"stopwatch" poems
Tired of the ways of men
Desperately I turned toward nature
I watched a butterfly ascend
Yet I'm a different nomenclature
Of a solemn glacier
Standing on my own
In an arctic cone
Not protected by the ozone
So I search for a new home
But can only find loans
My venture for my own real estate
Exposed me to the realest hate
I'm the roaming gnome
With a groaning tone
All alone
With a roaming phone
So I can't call home
My will I leave
When still I see
A killer bee
Filling me
Willingly
Its invasion's
Abrasions
Left a sensation
With a duration
Of unending inflation
On a descending station
Of no impending relation
I felt the nature
Of a desolate crater
When I met a great hater
Who told me to get straighter
So I could be a steel freighter
Carrying my load on my back
Without polluting the air
I decided to cut him some slack
Forgiving his impossible dare
I must gather grace
At a faster pace
To finish this race
Of a top notch
Hot crotch
Stopwatch
Ticking down
Into the ground
Without a sound
Or warning
Of acid rain forming
Until I see myself melting
From the savage belting
Of your death sting
You called the best thing
Like a divine blessing
Only seen after **********
Like a politician deflecting
For the constituents electing
To forego dissecting
The issue at hand
By not taking a stand
My world is crumbling
Because of you
And myself stumbling
In society's glue
As the sky is tumbling
I see I'll lose
Yet instead of rumbling
It's love I choose
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 1:21 PM UTC
Infinite.
Like how many times you can take a picture,
with your mind,
of we intertwined.
Like three chords.
Your pick.
Like each idea becoming a suggestion,
an open ended request,
like the innocence behind "inquisitive"
that is lost in "inquisition".
Like the questions I mean to ask you,
but I'm not sure you'll be listening
at that moment in time.
Stopwatch.
Dewdrop.
Like how I mean to hold
you
r hands
r heart
you.
Like the limit of the tangent of x as it approached y.
I want to curve
and parenthesize around your body.
We will diverge.
We are inverse.
We are combustable.
Aug 16, 2012
Aug 16, 2012 at 11:01 PM UTC
Time dons His thief's mask.
While we count days and hours,
He steals my stopwatch.
Aug 5, 2014
Aug 5, 2014 at 11:52 AM UTC
you’re not going are you
today to the edge of your seat
to the corners of insanity?
to the corners at the cinema
nearest the exit
to run off when the demons come
to sleep in the day
below your bed
so the rabbits cannot find you;
and then go for a walk
in the cold of the night
mumbling like Lady Macbeth
maybe now running a fast-food restaurant
and asking each tree in your garden :
*Would you like some
manure with that?*
you’re not going to Extremity Town
today, are you?
to tell the Mayor
he’s taken extreme measures
opening an animal sanctuary;
would he please
open an abattoir instead
where the animals skin humans?
Oh you’re not going
are you
to the bus-stop with a stopwatch
to time how long it takes for the passengers
to **** the driver?
Oh you’re not going are you
in the day or this evening or anytime tonight? -
to see if Jimmy the car mechanic
has diversified on your insistence
and if he now sells
in his garage
lingerie and toothpaste for that special night
and salads and beer and peanuts and spices
for first dates only
O you are going to have a good quiet sleep aren’t you
like owls in hollows
and you won’t offer any surprises to the world?
not today?
Aug 15, 2011
Aug 15, 2011 at 7:38 AM UTC
I am getting older
and my body is in tatters
My Doctor's say, "You're fine, You're fit"
I think they're mad as hatters
Each day a new pain rears it's head
My body falls apart
My Doctor's say, "You're fine, You're fit"
As they listen to my heart
My bladder's my new stop watch
Each night I rise to ***
I get up once at half past ten
And then just after three
I'm cold and then I'm sweating
Sometimes both in one breath
It makes me feel I'm crazy
It's a slow, nervewracking death
My knees ache every morning
And my hips pop as I walk
I have to work my jawbones
Just so I can start to talk
I've had surgeries on my body
Just to help me stay alive
I can't see where I am going
I'm can no longer go and drive
But, my Doctors say I'm healthy
They say I'm healthy as a horse
But isn't "Flicka" served in restaurants?
His flesh is now a new main course
I use a cane when I go walking
I have a seat to go upstairs
I wear a wig when I'm in public
I seem to dress myself in layers
I need a pill to wake myself up
I need another so I sleep
But because my bladder's my new stopwatch
I never go to sleep too deep
Today I'm going to get tested
To check the hearing in one ear
Please excuse me for a moment
What was that you said my dear?
Now my Doctor's keep insisting
That there's nothing wrong with me
Like I said, I think I'm crazy
They're the nuts and I'm the tree.
they've got me tricked out special
I've got orthotics and a cane
My bursititis hurts like crazy
And I think it's gonna rain
My oxygen tank is empty
And my voiding bag is not
But I'm still having those flashes
I still feel cold and hot
With the bag I sleep much better
I don't get up twice to ***
But it wasn't fun last birthday
Having a colostomy
But, my Doctor's say Don't Worry
Your'e as fit as fit can be
But I tell them it's distressing
For I'm not yet thirty three
I'm sick of always hurting
Each day more vigor do I lose
But today I am excited
I'm getting velcro for my shoes
I think some exercise might help me
With all my aches and all my pains
It may help me to feel younger
Feel like thirty two again
But my Doctors, Oh my Doctors
Say there's nothing wrong at all
It's just a natural part of aging
It's mother nature come to call
But I know, I 'm getting older
and it's just a part of life
I'm just glad I have a drug plan
To help me with this strife
Now, my O2 tank is full now
And I've got a buzzing in my head
That means my battery is running low
So...Goodnight...I'm off to bed...
May 15, 2012
May 15, 2012 at 7:36 PM UTC
His garb was not spectacular,his shoes were grey and worn;
his hair was longer than a mere crewcut.
His nails were very *****
his veins were free of needles-
and his face shone bright red
in the misty sunlight.
He greeted the sky with a wail of delight,
and the hearts of passers began to throb.
Summer and autumn were remarried in an embrace of generous hope,
throbbing airwaves,tapping feet,delighted smiles.
And then along came a citizen,politically correct;
oh so relevant,barely tolerant ,emancipator.
With a fuzz of of ***** gray
a salloween expressive nosegay-
A mission to expunge the infiltrator!
He was busy with his flute;
he could not practise,he said
"I only live two hundred yards away.
You must cease and leave this place
you do not fit here in this race-
ABANDON this ridiculous idea!"
So,the stopwatch was set;
the 'half hour rule' began to reign:
And the police turned up
after merely twenty minutes!
Nelson's watch saved the day
"take another twenty"They did say
and our liberator slunk away
unfairly treated.
Though earth on heel and
sky on neck:Lovers'
authentic myth
outshining heaven:
a piper
on a bridge
unsheathed
across
the Ij
A klted
magpie.
unswathed
the lay
fairly
greeted
Sep 27, 2010
Sep 27, 2010 at 7:55 AM UTC
I left consciousness while wide awake
Never breathing but overthinking
What you said what I said
Breathing and living with you on my mind
Your name always on my tongue
Like sweet stinging candy
A delicate touch of powerful words
When you are the one I wait for daily
A stopwatch of life when you say my name
And everything goes silent but you
Click, the stopwatch starts again
And I realize that you will never be mine
I realize that you were never mine
I realize that I
Can only be
If I stop loving you
Jan 1, 2019
Jan 1, 2019 at 4:27 PM UTC
you’re not going are you
today to the edge of your seat
to the corners of insanity?
to the corners at the cinema
nearest the exit
to run off when the demons come
to sleep in the day
below your bed
so the rabbits cannot find you;
and then go for a walk
in the cold of the night
mumbling like Lady Macbeth
maybe now running a fast-food restaurant
and asking each tree in your garden :
Would you like some
manure with that?
you’re not going to Extremity Town
today, are you?
to tell the Mayor
he’s taken extreme measures
opening an animal sanctuary;
would he please
open an abattoir instead?
Oh you’re not going
are you
to the bus-stop with a stopwatch
to time how long it takes for the passengers
to **** the driver?
Oh you’re not going are you
in the day or this evening or anytime tonight
to see if Jimmy the car mechanic
has diversified on your insistence
and if he now sells
in his garage
lingerie and toothpaste for that special night
and salads and beer and peanuts
for first dates only
O you are going to have a good quiet sleep aren’t you
and you won’t offer any surprises to the world?
not today?
Sep 26, 2010
Sep 26, 2010 at 10:03 PM UTC
the gentle reminders of my fears
sing me to sleep
“what could go wrong?”
“will i wake?”
their ever-dreadful lullaby
lulling me to slumber
a grandfather clock
a stopwatch
tick tick ticking
til all fades away
Mar 23, 2022
Mar 23, 2022 at 11:24 PM UTC
my life is like a stopwatch
just tallying up the time
i choose the downward spiral
over that vertical climb
i tried to go the mile
to keep up with my kind
i lasted just a while
then i fell behind
when my descent is final
who knows what i might find
maybe the top is topnotch
but the bottom is all mine
Jul 4, 2016
Jul 4, 2016 at 2:19 AM UTC
I need a breather,
for I have set a timer,
in each fraction of my life
I've never tried running a marathon but,
I have always felt that I'm running out of time.
Oct 20, 2021
Oct 20, 2021 at 8:49 AM UTC
Lying here,
Now nothing more than a fragment of terrycloth
Faded from red to pink
You are something much more.
You know the essence of athleticism,
Of strength, stamina, courage.
You relish every drop of perspiration,
Rhythmic breath of runners is sweet music,
And now you have been cast aside,
Reposing gently on the side table,
Alone but for the stopwatch.
Oct 7, 2010
Oct 7, 2010 at 6:27 PM UTC
You once told me, over drinks, that
" 'first sight' isn't a thing."
I think at the time we actually agreed but
I guess we didn't think about
what that would ultimately mean because
now we still have to find an answer.
Then, how long does it take to fall in love?
The length of three movies we will never watch all the way through?
The time it takes to make a clever joke,
drink a few glasses of ****** wine,
or finally wash those **** dishes you are never motivated to do?
Long enough to roll my eyes a thousand times,
listen to a Radiohead album,
or battle three rounds of death rattles and the flu?
How about the amount it takes to share 100 cups of the best coffee,
finish a gallon of milk,
or to deliver the evening news?
Or maybe just the mere moments it took
to memorize your eyes and their exact shade of blue?
To determine the specific time length it takes to fall in love,
would be impossible,
and a definitive answer found, I would probably doubt,
but at the very least,
I can tell you that it is a hell of a lot less than
the painstaking time it is taking to fall back out.
Mar 26, 2013
Mar 26, 2013 at 12:40 PM UTC
****** suspicious schemes,
Right or wrong, I see past all communication into extreme expansions of a negative mindset,
Scarlet buttons compressed with Indian shaded tint, through mistaken pigment,
Veins pumping overtime with boiled fumes of something condensing,
You’re running out of immediate clockwork when days brew skyward and panic appears to be tempting your envious iris,
Behind the machinery are the blueprints,
Directed only towards agitated agony and sour sorrow,
Illuminated by locked doors-
I ask you- as the reader- the listener-
See passed my memories and create room for visions of a tangible imagination and leg-pumping adrenaline,
Needle infested wrenches lock arms with the absent intelligence of conscious deprived brain flow,
I see you peaking around my duct and depict an abstract view of confused, focused eyeliner,
Slick and plentiful dew drops linger between a plugged safeguarded build,
You’re running out of precious seconds as Antoine Fisher burns free the story behind a smearing disguise of gratitude,
Amen to the present and many men for this lopsided track record,
I’ve got a key witness in my pocket, along with images of what I lived for, before mistakes took flight,
Continue on with your heart, as nothing more than a stranger in a cauliflower society where I erase the painted tapestries,
Beware of the ticking, as I await my calendar to run dry,
Prepare your own stopwatch and click on the rolling minutes my old friend,
I hate everything you represent,
Everything you expose to the previously tainted atmosphere,
But mainly, everything you have coming home from war,
Tick…tick…tick…
May 26, 2013
May 26, 2013 at 1:38 PM UTC
Time is a clock,
a face no-one forgets, a
stopwatch on a stiff wrist
beneath crisp white cotton,
a feral black cat in the woods
of adulthood that sneaks
up on you in your prime,
or something like that.
Feb 16, 2016
Feb 16, 2016 at 8:50 PM UTC
Last summer, on my birthday, I received a card in the mail. Every year my grandma sends me some silly birthday card, I'm used to it. Last year, I turned 18. On the inside of the card along with the sentimental gilded text, was an explanation. My grandpa had picked out this card for me 12 years before, and for whatever reason, it never got sent. My grandpa died when I was 8. Now, 10 years later, I have one last card, sent from both grammi and grampi. I forgot to say "I love you," I forgot to say "goodbye." I can never go back.
I love you.
Goodbye.
I wish there had been more, maybe an "it's okay, you forgot." An "of course I heard you, I'm here." An "I love you."
An
"I'll come back and meet my other granddaughter."
A story.
Something.
I have a card, and a transformer stopwatch (long broken), a tiny box (that used to hold a wooden beetle with moving legs, but no longer), and a memory of a smile.
I lost the pocket knife.
I forgot his voice.
I miss the pens in his shirt pocket. I miss playing pickup sticks. I miss him playing the piano, and letting me ruin it, pressing the keys. I miss him reading me stories. Over and over, as many times as I wanted.
I miss the absent look he got when he was thinking about something else entirely.
I miss when he forgot about veterans day.
I remember him, dying, stuck in a bed, drinking water through a sponge (it was one of the most terrifying things I've ever had to watch). He never lost his mind, or his memory, he lost his body first.
The last thing he said to me was "you be a good girl."
The last thing I said was "I will" (and I hid behind my mothers back, while she said "We love you").
Sorry Grandpa,
I'm not perfect.
And that's probably not
what you meant
He knew he would never see me again.
I had no idea. (Why was that the last thing he said?)
He was a composer.
Two weeks before he died (that's also the first time I cried for him), someone arranged to have a symphony play his music for the first time in concert. They drove my grandpa to the concert hall in an ambulance. That's a gift no one will ever live up to. I wish I'd gone.
He was one of the most amazing people I've ever known,
and I didn't even realize it until after he was gone.
I'd give almost anything to have a conversation with you.
Goodbye.
I love you.
Goodbye.
I love you.
Goodbye.
I love you.
I wish you were still here.
Two Christmases ago, my grandma started crying while we were singing silent night, because Chuck wasn't there to sing bass. We were missing only one part, and no one could replace it.
I wonder if there are recordings of him talking, just talking somewhere.
I'd like to hear them.
I wish I could have sung with my grandpa, Christmas carols, anything.
Goodbye.
I love you.
Dec 10, 2011
Dec 10, 2011 at 5:11 AM UTC
But it's not.
Most of it is in my muscles that refuse to move anymore
Deadweight, simple pain pulling like gravity is its mother
Some of it is in my burning lungs that don't understand how much I want to keep going
I don't want to die here
I don't want them to find my collapsed body with a stopwatch marking a nine minute mile
Some of it is in my broken sneakers and ripped clothes because this isn't my first show
I've been here before
I fully understand the heavyheartedness of sweat stains that scream longevity and socks that I might as well throw away
But I will see that gym tomorrow
My body will burn and burn and I will burn with it
But there's a fireproof lining around my head
Of course it's not all in my head
My head is the one thing keeping my feet hitting the ground every beat of the music
Or picking up the weights at 6 am
Apr 4, 2017
Apr 4, 2017 at 6:50 PM UTC
A sad stopwatch in silence,
regrets fragmenting time,
nonexistent, unstoppable.
Aug 31, 2013
Aug 31, 2013 at 1:03 PM UTC
#1 ***** your finger, describe it,
but never use the words,
red, flow, blood, dead.
Post to HP as My Finger Pricked:_____________
2. Post an Elizabethan Sonnet to HP
3. Think of a sad thing to make yourself cry, write what it was, how it felt, and are you now afraid/unafraid to admit it was so hard/easy to stain your face.
Post to HP as Cry Myself to:______________
4. Get a stopwatch, pick your time limit, (max 7 minutes), write a poem, stopping when your time is up and post to HP as Seven Minutes:________________
5. Pick a poem of mine and why you don't like it. I am not an idiot, send it to me in a private message. No penalty for being right (or wrong)
Each question worth 20 points.
Winner gets a pizza with any topping delivered to his residence any where in the world (or the local equivalent). Or, if in NYC, dinner!
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 4:06 PM UTC
I don't slam well on love
It slams on me
A drumming thrumming arrhythmia
Ba-bump ba-bump ba--- bump-ba-bump
A little loss here is a little gain there
Only, it doesn't work that way
My stopwatch heart hiccups then echoes
Like odd flats and sharps
Seemingly out of place among the expected
A beat that needs to be acquired over several listenings
Like a new food that needs to be tasted up to 12 times
Before you can truly decide if you like it.
It take more than 3 licks and a bite to get to my center
One, two three, you're not for me
Four, five, six, a few more licks
Seven, eight, nine, out to dine
Ten, eleven, twelve, you can delve
And yet... Here it sits in my chest with its arrhythmia
Patiently waiting for that defibrillating current
That shock that will set it right
Or perhaps it's never meant to be that way
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps
It's perfect in it's imperfection
My heart's a stereo,
and we can dance if you want to,
because the rhythm is gonna get you,
on re-pe-pe-pe-pe-peat.
Nov 28, 2018
Nov 28, 2018 at 9:29 AM UTC
*there are two
clocks on the wall
and neither work.
there are one
million thoughts
in my head
and none are worth it.
sometimes i wonder
is it worth it?
to count the minutes, the
seconds, until time is up.
why measure
life in increments
when i can measure it in
memories?
the squeals that
left my lips as
dad chased me
around the house
as a dragon,
the sweet sent
of lavender and
candy flavored kisses.
what about the hum
in my lungs as i tentatively
kissed the boy
i loved and gave him
everything i shouldn't have?
the proud look in
my mother's eyes as
i left home with
my bags packed?
the boys i talked to,
the friends i laughed with,
the nights i wasted
and the ones i didn't…
could these really
have an expiration date?*
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 12:07 AM UTC
with iron bolts rust-fastened to her copper face,
her brass eyes only move her pupils elsewhere far,
resolved and steel-willed she has left my side, her place,
her gaze and love for me now hang upon a star,
cold metal forged within her furnace blasted high,
a permanent visage no more will feign to move,
her thoughts aloft so far, the sight of her so nigh,
she's stopped the stopwatch of my time to prove,
amazing how the human flesh can turn to steel,
how fascinating transmutations quickly peak,
how one so loving woman quick unlearns to feel,
how one who knew no silence quick unlearns to speak,
unraveled slow to tatters, now we've come undone,
i sleep the moonless night that's lost its living sun
(C)2012, Christos Rigakos
Jul 29, 2012
Jul 29, 2012 at 6:20 PM UTC
when i wake up without my glasses sometimes
i think i'm still in a tent on the side of a highway in queensland
and the sun coming up starts a stopwatch
t-minus 20 minutes until the air heats up like an oven
merrily roasting the blonde figures
on either side of a slightly deflated air mattress.
if i keep my blurry vision fixed i can hear whip birds
and cackling kookaburras and
a vague buzzing i forget as soon as i shift my attention.
i want to push my too-tanned face through the moth-dotted
10-second-tent ***** and gasp wholly unsatisfying gulps
of petrol station breezes.
but when i wake up with my contacts cementing my eyelids shut
i think i'm hungover in a grimy hostel in brisbane
with a different blond figure gripping my hip
and 29 other filthy travelers snoring uproariously in the same room
and every one of them asleep with stories still pressed to their lips
willing to trade for the thrill of it.
and i know i won't be able to find my keycard in the tangled sheets
and anyway, my bunk in my own room doesn't have a ladder
and there's always a german girl sleeping below
with her underwear hanging from the bars i use to clamber up
so i sigh and pass that problem down to future-me
fall back asleep
and when i wake up i have miscalculated
and somehow i'm twelve thousand miles away already
as abrupt as this
but sometimes for a few myopic seconds, my chest feels light.
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 2:32 AM UTC
Spring-loaded,
Nervous energy;
Often wondering
In an archer, a yogi-
Gathering static strength,
A tension
With the potential
Of absolution;
Else a stopwatch wound
Too tight. A pointless climb,
An effortless demise-
Out of time,
Out of mind.
Cannot walk slow.
Baulk beneath
The cathedral,
Lengthening of the shadow;
Another wasted day.
Often wondering
if idle or incomplete,
Whether the chip
On my shoulder
Is a flute
Or a fatal malady.
Managed the cap and gown
With a professional smile.
Found my audience
When I gave it up.
Often wondering
What I am doing,
Sat drunk at the typewriter
Alone;
Often wondering
Which is more fearful;
the void
Or the comfort of home.
Jul 22, 2016
Jul 22, 2016 at 7:58 PM UTC