct 24, 2012
Oct 24, 2012 at 8:24 PM UTC
Situated in self caused misery
Her choices translucent
Influenced by a life of negativety
She filled her tub with murky water
Warm, a place filled to the tip with disgrace
A bed is shelter overhead,
comfort is never enough
In this vague interpretation of what is good,
she has stiffened posture
A symptom of exposure
Jun 18, 2016
Jun 18, 2016 at 5:11 AM UTC
Two sparks of glass dancing on the currents
like two feathers with silk stiffened by salt.
Broken bottles to the midnight seascape sent
unsteady as whispers, sharp as the cold.
I’d drift as part of chandelier like rain
be the anglerfishes’ luminous snare
to tresses of jellyfish dresses vain
as the smooth face reflecting there.
On the plateau the sand will frost our smiles
smoothing those edges to a bent jigsaw piece.
This cold Desert of ebb raked sands and fells
from the bottle’s great birth into the sea.
Making blood fire by joining sparks by hand
as others join stones in returning to sand.
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 12:08 PM UTC
What is that reality that appears to me in dreams,
chock-full of misgivings and doubt. I counteract my fear of life
with my fears of slumber,
dust in my eyes and stiff as lumber.
In truth - I'm not stiffened
by fear,
by nausea,
post-pubescent sacrilege,
or all of the above.
I'm not up-kept,
grizzly with ennui;
I'm dizzy, confiding my loss.
I feel the lips that kiss
but can't be drawn: from mind,
stencil
paper
pen,
on sheets of thick
pale and
cellulose,
for the heart to mend.
My unsteady hand
is my fearful friend
A soft embrace
from a warm mind
Somber
and so full of Life
clung to by the scent of Death
Endowed
with an eternal promise and regret
from veins of plants
or the glow of stars.
Cold, mechanical debt.
(my heart, so full of...)
(my mind, so hot with...)
(my body, trembling in...)
I am gulf-like
a stream full of trees and glass
echoing a promise of shattering wind.
Will I be published
after my death,
asleep predating, a life conceived.
Will I live to see myself alone,
and to discover
that which I'm not?
Or will I stutter
and wallow a curse,
Up towards the sky,
Until the final verse.
On a boast
or chasing the Rail,
pale as dirt, and shallow still.
Will my true love abandon, break, strain,
Burn away the wax,
or hurry to blame?
Omit my evils from the star-charts,
then just to vacate the void.
From the half-broken corridors of rocks,
nooks, crannies.
Carry laughter through the night
burn the effigy bowed-down,
before dawn's courageous,
ever-splaying light
Angels,
of Carlo and Marx,
plenty by noon
festoon,
again by day
thus replay,
Endeavor to infinity, fair child.
Remold the light by Day
and remold the Day
by Night.
Feb 23, 2013
Feb 23, 2013 at 12:53 AM UTC
Good old Gregory Goose was Gladder than any Gander could be and not Just because Nelson the Ninja Snail had said he was "JUST-DUCKY" ! This was a Very Special morning for Gregory Goose, in Fact it was yesterdays Super Special situation that made His Delight so DELICIOUS. The comment by Nelson the Ninja Snail, had simply added to His Glory! Gregory's Special Situation Had been the Unexpected Announcement that HE was to be Named "TEAM-CAPTAIN" for the Annual "Hog Wallow and Here's Mud in Your eye" CONTEST ! ! "Oh the delight" He thought, "I am to be Captain, after waiting all these years". "ME" he exclaimed ! "Captain of the South Forty Blocks"...... "W O W ' ! ! At the most convenient time of the day, Harold Hippo, Candy Cow, Curtis Chipmunk, Marvin Monkey, Beatrice Bovine and Larry Lynx decided to make a Personal call on Good Old *GREGORY GOOSE . Keep in mind Now, That Harold, Candy, Curtis, Marvin, Beatrice and Larry we're the *INSIDE, of the "INNER-CIRCLE". JUST ASK THEM !! They were on the INSIDE ! ! Well, when Gregory Goose heard the Knock at the door, He opened it with a Great Big Grin, That ONLY Gregory could Give! Before Him stood the "J U D G E S " of All Contests and Efforts. *Gregory was Beside Himself ! ! Instead of Seeing a group of Smiles and Handshakes, He saw Staring Eyes, Necks that had been stiffened AND *Gnashing of Teeth. Beatrice Bovine was the First to Speak, "Gregory, it has been brought to our attention that you had a conversation with Nelson the Ninja Snail,, and YOU didn't Rebuke his statement of being called "JUST-DUCKY". "As a result of this, *WE decided YOU "Cannot Be" CAPTAIN of the Hog Wallow and Mud in Your Eye Contest, PERIOD ! ! Gregory Simply smiled, Looked Straight into their Eyes, Quietly said "BYE", Softly Closed the door.... Turned Grinning, Knelt to his Knees, PRAYING, Thanking GOD, for the FACT,, That he, Gregory, He was Made just a *LITTLE BIT PECULIAR ! !
Jan 10, 2011
Jan 10, 2011 at 3:19 AM UTC
When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned
Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes,
Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak,
Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek,—
Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes
My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die,
And will be born again,—but ah, to see
Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky!
Oh, Autumn! Autumn!—What is the Spring to me?
2.5k
My heart is burning inside of my chest and only you can put out the fire.
I want this to stop.
I want to be whole again.
I left half of me at your house in your bed and
I can’t get it back.
You sleep with half of me and you don’t even know it.
A week after we broke up I heard you talking,
you said you washed your sheets and blankets.
I wonder if you did it to **** my scent,
while all I’m doing is trying to hold onto yours.
I still remember the way I ran my hands down your chest,
and you put your hand on my back.
I hope when you sleep you remember the way
I couldn’t fall asleep without the blankets.
Now you probably wrap yourself in them.
You need something to fill the space I left.
I wonder if you still fall asleep early.
I used to tease you about it,
but I secretly loved it because you were so calm.
I still haven’t washed my sheets and the blanket smells like you.
Please come back.
Make me feel safe again.
Wrap your arms around me and rub my stomach.
Give me a goodnight kiss like you used to.
Who are we kidding, though?
You never loved me.
You were long gone before I even got in your bed that night.
You were long gone when I smiled and said I loved you,
you stiffened and turned away.
I should have left at that point,
but I was determined to make you feel something…
but how can you make someone love you?
I shouldn’t have gotten in bed with you that night.
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 9:11 PM UTC
time steals up soft in autumn’s haze
through fallen leaves and frosted morn
no longer smiles through summer days
bears dreadful gaze of mercy shorn
scribes lines upon youth’s winsome face
and brings the ache of stiffened joint
gives halting stride and slower pace
age piled like leaves does thus anoint
yet in thine eye dwells springtide’s bloom
in ardor’s dance is lightened tread
warm voice dispels autumnal gloom
at gentle touch are decades fled
for love knows naught of count of days
let the years flow as they will
unclouded passion’s flames yet blaze
I shall be thy lover still
Jun 14, 2022
Jun 14, 2022 at 8:58 PM UTC
Don't sleep
Don't sleep
I begin to
Like you
A little bit more
I shift and sigh
Say your name
Fatigue rolls
Somewhere by
But, alert I
Imagine
So many paintings
To make for you
You mumble
Childishly
Your laughter
Is glittery
I wish
For so little
I wish too
Intensely
Dont wipe me
With a stiffened cloth
Soaked
In turpentine
And a hundred hues
Dont stir me
I might be disturbed
Out of skill
Out of thought
Onto a burlap scene
Grotesque
Picturesque
And so, so true
Don't move
Or I might too
I might too
Become a facet
Among the facets
Of your horrors
I might
Become art
Might become
Beautiful
In that strange
Black way
Of art
Dont sleep
Talk to me
Speak to me
Let us be
Normalities
Let us
Hold
Technicalities
Forget
Sentimentality
In the silly blue painting
Of an eyeless pretty
Smooth and porcelain
Perfectly closed
No night
To mourn into
Dissolve into
To stumble,
To tremble into
Don't sleep
I become too much alone
Shrivel, burnt sienna
I cannot move alone
I become the paintings
That I fear to paint
I become the sombre
Debris of your laughter
Cold, blue
Featureless
A moonlit night
Nothing but red
You don't know
That I like you
In my head
Come back
Come back
Apr 30, 2023
Apr 30, 2023 at 6:10 PM UTC
Ah! changed and cold, how changed and very cold!
With stiffened smiling lips and cold calm eyes:
Changed, yet the same; much knowing, little wise;
This was the promise of the days of old!
Grown hard and stubborn in the ancient mould,
Grown rigid in the sham of lifelong lies:
We hoped for better things as years would rise,
But it is over as a tale once told.
All fallen the blossom that no fruitage bore,
All lost the present and the future time,
All lost, all lost, the lapse that went before:
So lost till death shut-to the opened door,
So lost from chime to everlasting chime,
So cold and lost forever evermore.
2.2k
From Job
A spirit passed before me: I beheld
The face of immortality unveiled—
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine—
And there it stood,—all formless—but divine:
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And as my damp hair stiffened, thus it spake:
“Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than He who deems even Seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay—vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just?
Things of a day! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and blind to Wisdom’s wasted light!”
2.2k
We walked in together and from that moment on,
I watched the way your eyes traced each line in each portrait.
Arms stiffened in the pockets of your tight, but not too tight jeans,
I wondered what it would be like to kiss you.
In an art museum I'd never been to,
you were the most beautiful piece in the room.
I couldn't look away.
While most people take pictures of the paintings they love,
the sculptures that mesmerize them,
I turned my focus to those carolina blue eyes as they focused on the art.
I traced your jawline in my mind,
and I tried to count each hair in your ****** scruff.
I wondered who was responsible for such an incredible work,
who could have created such beauty,
and how I came so lucky to witness it.
At least a thousand other people were in the museum
yet I felt as though it was only you.
You seemingly perfect human being,
your elegantly disheveled hair,
your tired yet lively eyes.
I want to create something with you.
I want to make art so beautiful it radiates,
I want to love you so purely it never ends.
You stopped to get gas on the way back.
I stepped out of the car to take a mental picture of the way those iridescent lights hit your face,
and as I approached,
you kissed me.
This moment was a masterpiece,
the world should have counted my heartbeats.
We broke the kiss and headed home.
I held your hand the whole way.
I have loved art my entire life,
but have never come across
beauty as pure as
you.
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 3:32 PM UTC
You swore you'd never love again
That you'd hardened your heart
Stiffened the walls of the four chambered *****
That Cupid's arrow would bounce off
That no love could move these stiffened walls
Then...
... Now
Your palms cradle in his palms
Your head gently on his chest, ears counting his heartbeat
His fingers tracing love letters on your back
Eyes closed, savoring the images of him they've captured
Well, Well, Well...
Look who's all lovey dovey
loving and ****
Nov 11, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 at 3:11 PM UTC