"sunburnt" poems
I love a sunburnt country,
but now the land's ablaze.
the oxygen we breathe has turned to dust
yet our request for help is denied.
I love a sunburnt country,
but there's not much left to last.
Firefighters aren't getting paid,
Neither are their bills.
yet our leader claims we're all fine
but he can afford to jet away.
The wildlife is damaged.
Koalas are losing homes.
much like the population
as the fires rip through their walls.
I love my sunburnt country,
but this has gone on too long.
while it's nice you're in hawaii Mr. Morrison,
everyone else is left to stand alone..
Dec 17, 2019
Dec 17, 2019 at 8:18 PM UTC
Faking Bad
In anticipation of my
Evaluation to be declared
Non Compos Mentos
I slept under a bridge
For three days
"Getting into character,"
But on the morning of
My intake interview
My hair fell perfectly,
I mean I looked like
A ******* rock star.
College girls on the bus
Were giving me their
Numbers and my skin,
Which I'd purposely sunburnt
And caked in the finest filth,
Glowed like an Australian
Chippendale dancer named Weegie
And even the female Assisstant D.A.
Who had busted me for vagrancy
Waved her ******* from
The third story building
Of the Courthouse.
No matter how much I
Tried to speak gibberish
Poetry and philosophical
Tracts spewed from my mouth.
Shuffling past the park
I beat eight
Grand Masters
At chess on move 1
Inadvertently I solved
The Phi Epsilom Theorem
By kicking stones
Into an algorythym.
When I arrived they didn't
Make me wait at all.
My caseworker giggled like
A schoolgirl while I told her
Each day was like an endless shift
In a Chinese fish- gutting
Sweatshop and every one of my fellow
Employees was motivationalist
Richard Simmons.
She ungirdled her enormous
**** and as they spilled
Like fishguts onto the desk
She began to howl
**** me, **** me, oh ****
Me right here in
Front of the open window
On State Street as everyone
Watches me ******* the strongest,
Healthiest, smartest, most popular,
Well-adjusted man in the world.
The rest of the examination was
Also a success.
But as I left the Mental HealthCenter
feeling marvelous
I accidentally bumped
An old woman with the door:
"Watch out you manic-depressive
Schizoid with Socially Avoidant
Features klutz."
-Thomas L. Vaultonburg
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 5:05 PM UTC
You’re like a white noise slushie
swirling off my sunburnt tastebuds.
I can’t quite catch you.
Those coffee driven evenings have destroyed my mouth’s ability
to make something stay.
See, whispered lollipop kisses used to work
but not half as well as my grape syrup words.
Teach me how to fix my salt-sugar body.
You don’t know how many times those candy coated sighs
“I love you”
have crossed my artificially sweetened lips.
Jan 22, 2015
Jan 22, 2015 at 10:04 PM UTC
I took up smoking to replace one bad habit for another
(and a little bit for a taste of that head rush you used to give me).
I watch as my heart walks around downtown, outside of me;
and in my dreams, I’m pulling out my teeth for you.
It’s all these ******* mind games and those girls with bigger chests.
Can you recall one freckle off my sunburnt face?
The only thing I could ever leave with you were those bruises on your neck.
But even they began to fade the moment my mouth left your skin.
I left my broken bones at the foot of your bed.
I had planted my roots in your shoes, but I didn’t know where to grow after you left them in the doorway.
How can you expect me to live in the shell of something that once made a sunrise look dull?
And what do you think of when you see my last name on a street sign?
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 11:46 PM UTC
'We were killing pigs when the
Yanks arrived.
A Tuesday morning, sunlight
and gutter-blood
Outside the slaughter house.
>From the main road
They would have heard the screaming,
Then heard it stop and had a view of us
In our gloves and aprons coming
down the hill.
Two lines of them, guns on their
shoulders, marching.
Armoured cars and tanks and open jeeps.
Sunburnt hands and arms.
Unarmed, in step,
Hosting for Normandy.
Not that we knew then
Where they were headed, standing
there like youngsters
As they tossed us gum and tubes of
coloured sweets'
5.3k
Pots, coiled ropes, orange, blue
Laid, at the harbor side, waiting
Waiting, for the tide,
An old fishing net, laid on the concrete,
A weathered sunburnt fisherman,
Sitting quietly repairing holes within holes
Birds perching patiently on the harbor wall,
Waiting
In the distance the sun dips towards the horizon
Casting a light over a returning trawler
The birds lift lethargically from
Harbour perch, beat their wings , wheel
Towards an incoming meal ticket
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 6:12 PM UTC
When my father was young he mowed lawns for money. He pushed a second-hand spinning blade in the hot Florida sun for spare change.
With dull coins clanging in his pocket and crumpled bills in his palm, my father fought to escape home.
To him, home was synonymous with scary southern suburbia, where late-night television was replaced with screaming matches and loud fists. Angry eyes with children's cries. Barbecues bombarded with apologetic looks from neighbors. Pretending not to hear shatters and shouts of supposed 'baseball black eyes'.
And so he pushed. Pushed the rusty lawn mower down strangers' yards, pushed away the sniggering snot-nosed kids calling him 'Spic', and pushed at his father's demons, crawling down his spine, whispering that he was no good.
Years later he kept pushing
Pushing
Pushing
Pushing towards whatever came next. Yet no matter how much he pushed, he was still the same boy with the lawn mower. Angry, mad, pushing violently ahead.
The smoke of sanity is inhaled now, as my father's blood-shot eyes try to suppress the angry boy within. The residue of stolen innocence is not left unnoticed. A touch of tone on his once sunburnt neck and the man he has made instantly flushes away, leaving his father's demons. Calmer than before, a dying star, burning bright before collapse.
Like a strong jaw, his father's anger is passed down to him, and I, his son, am now born with this seed of destruction. Smaller than before, but still seething.
Constantly reminded, I sit in a leather chair surrounded by white walls in carefully controlled climate, plastic pen perched on my palm, I push.
I'll keep pushing.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 4:50 PM UTC
I was born a mermaid.
Half divine fish,
Half human female.
My thoughts swam far and wide
taking no prisoners.
I did not know I was myself
until the age of six.
My life had seemed like
an extraordinary dream
up to that point.
I wasn't a girl bound by a name.
I was the queen of a world
of sea-kings and sea-nymphs.
The day I glimpsed myself in the mirror,
I rose from the waves,
and caught a whiff of reality.
It hit me so hard
I couldn't breathe anymore
amongst the fish I called friends.
I had to surface
but I couldn't leave the sea.
Land is too harsh
for a mermaid's glistening scales.
It roughs them up,
takes away their shine.
But the sea was also
inhospitable to those
who only halfway belonged.
I drifted between
the two worlds
always keeping my head upright
above the waves.
My skin grew sunburnt,
My wrists grew thinner,
My eyes grew dimmer,
with every appearance
of the moon's wistful face.
The two sides of me
were at war
and I was slated to be
the sole casualty.
I did the only thing I could
held my breath
sank under the waves.
I made a deal with the sea-witch,
tore my tail apart
til it made two legs.
Shed every single scale
til the skin underneath
wept red tears.
I made a deal with the sea-witch
I gave her what was left of my tail.
I made a deal with the sea-witch,
I didn't realize that
my rebirth from the waves
onto the gritty shore
would be the last time
I tasted the salt on my tongue
and the wind in my mermaid-hair.
I made a deal with the sea-witch
I gave her my soul.
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 12:23 AM UTC
Waves taller than I was
cool atlantic ocean
grainy sand between my fingers
burying my toes.
Hot sunburns and salty hair
the beach bars where we used to eat off the kids meal
going back to your condo
sitting on your couch.
Thrown over his shoulders
covered in sand, the warm weight used to be fun but now it just scares me
you scare me.
My shoulders were kissed
sunscreen on my back
the lukewarm pools and marco polo races holding my breath until i thought my lungs would explode.
The water would rush back with the pull of the ocean our sundresses damp around our ankles, bruises over our mouths where you held them shut
The porch light was on to the condo my towel draped over your balcony, bathing suit bottoms in your bedroom.
Forgotten toys and to pairs of arm floaties because i was never good at swimming, you left your watch on the shoreline.
Crying because of the pain and the hatred and love
Never knowing if I would be cuddled or touched
but knowing i would be cuddled after being touched
those sunburnt spots caressed by you.
White caps peak as the sun rises, we’re cold with fevers and abuse, shaking as our feet are wet again with salty water and your watch pulled out to the sea, lost forever.
Dec 18, 2018
Dec 18, 2018 at 6:07 PM UTC
Is tamed wildness
And manufactured wilderness-
A plastic world
All my young son will know?
I have known gritty gravel roads
And sunburnt savanah veldt.
Swam and splashed
in muddy dams and reservoirs.
I have sat high above,
in mountain peaks studying clustered clouds
close enough to reach out and run my fingers through by day,
and I have counted the dancing stars above
in vast dark nights.
I have discovered treasures in the misty valleys on early mornings
And seen sun streak through
heavy storm clouds
to colour a grey sky with radiant rainbows.
I have seen surreal snow fall
And slowly erase the world around us.
I have seen majestic beasts truly free-
Wildebeests, various buck and cautious rhinos,
Zebras that danced and played
Around an elephant that loomed high above them,
And elegant wings that whispered
upon westerly winds.
And it has all left me marked,
these magical moments tattooed in
my south african soul-
And I am more for it - filled.
what will feed their sould now?
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 3:34 PM UTC
Twenty-three years now and the same sun rises
along the rim of a big blue sky with layered clouds.
A myriad of kaleidoscopic colors leaks through
surrounding me with nostalgic warmth.
Remembering everything that brought me here.
That sticky, unbearable Texas heat
whirling in the wind of a summer afternoon.
Sleeveless dress, sunburnt skin, watermelon smile.
Five years of beauty growing into a thin young girl
who wanted to learn about everything,
Shifting into the youth of an actress in an over-the-top
melodramatic performance at a local theatre.
Selling art and collecting coins to travel
across our globe, and then,
my first plane ticket to Vietnam.
Nineteen came dressed in bittersweet wanderlust.
Packed my bags and drove my car to Portland, Oregon.
Four cameras, disheveled notebooks, ink-stained hands.
Those tall forest trees of enchantment,
a photographer's dream.
Traveling down the west coast to desert lands:
Seattle, San Francisco, Santa Fe.
Somewhere in there I ended up sleeping beneath the stars
with a belly full of wine in Alaska.
The summer solstice singing me a song while tears brim up my eyes
because the world has never looked more lovely.
Aurora borealis shimmering her lights above
a reflecting ocean of pastel
Reds and golds, blues and pinks.
A lucky lady who has touched corners
of love and sadness and wonder.
Burned imprints of goodbyes
in the crevices of my mind, but this is who I am.
Living and breathing in this extravagance.
Oct 10, 2012
Oct 10, 2012 at 12:40 AM UTC
The under shell of
the tortoise looked
like a sunset.
Blasts of color:
orange, maroon, burnt sienna.
I caught them in
the garden at
sunrise, eating a
tomato or chewing into
a head of lettuce.
They always looked so
serious.
I was just a
sunburnt boy, with
cutoff jeans and a
straw hat.
I caught toads too.
But when they peed on me,
I let them go.
I loved that land.
Ponds and streams,
fishing and climbing trees.
oh,
sweet, green
youth.
Apr 29, 2023
Apr 29, 2023 at 11:44 AM UTC
do you remember when
all that mattered was
holding his hand
and smelling the sun
on his sunburnt skin
laid on sun-set sand
do you remember when
the only song you knew
was his second name
and now the only dance
your feet understand
is a stance with his toes
can you take me back
the night i cried
like how lampposts died
asking myself why
your moon only shines
when you speak of his smiles
could you take me back to sun-screened streets
where all that mattered were
our touching feet
Feb 1, 2024
Feb 1, 2024 at 4:50 PM UTC
Those sleepless summer nights
Sweat pouring from every crack
In thinly layered sunburnt skins
It was all panties-on-the-floor
Blood-on-the-sheets
And *******
Living out highschool fantasies
Like the cool kids
Life before 22 was all a dream
Of midsummer swelter and
Salt water
In the mind of the dog
Chained up in the universe's yard
Tethered to the ether world
Racing rabbits through space
While I was turned into an ***
Staring at the mirror
And my expressionless face
*This must be how cancer feels
Growing increasingly smaller
In a world where cabinets
And aspirations grow increasingly taller
She met the devil
For coffee on diagnosis day
But the deal they made didn't take
Her hair fell out
And her body atrophied anyway
She found herself
Floating far far away
Her blood coagulating like
A broken thermometer
Of mercury*
Salvador Dali painted this fall
The house of salvatore
Minds gone to roost under warm eaves
Staring fireplaces
Hungry couches and singing windows
It's all ******* drooping like clocks
And derailing thoughts
The local biddies
Cluck their tongues
At the absurdity of infinity
And the girl in Ace Hardware
Buying shoepolish to hide her tan lines
Yawns, as her boyfriend feels her up
*Meanwhile I collapse
Like a house of cards with a flick of the wrist
Thinking about life's mathematical beauty*
Sep 10, 2013
Sep 10, 2013 at 6:11 PM UTC
You were the sun
Lately, all you do is
burn
my skin.
Jan 16, 2021
Jan 16, 2021 at 3:31 PM UTC
i left my youth in aegean
made a trade with apollo
he said "you will be haunted by this summer 'till the day you die"
sirens, wines, sun-kissed cheeks
i laid my sunburnt face to your chest
made a trade with you
i said "this is the only time we will have for the rest of our lives"
horizons, seashells, sands
made a trade with aphrodite
we lied down on beach in the full moon laughing on wine
you said "i will never be as this young and in love as i am in this summer evening"
i left my heart in aegean
Mar 21, 2023
Mar 21, 2023 at 3:28 PM UTC
163
Tho’ my destiny be Fustian—
Hers be damask fine—
Tho’ she wear a silver apron—
I, a less divine—
Still, my little Gypsy being
I would far prefer,
Still, my little sunburnt *****
To her Rosier,
For, when Frosts, their punctual fingers
On her forehead lay,
You and I, and Dr. Holland,
Bloom Eternally!
Roses of a steadfast summer
In a steadfast land,
Where no Autumn lifts her pencil—
And no Reapers stand!
2.5k
Her hair smelled of salt and fruity shampoo,
A strangely pleasant mix of the two.
Actually everything about her seemed pleasant,
Her silky black hair
And her freckles all over her newly sunburnt skin
That pink glow came from her skin just as it came from her lips
Her feet digging in the sand
As someone grasps her hand
But no one notices him
For she is a beauty beyond compare.
She loosens her hand to run it through her hair.
She begins to get up, the hesitates.
There is a look, undefined, I just couldn’t place.
I know what that face could be
Because now I see that same face on me.
It is hard to explain, hard to define
That face that appeared on both hers and mine.
But again as I sit, seeing this girl
She has gotten up and is beginning to leave.
She sees me looking and smiles at me.
It’s one of those empty, meaningless smiles one gives a stranger.
That’s what we were then, don’t you remember??
When your hair still smelled of salt and shampoo
And your smile still faded when I looked away from you.
Things got better.
That boy is gone.
It took you a while, but you moved on,
Moved on to life and moved on to love
And moved on to that smile you give out of love.
Your smile has changed from that first day.
It is no longer empty and strange in that way.
Now it means much more than words.
And now sitting with you, hand in hand,
You smile down at your newfound best friend.
m.c.c.
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 6:29 PM UTC
My beloved friend, i miss leaning my body on yours.
I can still feel your hands caressing my hair while you kissed me affectionately. We touched when our hearts sought for vague eanderment.
Those cups of wine we shared defined how i felt toward you.
Your silhouette in the morning had awaken my passion for romance.
I miss your hands on my face.
Your strong hands, my love.
Your love for me tasted like the last drop of a cup of summer wine that lingered on the tip of my tongue.
I want to share that one drop with you.
My friend, i miss your scent.
As i breathed you deep into my soul each time you put your hands on me.
When i stared at the blue sky today, i felt your eyes looking into mine heavenly.
I miss those summer days, your bed of nakedness and purity.
Your sunburnt skin of youth reflecting the touch we shared.
My beautiful friend...
My long-lost love...
You touched me as i cut my skin and let you in...
You gave me love nobody had ever given me.
Pure and passionate.
You touched my youth like my father had.
He taught me to love like he had.
He showed me the way to conquest when he kissed me.
My beautiful friend, my love, my youth...
I long for your kiss to set me free from this torturing passion.
A passion for journeys, conquests, and love.
My heart, my love, my friend...
Andrea...
Jan 10, 2012
Jan 10, 2012 at 1:38 PM UTC
So proud to live in Queensland, for all it has to share
For anywhere else, in this great land I really just don't care.
I love the smell of burning cane
The ash flying through the air.
This sunburnt state was my home before I went away.
My wife and kids I left behind, hoping to see another day
I answered this great nations call when I was just nineteen.
That didn't stop the enthusiasm, boy I was so keen.
Timor, Iraq, Afghanistan, before I turned twenty five.
On return home to this state my life then took a dive.
The friend left first, the social life. No more did that exist.
The nightmares and the drinking took their place, to this day they do persist.
My family suffered most of all, my moods went bad to worse.
I went through stages where i almost gave up on everything in my life that had any worth.
I got some help in Hospital to help mend my tormented ways.
That way I can spend the rest of my life spending all my days,
In this sunburnt state of ours, at the family home
Now I only feel normal, when I am alone
I now spend all my time on the family farm raising sheep pigs chooks and cows.They can at least be trusted, I can spend hours and hours
This state is more than just a loc, a place you say you live, Queensland is the only place that has given so much, but still continues to give.
I love this state, ill never move. Till the day I die
Even if they said to me, it's easy if you try
But when I go remember that, I have been tormented, torn and broken,
but at least i lived in paradise the truest words ever spoken
Gavin H
20 May 2014
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 4:05 AM UTC
“I don’t believe in love”
She says
As I speed through a yellow light
She presses her first two fingers to her lips
Then touches the roof of my car with them
She shuts her eyes
I don’t ask her why
I just trust her intentions
In the same way I don’t believe in anything myself
Save for the passion that takes hold of others
When they believe
I like what that looks like
The word believe when broken down
First means to live
“Be” means to exist as
Or to live
And “Lieve” means love
And I think about the bravery it takes
To believe in anything
And the bravery it takes to love
And how that same bravery is made by love
How many stupid things have we done
Just by loving someone?
How many arguments are there against a belief
In anything?
I don’t believe in god
But I believe in you
When I watch you do things
Like superstitious knee **** reactions
To keep the light yellow a little longer
So on the ride home I do the same thing
As the sun bends it’s yellow into red over a horizon
That is kissing our sunburnt necks
Because I want this car ride to last a little longer
Even though we say nothing
And you don’t ask why for the last fifteen minutes
I’ve had my fingers pressed to the roof of my car
A satisfied smile pressing back my cheeks
You just trust that I feel this means something
So maybe you don’t believe in love
But you believe in something
And by doing so
You are partaking in love on some weird level
Subconsciously
Like breathing
But I want this car ride to last a little longer
So I say nothing
Let the wind **** the silence like white-noise
It’s as close to prayer
As either of us
Will ever get
Jun 26, 2012
Jun 26, 2012 at 5:28 PM UTC
Their eyes were so bright,
The whites of it dancing
Like the moon in the night,
Alive, as they stood there,
Crouching.
The oppressive evening
Brought a cave of shadows,
Heavy footsteps leaning
Towards a hallway bare,
Or so deceiving.
They carried themselves
With a regal air,
Their sunburnt fingers—deft,
Clutching their scabbards,
And in them,
Mops.
Aug 15, 2014
Aug 15, 2014 at 5:42 AM UTC
It's mid-July but in my heart, it is winter;
I curl up in the back of a closet, wrapped in blankets
and the scent of salty water and seaweed crawls up my nostrils
until I'm choking;
it engulfs me, a cold embrace, the breeze piercing me
through clothes that somehow feel like a fisherman's net
twisted around me, leaving marks on my skin.
It's mid-July but in my heart, it is winter;
like driftwood washed upon the shore,
like sand sifting through my fragile fingers,
like an imminent sea storm, danger impending,
memories crush me.
Sunburnt skin, goosebumps and droplets of water;
bodies pressed, wounds left to heal
and scars that slowly fester.
There's something autumnal in summer,
gashes bleeding ink.
It's mid-July but in my heart, it's winter:
remember, remember when we used to sit
under birches, lashes shiny with droplets
of dreams,
remember, remember, bicycles, children with eyes bright and green,
freckled faces, salty-tasting kisses,
scorching sun and summer winds.
Midnight storms, skies lightened, torn
by lightning bolts --
July is not the time for eulogies,
remember lazy afternoons, you, me, the boat,
regret always tastes as bitter
as children's lips just slightly touching
far away from coast.
It's mid-July but in my heart, it's winter;
the tide will wash away another fisherman's corpse;
remember all the tales of sirens?
You never told me Death came with hair of gold.
There's nothing quite so sad as being sad in summer.
It is July, and yet outside it snows.
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 10:19 AM UTC
Things hidden,
like the subtle and iridescent pink
timid, from inside a calcified seashell
mother nature's knowing wink.
So alive and shimmering
beneath the water's lapping grasp.
She's lived so many times
gazing up at ancient stars,
pleasant and silvery in a sky so vast.
I am hidden
looking out at my own sunburnt world
scared to move my hand from my brow
and let the light cast an aura through my tears.
Wishing to things, thousands of years,
so truly far away.
Show me how
to creep alone, along this way.
Aug 18, 2023
Aug 18, 2023 at 2:23 AM UTC
I've grown far too old for this body
and dragging these bones feels like a constant battle
I tire of the Venice Beach lifestyle
all the strip club romances,
those hot sandy beaches
and one night stands,
strange sunburnt embraces
and sideways glances,
won't you take me to Paris?
where the skies bleed in colours
with its cobbled streets,
cafés and nicotine tainted prophets
where the dreamers dream deeper
and the kisses are sweeter.
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 12:09 PM UTC