"subsists" poems
A calm and cool breeze
Passes through the leaves of the trees,
Persuading the branches to sway,
Like algae in a turbulent sea.
Without a cloud in the pale blue Arizona sky,
The sun radiates down-- hot and glaring.
It reflects off the shiny paint of the cars around me,
Illuminates the brown mountains in the distance.
And magnified through the thick lenses of my glasses,
It blinds my sensitive eyes.
The surrounding sempiternal desert
Is so clear and sharp,
That no one nor nothing can hide
(With the exception of the beings who can blend,
And despite my tiring efforts,
I am not one of them.)
The nearest Creosote bush
Eminates of the smell of water,
As it passes through a hose.
I am instantly transported back home
Where sand is replaced by grass and plants
That require regular watering to survive.
When I close my eyes I can see
The illusion of a waterfall, created by the uncoiling hose
As it ejects tepid water for us to traverse.
But upon unveiling my windows,
I allow the sandy landscape to penetrate into my soul
And I am brought back to the present
Where life subsists, illogically,
Through a dearth of water, and inordinate sun.
Jun 6, 2013
Jun 6, 2013 at 3:27 PM UTC
Beneath the water lived a nymph, beautiful as
A flower, if you like woman with petals
Growing from out of their face
And lips adorned with myriad metals
Moving silently with infinite grace.
Fishermen who caught her, in alarm
Tossed her back with dismayed cries
Fearful that she would do them harm
When she exposed her fangs, darting from her eyes,
Forked tongues from each palm.
But apart from all that, she was a delightful creature
As proud as a catwalk model
Sexuality impressed into each feature
Death in each cuddle,
Poison injected from each freshly opening suture.
At the sea’s dark bottom lived the nymph
Devouring fish raw, terrifying sharks and barracuda,
Dining on shellfish and prawns for lunch;
Darting amongst Angel Fish and eels, a hungry aficionada,
Tearing into shreds what she could not crunch.
Gentle with her own kind until coition
Was complete, when if hungry she devoured
Her temporary mate without undue consideration,
No please or thank you. Feeling duly empowered
By her actions, as confirmed by her explosive, acrid indigestion.
No longer young, her children dead,
She glides through the water from China to France
A preposterous seaweed hat upon her head
And in several places, impaling her scaly flesh a serrated coral branch.
Her sartorial taste filling even the sharks with fin-quaking dread.
The last of the kind. The others are (literally) toast.
Protected by animal charities here and abroad
She gladly subsists on ambitious swimmers who venture far from the coast
All she can now catch or afford.
A capricious tyrant until the last, when, victim of a fisherman’s boast
She was hoist up like iniquitous cod
Out of the sea, paraded on the deck while she struggled for breath.
Shot at. Abused. Poked and speared with a steel tipped rod,
Dragged into the harbour, pummelled close to death.
Screaming out, as she in unexpected agony died: “I thought, I truly thought, I was god!”
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 2:06 PM UTC
In the water
in the ocean
and in the sea
the litter that
subsists
eventually
knits together
far
in the corner
away
from the body
And while it surfaces
within the water
in the ocean
and in the sea
Litter never
rides with waves
for in our
rightful states
we ever
bind
Dec 5, 2016
Dec 5, 2016 at 11:26 AM UTC
She subsists in the cosmos of glamour.
Her eyes twinkle and eyelashes jiggle within the veil of the darkening mascara.
Her body glistens like the presence of phosphorous
Igniting the hearts for her swains.
She is among the stars synthesizing us to be powerless of reaching.
Her body moves like a mermaid pretending herself to be exclusive.
Her lips flutter words those are meant to be listened with sheer fascination,
and cannot be agitated.
Reigning her world she pretends herself to be the empress.
She makes, as well as breaks the hearts of a million,
Forbidding them to remonstrate.
She trends among the unknown with her charming attire- She is the moon.
Carried away by fame she shines,
Under her spell the hearts get enchanted too soon.
Mar 16, 2011
Mar 16, 2011 at 8:16 AM UTC
Clogging real life,
lost in the Great Barrier Mind.
It's attacking,
Again.
Never seen,
Never touched.
Yet this affection,
Grows stronger.
Everyday.
Inquisitiveness
Of his whereabouts,
Appearance,
Temperament and
His love of religion.
Who is he?
Descendant?
Age?
Every detail,
Unknown and
Unseen.
Yet I profusely yearn.
Yearning for his bejewelled devotion.
Yearning for his inimitable self.
Yearning for his yearns for me.
That is
If it subsists.
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 1:49 PM UTC
My droopy eyelids ache as if I saw the sight of the sun,
Walking silently, but swiftly; motionlessly into her arms
I hear the fragile air passing through her lungs
I feel the delicate pulse of her neck
The fragile but weak heartbeat; beating down the seconds
I thought I felt nothing
Thinking it would only satisfy my cravings
as her life slowly became mine I dared not to look
But her faint smile overwhelmed me
The sweet sanguine fluid flowing down her body
Onto my lips
The only time I feel alive again is in this moment
Until my cravings are gone and the despair numbs me once more
I can see through her eyes
Her vision distorts me from her sight
Not knowing who she is or why she let me gaze upon
Her image, but it's one image I will never forget
An image I won't want to lose
A second more and she subsides
or
A second less and she subsists
For each second I felt her neck
Pulse
The first time I felt my heart
Pulse
And for each pulse I felt
The more human I became.
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 5:11 PM UTC
Mabel is breathing....
no one ever visits.
She has tended flowers and done laundry all
life for others.
No one needs her.
She has a bad knee and
Neuropathy , subsists now on pain medication and sugars.
No one calls her.
She envisions one day getting flowers.
Or hearing again from that gentleman, who
twenty years ago smiled.
Or her children or grand young ens';
but no one writes her one letter.
In the cold she wears all those sweaters she knitted.
So no people remember her, I will!
I visit and bring the flowers I grew specially
for her,
the prettiest yellow roses,
while she lives!
Nov 25, 2014
Nov 25, 2014 at 10:33 PM UTC
Life can find no substitute
when the end comes to love.
Two hearts intermingle
and become the one
they always were.
The hope that flourishes
underneath the lifeless games
create an everlasting spark
that subsists the reason
to keep on with life.
On and on
the cycle goes,
creating art with every breath.
An art that reveals
Passion,
Pain,
Joy,
Love,
Dreams,
and success.
Anything
that demonstrates
anything less,
shall not be deemed art.
Art is in the living,
as only the living
can see the beauty
that exists in everything.
In my hand,
and in my soul,
I possess the ability
to create.
To bring to life
the imagination
that dances
so freely within me.
To experience the art of creation
is a treasure;
The treasure
that every pirate
was looking for.
Live, and it will be found.
Feb 23, 2011
Feb 23, 2011 at 12:30 PM UTC
THE NYMPH
Beneath the water lived a nymph, beautiful as
A flower- if you like women with petals
Growing from out of their face
And lips adorned with myriad metals
Moving silently with infinite grace.
Fishermen who caught her, in alarm
Tossed her back with dismayed cries
Fearful that she would do them harm
When she exposed her fangs, darting from her eyes,
Forked tongues from each palm.
But apart from all that, she was a delightful creature
As proud as a catwalk model
Sexuality impressed into each feature
Death in each cuddle,
Poison injected from each freshly opened suture.
At the sea’s dark bottom lived the nymph
Devouring fish raw, terrifying sharks and barracuda,
Dining on shellfish and prawns for lunch;
Darting amongst Angel Fish and eels, a hungry aficionada,
Tearing into shreds what she could not crunch.
Gentle with her own kind until coition
Was complete, when if hungry she devoured
Her temporary mate without undue consideration-
No please or thank you. Feeling duly empowered
By her actions, as confirmed by her thunderously satisfied indigestion.
No longer young, her children dead,
She glides through the water from China to France
A preposterous seaweed hat upon her head
And criss-crossing her piebald nose a serrated coral branch.
Her sartorial taste filling even the sharks with fin-quaking dread.
The last of her kind. The others are (literally) toast.
Protected by animal charities here and abroad
She gladly subsists on ambitious swimmers who venture far from the coast-
All she can now catch or afford.
A capricious tyrant until the last, when, victim of a fisherman’s boast
She was hoist up like iniquitous cod
Out of the sea, paraded on the deck while she struggled for breath.
Shot at. Abused. Poked and speared with a steel tipped rod,
Dragged into the harbour, pummelled close to death.
Screaming out, as in unexpected agony she died: “I thought, I thought, I was god!”
Jul 3, 2017
Jul 3, 2017 at 7:38 PM UTC
I am a paling star to be washed out
In the dazzling brightness of the arriving dawn
A calendar that ran out of time
A broken guitar with strings loose
I will soon exit out of life
Like a man hardly anyone knew existed
And only very few would miss
As I look back to the prime days
I feel years have flown away in a flurry
Like scraps of paper whirling in the gale
A dense fog crawls up into my eyes
The verdant vistas and smiling faces
Have discoloured like weather worn paintings
The violet shadows of red rocks
Form a dark cave within me
Nothing subsists in the dells n’ hollows
Of my memory
I wilt under Age’s burning breath
And wither under its deadly blight
Now I drift... a rudderless vessel
Through unknown waters
Waiting at the Departure Lounge
I now have only one prayer;
Don’t let me scorn and disdain the young
Whose sky is wider and dreams endless
Who walk with nimble feet and sure steps
To conquer the world that has left me a scrap!
Aug 16, 2017
Aug 16, 2017 at 8:56 AM UTC
Atheists insist that this existence subsists of nothing but
The density, material we feel and see and measure. What they're
missin' is in between the lines hooks and sinkers they bit
On the end of false authority's string, wrapped around their finger
They linger and cling to the things they've been spoon fed
From the same spoon belief was taken, the same they dread
But all they've pinned down for sure is themselves inside their heads
Waging internal war, thinking their thoughts can conquer
But only divide themselves
Every victory a loss when the attacker is the target
No stopping to look at the pieces, just charging ahead and trying to forget
No theory or equation slowing their self-invasion. No algorithm to save em. No laboratory haven
And when there's nowhere left to run, turbulent wakes don't wait, mental obliteration leaves you wracked and craven
But perhaps in the deepest rubble, after the foundations crumble
A seed may sprout that can see them out, new and humble
Unblinded equally to all sources of deception
Perhaps they can make a new life, a new perception
To err is human...but when we err far enough to break
We can rebuild, be reborn...a whole new future make.
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 3:33 PM UTC
Two weeks blended in & past,
With the shock withered away.
I now wake up to feel numbness,
From my life that took a turn on dark day.
Your being subsists away from me now;
This drapes down a dramatically dark cloud.
Black showers pour down relentlessly;
the pelts purposely piercing with intention to take me down.
Then I wake up & enjoy the stare,
Directly into the Devil's eye.
Yelling at the ******* to **** off & go,
My hardened look shows it’s not my turn to die.
I made you a promise on dark day,
As my tears poured down on your corpse.
With each forehead kiss I formed my everlasting promise,
& this promise will help fill the void.
Now I'm expected to move on,
from the hell-stain on dark day.
Assumed to presume society's game,
& To pretend I want to be here to stay.
The distance between us feels like an eternity.
From my insight I've come to see,
That all forms of communication are cut off,
As I feel seclusion thereof from she.
I never thought this reality could be true.
Stuck with a vivid comprehension of what used to be you.
Mesmerized from what I could have done,
While hoping I could still help you push on through.
Yet here we are today,
Entirely & forevermore.
The unsettled truth that dark day provided,
Has left me in wonderment and severely sore.
I'm sad to say this really is good-bye.
The last time I saw you alive we met with each other in the eye,
I cried with you to get help;
Although in that moment I knew you were going to soon die.
Jun 1, 2016
Jun 1, 2016 at 10:15 AM UTC
The iron in your blood is palpable
And as my nose discovered it
It was like a new religion to me-
A break into your apartment
In the middle of the night,
Wearing knee socks and a football jersey,
Hallowing religious experience.
And as much as you like them
I can NOT appreciate Corn flakes.
My feline has found a base in my guitar case
Much like I have made a mansion,
A toasty nest in your dominance wafting veins.
Watching her lay there
I understand
What it is like to be.
What it is like to be
the supplier of ultimates
And not ultimatums.
Like how God feels when he see someone
Bathe in the diminutive properties.
And as much as you like them
I cannot appreciate Corn flakes.
They taste like toenails.
I want to fasten my seatbelt to this.
I want to send you text messages
That are blank and know you know exactly
What I meant to say.
I want to make love to you
Without ever touching you
Because grip might be too rough
For what subsists here.
I will eat your Cornflakes, Mr. Prufrock-
I will eat them up.
Jun 25, 2011
Jun 25, 2011 at 3:36 PM UTC
Ninety-nine percent of the time
The truth is brutal
It'll knock you on your back
You'll lie there positioned fetal
Praying it cuts you slack
As for me,
I continue to bear my soul
While most fear truth
I disclose the untold
My ninety-nine percent
Consists of a night owl
And a midnight snack
Laughing until my gut wrenches
And researching odd facts
My truth
Subsists of stubborness
I blame my dad for that
Tears form when I get angry,
But I forgive, rather than fight back
My reality
Reveals clearly
I'm a dreamer wandering an offbeat path
I've been told my goal's improbable,
But I believe in magic after solving the math
And honestly,
My heart falls swiftly
For the one I can't have
And to the ones who wanted me,
I can't force feelings that I lack
Ninety-nine percent of the time
The truth is brutal
It'll knock you on your back
I've shared my proportion,
And it's worth enduring to reach
My one percent of liberation after that
© JL Smith
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 10:07 PM UTC
***Deceit slithers across the vessel
embracing the stench
of the "would-be carcass".
A feast bestowed by
the imminent descent
awaits to serve
the new peasant king,
whose realm
is as torrid
as the desires
that demand
his presence there.
His eternity
now rubbernecks
the obscene art
which subsists
only by gulping
feverishly on
delicious torments
and mourns
to witness the
silent testimony
of the sullied design
and preventable death.***
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 3:15 PM UTC
ode to Mabel
Mabel is breathing....
no one ever visits.
She has tended flowers and done laundry all
life for others.
No one needs her.
She has a bad knee and
Neuropathy , subsists now on pain medication and sugars.
No one calls her.
She envisions one day getting flowers.
Or hearing again from that gentleman, who
twenty years ago smiled.
Or her children or grand young ens';
but no one writes her one letter.
In the cold she wears all those sweaters she knitted.
no one remembers her. I will!
I visit and bring the flowers I grew specially
for her,
the prettiest yellow roses,
while she lives!
Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 1:30 AM UTC
Propitious clouds fill the horizon, blocking cosmic rays
Emanating from a lingering celestial beast.
On these grounds of substance, humanity subsists with a curiosity
Unquenchable mouths and minds
-- we begin a rampant search for meaning.
The vibrations of our search loosen the crust, exposing the fleeting nature of being
Bewildered by this discovery we blind ourselves with faith, as if we deserve more
Unable to see, we flee in a direction unknown for the chance that it may remedy our pleas. A shadowy remembrance of these requests ripple across arid aspect. Heedlessly stumbling upon past, present, and future, we careen towards the eminence of death. Desires fumes overwhelm, collapsing beneath these earthly plumes. Our last breathe exclaims,”Life is pain, for we are submersed in the mundane!”
Sensationally-- as our hearts begin to tread their last beats
Droplets of clarity deluge our dire thirst
-- propitious clouds that once smothered the horizon
Bequeath themselves of all significance, affixed at high noon
Exposing anew the celestial beast that emanates a sanguine gleam
Reflecting in the pools that surround our pulpy minds
Jan 20, 2013
Jan 20, 2013 at 4:11 PM UTC
In May
The forest
Erupts
In aromas
"Did you miss me?"
It teases.
The mountain
Peaks
Denuded
Of white shawls
Flirt
With the sun.
My body
Subsists
Efficiently
On fruit,
Nuts,
And clear, cool melt
In May.
May 4, 2018
May 4, 2018 at 2:14 AM UTC
There is a significant person in my life,
one of which I have no acquaintance, one I do not truly know.
Merely an image my mind refuses to distinguish from the blur.
For even my waking life could not conceive the truth of the night he knew me.
Yet the image still lurks its way into my dreams,
the ones most surreal.
It subsists always in a threatening manner.
The road not to take, the wicked to the just.
It leaves me with no escape in my own world.
I cannot evade myself from this blur for long.
I cannot shake the feeling I felt that fateful morning.
I cannot disregard a loss of innocence in adulthood. An unnatural sensation.
I will never be able to ignore the physical pain I endured.
As much as I cannot see, I feel twice as much.
I could not explain where the pain came from, but I suffered through it days on end.
And the pain in my mind, the one subsiding itself into my head day after day,
nothing will restore the virtue I once held onto.
Nothing will cover my shame.
Years have passed, yet I have come to know,
that time does not heal all wounds.
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 4:09 PM UTC
She seeks the thermal column.
Spiraling upward, realizing a panorama of her domain.
Perfect paradox, the effortless grace of flight and the harbinger of death.
She subsists on the rot of nature, continuation of the life cycle.
Untouchable of the firmament.
Oct 20, 2018
Oct 20, 2018 at 8:03 PM UTC
In an infinite stretch of nothingness,
I have doubted my own existence
A void where mythical beings subsists,
Would an addition of mortals suffice?
What is out there beyond
Passing the boundaries of heavens?
Would it be another me,
Or would it be another expanse?
A sheer of grief, long lived inside me
For seeing my purpose, I have renounced hope
It wouldn’t be painless, vast universe have told me
Life will be impossibly easy, I just need to cope
Oblivion is for the brave hearts
Though I tried to assimilate,
It would only seem I exaggerate
The cosmos’s an abyss, would never feel at ease
Ego beats me for eternity
No matter how Adam tries to tell,
The explanations would never tally
Deepest in him, conflicts will always dwell
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 6:35 AM UTC
As I will
As I like it
As my will
As it gives recursive themes of
Strength and fancy
Weakened by the real
It subsists;
It is
Cannot not be:
As they loathe it.
As I was:
My sunlit energy precedes, preceded me
Some life in me that speeds towards
Metabolism that speeds towards
Eventual cell death
Respiration--
Deeply respirating
I halt for no respite
Despite the leaning apprehension
Towering over what Is in me;
The roaming imposition
Of what there will be—
It seeks me
It wanders and stops occasionally
And devours something imagined
That heaven I had made
That Will that I had suffered
As it will.
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 4:55 PM UTC
La, la, la
The red sea drifts
On tumultuous rifts
Aging tank subsists
On what's left in the wreckage
Purple reflections
Seen on oily surfaces
& the sky combines
Its blue tones with
The contents raging
& stewing'
In its hungry belly
Apr 17, 2019
Apr 17, 2019 at 11:38 PM UTC
In an epoch of dissonant raucousness,
The land reeks of corruption.
Humanity to dilapidate
To a seemingly ages-long anguish.
Excruciating; it torments the soul.
An odious scent,
A deep well eminently putrid,
Foul enough to send legions
Forthwith, cowering,
Caterwauling in trepidation.
Although, notwithstanding, it subsists:
Beneath the contagion
Of a ravenous plague,
An invocation, a call to permute,
A purport to exhume
What has gone adrift.
Where goest thou, oh relic of yore?
From the toxic shores
Of newfangled premises,
Thou hast been washed away.
A feeling of predilection,
Of warmth and affection,
Thou art forgotten, unfamiliar, hitherto.
Long overdue to recur,
A matter of time, it is such.
And thus so, we shall wait
In the sprawling gape
For the fervent abstract of love
To once again take its shape.
Jul 25, 2016
Jul 25, 2016 at 2:12 PM UTC
If you seek a remedy
outside the balm of oval pill
or a spoon of sour taint
beware the toil on substitutes
a mortal coil could give relief
redress what fate has abused
the broken strive to sustain
with the help of temporal prey
lingering wounds demand too much
beware the bill someone pays
when the check does not care
agony will remunerate
services rendered tap the weak
no pound of flesh is the price
instead the toil taps the heart
wringing emotions from tired stone
one subsists at the end
now the strong in contrast
to the frail forever lost
healer fallen with no net
the weak cannot be the cure
even as they may recline
on the alter as sacrifice
for the selfish consuming love.
© 2018. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20180912.
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 9:06 PM UTC