"sturdier" poems
Somebody call Ben Affleck
We got phantoms in this *****
This endless haunted mansion
Their presence pervades
No company
In this lonely labyrinth
Only phantoms
The only figures resembling humanity
Are the corpses of those before
Who couldn't navigate this torturous structure
And of course, the masquerading phantoms
My soul they aim to puncture
I tried closing my eyes
But I just kept running into walls
I tried sleeping through it
But I just sank deeper into the basement
When I attempted to join the phantoms
You were there
You waited until I was hanging there
On the rope
And eviscerated everything
Lycanthrope
The rope in shreds
Your heart then fled
Leaving me alone again
Lying in my exhausted blood
The phantoms sensed my desperation
And took advantage of my disorientation
So I ran to the darkest recesses of the basement
To retrieve my blindfold and sledgehammer
But is my hammer powerful enough?
Will visual impairment abstain the trickery of ghosts?
I put Sisyphus to shame
With the determination I utilize to demolish these walls
But the phantoms are devious
They ***** new facades
Thicker, sturdier, with odder textures
I destroy them all the same
It just takes a bit more time
And time means nothing
To a man who's sole purpose is knocking down walls
And cowering from apparitions
Yet a man means nothing
To a time ruled by phantoms
May 24, 2017
May 24, 2017 at 11:54 AM UTC
Come one, come all!
And welcome
To the shield shop!
Here, we supply anything
And everything
You need
For a custom made
Shield
Now, this isn’t your typical
Iron or bronze,
No,
the shields here are much
Sturdier
And not for physical
Affronts
We could provide you
A block of wood
For dense ness
Thoroughly not
Understanding
Social cues
Good,
For keeping away
Verbal bullies
Or,
Romantic attention
A shard of ice for coolness
Unaffected
Untouched
Abve the crowd
Keeping your cool to the point
That no one approaches you
No one reads you
Makes you seem impenetrable
A flame for blazing confidence
Attracts people
But also scares them away
So they,
Maintain a distance
From your
Vulnerabilities
Whose existence
They may not be aware of
A kitten for innocence
Either,
Giving others the desire
To protect you
Or they just pass you by
We have all these
And so much more!
So why don’t you come and
See
Which one works for
You!
Sep 29, 2018
Sep 29, 2018 at 8:14 PM UTC
HOW should the world be luckier if this house,
Where passion and precision have been one
Time out of mind, became too ruinous
To breed the lidleSs eye that loves the sun?
And the sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow
Where wings have memory of wings, and all
That comes of the best knit to the best? Although
Mean roof-trees were the sturdier for its fall.
How should their luck run high enough to reach
The gifts that govern men, and after these
To gradual Time's last gift, a written speech
Wrought of high laughter, loveliness and ease?
2.5k
sometimes it seems as though the cars
passing my street won't drive quickly enough,
and that the strands of christmas lights
aren't strong enough to support my weight.
so for now i'll settle for forgetting to look both ways,
and perhaps later, i will invest in some sturdier rope,
all the better to scale my own cliffs of despair,
and face off with the spanish swordsman
reclining on the tip of my tongue,
matching rapier in (left)hand.
if victory finds its way to me, i'll continue to confound
in meeting the brute within, he who pounds boulders,
whose heart is like tourmaline in a granite casing,
and who claws at pristine arms in convulsion.
if i am once again triumphant, i shall travel further,
and face the shards of wit cutting through my irises,
except i am not as the dread pirate, the man in black,
i am vulnerable, i have no resistance, i am broken down
as easily as i am built up, and it is truly a gamble.
if, by some miraculous stroke of good fortune, i continue further,
i shall be disappointed, for at the end of the trials lies tribulation,
no flower princess for me, no blindfolded beauty,
only that **** noose of christmas lights again,
suspended from a macabre and rickety structure
seemingly crafted from the same material as the road to hell,
destination identical.
Feb 5, 2013
Feb 5, 2013 at 12:40 AM UTC
These parts feel like a lie I am giving to this world,
but it doesn't throw me back a sneer,
it pretends it doesn't know.
I am carving my skin with questions,
but it bleeds back no answers,
only trophies in the shape of these scars.
I am clawing myself out,
but the pit feels like quicksand,
the more I want out the more it takes me in.
I am half a person, half a ghost
already burying myself
inside the casket of my own skin.
If these gods were real
they'd have made us of sturdier stuff
than hearts that break apart at the slightest whisper.
Oct 1, 2016
Oct 1, 2016 at 1:19 PM UTC
What if,
instead of shooting
people into space,
we grew our way there?
What if,
we built tree forts in trees,
so that we could plant trees
in the tree forts,
and when they grow,
build more forts
in those trees and
continue that process
while adding gardens
all along the way
along with more tree forts
for everyone to live in
and everything would be connected
to form a living structure
that continually grew around us
as we continually grew within it
and our atmosphere would
expand
to encompass an amount of space
that we could have never imagined,
and we would grow with the trees
stronger, sturdier, and healthier
rather than continually
contract
and thin by thickening the pollution
in the space within our atmosphere
as we die with the trees
weak, withered, and dis-eased?
Apr 4, 2014
Apr 4, 2014 at 9:01 PM UTC
Once there was a little brown bear
She had a tree she so loved to climb!
She would climb and climb and she could touch the sky
She loved the view from up high
Now the little bear's tree was sturdy; thick and tall
She knew just from looking around she didn't like other trees at all
But one day she tried to climb a wobbly spruce
It's trunk was so thin and it's swayed so loose
The little bear fell and she hurt her paw
And there hadn't even been a view to saw
So she limped and she squirmed back to her big tree
"Please," she murmured, "I would like to see
The view I have seen many times before
I hope you'll let me climb again, but my paw is sore...."
The tree waved gently, and picked her just a little off the ground
"I promise little one, none sturdier can be found.
I love you and enjoy you, and want you to climb high
I'll hold you for now, mend your paw," then he sighed
"It's up to you to climb, as soon as you feel better,
But my darling bear, though I'm one tree, I will unfetter
For you can climb higher and be safer than others around
Even when you get up very high, and so far from the ground
I won't let you fall, my branches will keep you safe
My daughter, my little brown bear, there's no better place"
And the tree held onto her, only few off the ground
And as the little bear looked up, she found
That the tree's immense love, and it's never ending height
Made for a life time of adventure, a beautiful sight
After her fall, she was scared to again
But then she looked, and a little higher, was her bigger brown bear friend....
Dec 15, 2014
Dec 15, 2014 at 12:39 AM UTC
there was a
dream here
once,
it came in
via the
rain,
fed crops,
livestock, us,
but at dawn it
had gone,
taken the
bus to
somewhere
it could belong,
somewhere
made of
sturdier stuff.
I imagine
it rolling itself
up into
the dust,
coating the
backs of tongues,
speaking a
language so
different to my
own, I imagine
it finally feels
like home.
Jul 13, 2016
Jul 13, 2016 at 9:11 AM UTC
Do my eyes burn because I'm awake
Am I awake because my eyes are burning
Am I even awake at all
Do I drink coffee because I'm tired
Am I tired because I drink coffee
Am I even tired at all
Am I a writer because I'm an insomniac
Am I an insomniac because I'm a writer
Am I even a writer at all
Does my skull ache from all the whining
Am I whining because my skull aches
Does it ******* matter anyway
These walls are paper thin
I feel like screaming into them
These walls are sturdier than my bones
I feel like walking through them
But I have nothing to say
And I have no where to go
Who the **** am I
when I'm not dreaming
Have I been dreaming all along
Have I ever dreamt at all
Why do I care
If I even do
Or am I just filling the time
Because the ceiling becomes a boring sight
After eight hours of lying in this bed
Jul 3, 2013
Jul 3, 2013 at 2:46 AM UTC
You are my ocean,
Full of life and patience,
From all the fishes in the sea,
You are the one that feeds me.
You are my mountain,
Sturdier than any craven,
From above you watched over me,
Keeping me safe from my killing spree.
You are my sky,
Your vast kindness covers the azure high,
Soaring through the air with your white wings,
Healing and nurturing every of my being.
You are my inferno,
Your voice gives me courage for the morrow,
Burning passion fills your eyes,
Chasing after your dreams for miles.
You are my friend,
Always by my side till the end,
I won't like to see you alone,
So lets bump fists our friendship do regrow.
Sep 28, 2016
Sep 28, 2016 at 6:33 PM UTC
I’m not a botanist,
or an avid gardener.
The horto I culture consists of two pots,
sits on a narrow sill
and soaks in its one-hour slit of sunshine.
This makes me unfit
to label much less
fathom the encroaching
sublime, which sprouts,
shoots, creeps, clings and endures
from far reaches beyond me.
It has spines
supple and rigid,
skins coarse, spiked, and silky,
quivering tips that are spidery,
and bunched as small dollops,
jagged teardrops and jigsaw puzzle pieces.
I’m not a botanist,
but if I were
I should still be struck dumb
by these numbing instances
a protesting tongue
insists it won’t box up
such greenery with the genial trappings
of a scientific classification,
or even the oddly
folksy catch-all ****
I can’t always tell what’s a **** what not.
l know those greedy
intruders growing at the heart
of a meticulously turned earth
to spoil the well-ordered
plots of a barely adequate vocabulary.
It gets more complicated
with the thrilling misfits
and their sturdier notions
of choking life from inhospitable beds
poured and paved
to the detriment of meeker plantings.
Yesterday I met the peeks of ten
woody red stems poking through
a patch of chunky white gravel
spread thick between two
steel rails that fled to a horizon.
I watched the breeze
shake their candelabra arms
dressed in sparse leaves
and denser seed-packed sleeves,
and they welcomed it.
I'm not a botanist
and I can’t name these plants,
but I can admit, I admired them.
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 6:20 AM UTC
This is the end of my thumb
A pen run dry the ink feels numb
Its written books on thinner mirrors
Cobalt patterns smooth the errors
Hops from spots to spots
Sturdier that eyes with dots
No warmth to refill this pen
It leaves along with days that end
An igloo at the equator
Forced within refrigerator
Water bottle filled to its top
No cap on top to let it drop
My thumb envies daggers as it fades
A spaceship top in black it craves
Here is the end of my thumb
My mouth must speak of times, I know
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 2:12 PM UTC
A line has been drawn
And you have nothing to say about the height chart in the door frame
***** smocks
The ebbing and flowing of passengers in the middle seat
Who do nothing but leave coffee rings everywhere they've been
And say, "my left shoes has a sturdier soul than I do!"
Then forget to close the toaster oven
Rusted lamp posts and artificial flavoring
The Kettle telling The *** "don't do me no favors"
I see clear coasts and those who've missed their boats
They should have taken their piece of cake
Now, this is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you
Getting back to business and usual
Better make that eyelash wish count
It's a free for all
It's sibling rivalry
For all the brown-nosers
Who live up to their reputations of raised leg urination
Give me a pull start
And then demote me to cabin boy
-Tommy Johnson
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 3:52 PM UTC
dusk settles over the hilltops
and you find me
back resting against a tree trunk
wondering
"whose spine is sturdier?"
raising a cancer stick to my lips,
refusing to inhale after ******* in the smoke,
and i think
"coward"
and i know that i will never
be rooted;
i will never
stay loyal to one patch of earth
unlike this oak that supports me
holding the smog
between my lips
is a little more dangerous
than Augustus' metaphor
but it's sure as hell
less dangerous
than letting it clog my lungs―unless
storing it for a moment before exhaling
is likely to give me mouth cancer
instead of lung cancer
well, i've never been one for commitment
i think i'd rather spit
and pretend
that the tumour
is being expelled
than know there's something
deep inside
that grows every time i so much as breathe
oh, love,
what an illness you are
both of you:
the feeling, and the holder of that pet-name
no chemotherapy
is going to save me,
not now
i think i'll hand myself over
to ignorance
and wait for the problem
to go away
my immune system has always been impressive
Aug 8, 2016
Aug 8, 2016 at 10:07 PM UTC
Fairy godfather and godmother,
I wish, this, my bleeding plea
To take me back to who I was
Before I was brought to my knees
I wish to become again, innocent
The child I was back before him
I wish to be departed of moments
memories of me and him in my head,
-
The winged guardians say in duet
A reply the loveless lover would get
Not a consolation, yet one awakening:
~
My dear darling son, we know of it -
Your pain deep within, you so keep
Feel, after the flame has been cast
And taken out the coal that made it last
Yes, it is true, he has forever left, but
Have you really been unchanged before
Before he gave his heart to you, and
You gave yours to him too, to be held?
Every hour, every minute, every second
That has passed has changed you ever so
For good, or for bad, they have grown you
Why should we take what has made you you
Why destroy a beautiful canvass true?
You will wither this pain, realize that
True, the lover has left and love cut,
But none of the love shared has rot,
He may have stopped giving it to you
But what you've had with him was true
And what you were before him even so
But has, even during and without him
You'd still have changed, do notice that
It's not that his loss was a marring of self
Just muster the courage to be used to it
It takes time to get used to a withered love
We'll give you instead strength and fortitude
To wither this loneliness, heartbreak, and
To find that what had happened and left
Has made you much better, with no regrets
We'll give you patience and understanding
To see that you are hurting, but growing
And that in time this pain will subside
You will find a greatest lesson behind
That you are you, no matter who with
That you will stand sturdier and through
Undaunted but still loving heart forthwith.
Oct 24, 2018
Oct 24, 2018 at 6:04 AM UTC
A careful cut, it is the stuff,
Of which our world is made,
Utility and art are fused,
The noblest of the trades,
A sturdy chair of solid wood,
Yet sturdier the heart,
Passion, vision, faithful work,
The noblest of the arts.
Nov 13, 2019
Nov 13, 2019 at 8:12 PM UTC
We walked down the sidewalk with our eyes set towards the elongated skyscrapers, while we stumbled and lost our footing in gaping sidewalk potholes. Each extinguished and singed our disheveled sneakers.
A bird, perched on the stoplight, found my gaze and sawed in half the barrier between our minds with all eight talons, hungry for a sturdier connection.
The car horns synchronized their stammering chants and buckled our ankles like marionette horses. They escalated until we could see each vibration pulse from the windows, liquefying the glass and homogenizing salad vinaigrettes.
The waters, collected in the sewers, began to rush into their respective reservoirs and pool at increasing velocities. The excess bubbled up through the drain covers, costing our feet in fresh rain from yesterday's storm.
Every vent coaxed heated steam through its pours and the condensed warmth reached our fingers, yearning to steal the precious gemstones encased in our jewelry.
We were invited to become the new asphalt, to replace the neglected pieces begging to retire to the gravel pits outside of town, recycling them into new beings and begin again the birthing cycle of the city.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 10:32 PM UTC
I thought I could nestle by your side
Could it be, that my hands touch your side, but infested
Tangled inside the swelling smell - festering a volcanic catastrophe
What we're taking as I touch each particle - what could've been blissfully ignorant now I can not brush by in darkness
Taking as we will, selling as we must
Concocting a planet that can can only bustle and bust
As we strain every purity and inject every man made chemical
What must we burn before the world will concave and fall?
Could it be the genetic machine work inside
Or to follow ultimatum authority and deny
The forest of green burning as we've never seen
The Closed door populous unaffected they seem, to see the unseen
The growing earthly hazard kept closed and quiet, closed tight, sealed, and slipped under the door
Until thousands slain, diseased ridden, suffering, crying no more, or....
Now, look it in the face, look it in the eyes growing sturdier inside
Growing cautious, concerned, with a stern eye to those who deny
Don't take a full 'no' don't take a full 'yes' open the library with prying eyes
Look for yourself, your words are the purest, your thoughts, your actions, your ideas - to be anyone else isn't impactful, purposeful or sincere
From now on, make your actions clear
You're built on your actions - isn't that clear?
I can not ask for you to hold me in such weak arms
Could it be, the first time, you need our arms to hold you up
Tidal waves of resistance, but persistent I will be
In living the green side, living inside of me
Jul 22, 2016
Jul 22, 2016 at 5:05 PM UTC
All this war and yet, there is nothing I would rather be.
I have grown to appreciate,
as a nonpartisan–
a silent sommelier–
the subtle earthy notes of irony with which
my deflated ego scolds my hollow spine.
I know my own hypocrisy, my instability, my naivete.
I have been raised in the midst of myself–
I carved and nailed these philosophies together to make trellises
around which my elastic grapevine limbs have learned
to wrap and coil and hoist themselves toward the sun.
I have built myself,
and I, alone, tend to my vineyard.
There are distortions in these wooden lattices,
and there are seasons when the grapes grow sour
or the vines do not flower
at all,
but the crop is resilient and the wood does not break,
and there is enough sunshine here
in the summertime to sustain
and to yield something complexly beautiful because it has been weak,
and it has known the cold.
I have built myself,
and I, alone, tend to my vineyard.
There are plots of land far more fertile than this one,
foundational structures far sturdier and more symmetrical,
grapes far sweeter and more robust of flavor,
but there is no wine I would rather have flood my veins;
there is nothing I would rather be.
Oct 8, 2020
Oct 8, 2020 at 1:24 AM UTC
I'm watching the clouds roll in,
Perhaps out of fear.
Come to me
We'll raise our faces to heavy droplets
And you can leave your red umbrella in my car.
Don't speak.
I'll take your hand and lead you
To where the wind in the pines screams your name.
You belong to me,
'Til death do us part and et cetera.
I'll let you scratch your fingernails down my spine
And the trees will entwine themselves with us
While the sky howls delightedly.
Your right eye was always a little bluer
And your left hand a little sturdier.
There you will slay me
Kiss my open sores
And when the smell of pine becomes too much,
You will leave me there to tease passers-by with my bare legs.
You always left your red umbrella in my car.
I eventually left my love in your arms.
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 11:49 PM UTC
Growing up in an empty house
you learn a thing or two about survival
as your bones grow stronger and your heart grow sturdier
independence is the only word you know
sometimes you get confused between loneliness and alone
but you stand upright no matter how hard the rain pours or the wind blows
it comes a time when festivities draw near;
the bells are jingling, Christmas carols are playing
and you sit there lonely, and alone
that the empty house you grew in
stays quiet for the evening -
Dec 20, 2015
Dec 20, 2015 at 12:16 PM UTC
I hope you keep the memories of me whittled into your ribcage, the kisses I left leaving scars on the length of your spine. I hope that when you think of me you remember my nails running through your hair, leaving small hairline fractures in the bones of your stubborn head.
When you talk about me I hope your rib starts to hurt, your spine tingles and your head fracturing just a crack. And every time you think about me I hope it does the same.
Because I know that whenever I think about you, the scars you left on my breastbone crack and I hear it. The bones holding my heart in place begin to feel like they're going to dissipate and leave me open and vulnerable. I know that my spine tingles from the kisses you left on me. My brain starts to hurt and so does the rest of my body.
But I know that wounds heal. My bones shall form new scars to cover up the old, broken ones, leaving my bones stronger and sturdier than before. My spine will no longer shiver with anticipation and longing, and my breastbone shall keep my ribs intact, my heart safe. Safe for another who comes along to do just the same.
Jul 20, 2014
Jul 20, 2014 at 4:34 PM UTC
Baseboards lined with spiderwebs
That shimmer in the slanted sun
Next to worn, wooden chairs
Feeling sturdier than ever
Shelves and shelves of
Outdated textbooks and encyclopedias
Crinkly and brown and yellowed
How many trees went into these pages
This forest rearranged
And defaced by movable type
Oct 5, 2020
Oct 5, 2020 at 5:02 PM UTC