"tallying" poems
a (the) woman’s body (pretty pleasing)
is my reciprocal
her waist is my happy place
her neck is my doorway
the rest is
best when she is mirror accessorizing,
preening, **** upon first rising,
tallying the gains and the losses
unaware of my watching,
never satisfied she, tho she is 98% unadmitting contented,
as she shifts her weight,
from knee to knee extended alternating
with slow delicacy
for the pleasure is trebled
for her imagine image reverberates
throughout the house
for ever(y) mirror is pre-positioned,
accidentally angled just so, lol,
her image transported from living room to dining alcove
all the way to the kitchen’s bleacher seats
she doesn’t know and asks why I’m grinning,
answer is
no confessionary, no telling I’m swelling and
sinning
eyes scheming-dreaming of her reciprocity
she smiles and says
“good morning bad boy”
maybe she does know
but you won’t tell her,
we, you and me,
are pretty pleasing
she is 1/me
she is won over me
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 8:39 AM UTC
days crawl by
and humidity stills the air.
the black flies are late this season,
though around here, most things are.
below the gnat line, girls like me
seldom get to die easily,
perfumed powders
masking the scent of illness,
flushed cheeks and damp foreheads donned
as our feeble bodies recline on fainting couches
to delicately languish away. we know that
there’s a certain beauty to decomposition,
to fungus gnats invading potted soil,
to fruit flies nesting in sink drains. we know that
rotting is a clock that never stops,
tallying each unflinching, humid second while the
days crawl by.
Jun 22, 2023
Jun 22, 2023 at 8:04 PM UTC
i was always told to hide
my scars
under long sleeves
in the heat of summer
with long skirts
and opaque layers
no one can see
for the questions they’ll ask
i can't answer
because these scars
they are signs of vulnerability
each one tallying
a moment of defeat
another battle lost
more casualty
though the blood no longer
stains my skin
but me, myself, and I
am a sign of perseverance
i still breathe
and run and jump
i’ve endured the war
each scar tallying
a moment of survival
another fight won
so don’t tell me to hide
my scars
i wear each one proudly
medals of honor
and the questions you’ll ask
i’ll answer and say
"Yes, my scars are still here,
but so am I.”
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 1:38 AM UTC
"How many times can you fall in love with the same person?"
- the answer escaped my lips but ran wild through my brain.
my heart knew every word that my tongue could not explain.
I look deeper into your question,
billions of people, but you're the incomparable selection.
my selection, laced with complexities that were only meant for me to unravel.
scar after scar and yet falling for you has been the easiest of battles.
"How many times can you fall in love with the same person?"
-let's take a guess because neither of us knows.
let's keep counting, let's use our fingers and our toes.
tallying falls and re-falls into a universe created out of unexplainable connection.
a journey, our journey, the imperfect perfection.
you see, my heart resides in your sanctuary of a soul.
keep it there, it seems to be the only place it will grow.
"How many times can you fall in love with the same person?"
-if the third time's the charm, how lucky are we?
how blessed is this love affair, how is it not meant to be?
question the questions, or jump into what has become our second skin;
LOVE. our home away from home. the place where we've always been.
I will always love you and you will always love me.
so when you ask how many more times we'll fall, I'll simply reply: "Infinity."
Oct 22, 2013
Oct 22, 2013 at 12:25 AM UTC
Cascading waterfalls
Over cold stone walls
Take a look beyond, to what is so unknown
On the surface it's strong, made of stone
But as delicate as a wilting flower, with it's peddles about to drop
Won't take much, for this bleeding heart to stop
Standing in the salty waves and mist
Of all the tears my eyes, have dismissed
Watching the pages of my life turn
As my story goes up in flames and burns
I've crossed that bridge of sorrow to many times to count
Praying my feet next time, would take a different route
But it seems, I must pay that toll
For on and on, the agony continues to roll
I can hear the demons laughing, as they're tallying up the score
Full in the knowledge, my years will soon be no more
Aug 3, 2016
Aug 3, 2016 at 5:14 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
All at once, all of a sudden
There was a cacophony of you
Resounding around my head
And quietly I imploded outward
****** into the very sounds
Your voice made in my mind
Because they sounded so good
I had to have them to keep
But instead of having them
They took me as a prisoner
Of a war that doesn't matter
And refused to give me back
So I'm left in a state of willing limbo
Ricocheting off the inside of my thoughts
Losing track of the times I think of you
Tallying the times you think of me
I could count on my fingers, I'm sure
But my thoughts don't have hands.
May 1, 2017
May 1, 2017 at 1:21 AM UTC
every poet the world deems great
has written an elegant legacy
dedicated to himself
tallying all his wisdom
as he glorifies in his shame
he decidedly exalts his ego
and spreads the infamy of his name
so my muse, accept my invocation
as I write myself into epic proportion
collecting the vast library of my life
I eagerly fold back the cover
of the first volume in mint condition
but as I open it I learn astonishment
every page shines in unblemished white
in my fearsome excitement
I **** each book carelessly off the shelf
tearing pages and breaking spines
as the discarded books crash to the floor
and when it is completed all I have
is a pile of broken futures
and only a slender volume represents
the object of my reckless search
this book now my chief treasure
I sit down at my cluttered desk
to incline my ear and listen
and discern what material is worthy
for inclusion in my great work of art
but I am shocked to discover
that the pages hold insufficient promise
except the whisper of future possiblilities
which I have just hurled into dust
in the grand tradition of yesterday
I must finish in the same way I began
every poet who has written
a heroic tale of self
has exausted all his wonder
and reduced his life to metred lines
the good things are all gone
and all that remains is bleak and empty
when seen in the light of dawn
May 26, 2010
May 26, 2010 at 4:44 PM UTC
over teacup...fine porcelain..
delicately chipped....coniving eyes....scrutinised...tallying..gulliblity..naivete..desire...
wizened fingers...talonlike..
tattoo.....mesmerizing......
rhythms..
.......crystal ball... occluded....
fee exchanged..... hand......
presented....lifeline..short.....
love line....broken...tarot...
offered....indecsion..
..crystal....
....still cloudy...gap toothed...
..contortion...cards on....
table....impaired cognative function..accedes....
fee transferred....
.....cards..shuffle..pirroette.........inverted...laydown misere....
palaver..delivered....twocups... happy but sad.....prince of....
.....two sheets to wind....done
in....teacup rattles......
....session.........ended..crystal ball..sphere of silence....
.......future..still..shrouded..
...wallet..lighter... sozzled.....
laughter...all the.......
.............fun of the fair.........
Mar 28, 2014
Mar 28, 2014 at 11:05 PM UTC
"the battle is over!
the war has been won!"
claimed the soldiers
while tallying scores.
although blood
had been shed,
soldiers severing heads
rejoiced all across the moor.
"someone call the king!
we must tell the king!
we now own this here land,
how divine!"
but the king had been found
being renegade 'round
his opponents,
while out guzzling wine.
"I killed my dear brother;
beheaded my mother
to service you and
this ****** rotten realm!"
so I'll see to it, you!
if it's the last thing I do,
that you're found
drinking wine in hell!"
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 8:40 PM UTC
1.
Do you know, I'm coming undone
And did you notice, I'm coming round less?
Did you ever see, me hardly at your door
Then, I'm already waiting to leave?
Chorus:
We used to fit so well together
But now, we're drifting far away
We were too busy to see...us
Come undone.
2.
You didn't see my threads come undone
Too busy tallying your brownie points!
You used to be a shining star
Then again, that was so long ago.
3.
Trying to learn what the ox cannot do
And that is to unshackle its heavy load.
Drummed in the guilt, weary and sad
Could never manage it all, had come undone.
4.
Have you any idea of the many times
I've tried to call you, with my courage undone
So, how can one tell when the time is right
To take a chance in life and make that change?
Sometimes, we learn only too well!
S T, 19 April 2013
Apr 19, 2013
Apr 19, 2013 at 10:08 AM UTC
the less money I make,
the more I give away...
need to get cured,
need me some cure,
to keep my money in
my Persian silk sow purse,
so when enfeebled,
can pay a nurse to
wipe my drooling chin
need me some
curmudgeon herbs
to get rid of this
happy insanity
cure this ****** mudge,
from giving away his green fudge,
so when doing his
sleepy-eyed sums,
the tallying up,
the counting down
did he qualify,
as a good ole one,
his conscience
busy unconsciously,
anudging, adjudging,
to see if the boyo can
sleep better this night.
So when he meets
the maker,
He won't say
hey faker,
but fakir,
magic maker,
dervish swayer
and
*"you my kind of poet,
let's make us some
smiling mischievous trouble,
give away whatever it takes,
love potions number nine,
winning lottery tickets
for everyone,
you and me,
scheming schematic
crazy man poet and god,
to make it happy-en."*
Oct 10, 2014
Oct 10, 2014 at 3:30 PM UTC
How much time passes
between inviting the sun to hunch in the corner of my room
canary and screaming for the world to stop orbiting
and suddenly it’s night
and you realize it’s been seventeen hours since your body has made a request to move
knees pulled up to chest empty and heaving white
every bone in your body an orchestra of creaking
soundly against the crickets leaping off the fourth floor of your balcony dingy
the background noise of your dreams
blood the scent of pennies ripe in the air
smeared here and there
across all things unwanted
where apologies thrive on eleven cold dollars an hour—
you never asked for this.
I am better
at tallying each shade my room turns
because it has nothing to do
with the cerulean in my face
and this is the only place
that I allow warmth to be subjective,
when it’s breaking through windows with hatchets
instead of being waited on
watching the mouth of my wall clock nailed shut
frozen in a minute and speechless,
I have no desire to dial an ambulance
bear witness to the whirring American frequencies
of heads turned 180 even during the scuffling feet rustling rush of rush hour,
I’d rather hear the ringing in my ears
of each ghost that has ever followed me back home
quaking in translucent skin.
I heard that three a.m. belongs to the devil
I haven’t tested that theory since I was seventeen sacrificing and surrendering
but I do know what happens between the hours of thinking without doing
wanting without acting
the bed a fort you are asked to hold down by that hefty feeling
in your feet that reside two blocks from where your legs used to be,
and there is no path filthy with orchids,
when dark is just on the brink of waking,
but you can’t tell the difference anymore.
Sep 27, 2017
Sep 27, 2017 at 1:05 AM UTC
begin this life in a wordy
but wordly habit, daily,
father-gifted, though different,
in form and language selected,
‘tis the one and ‘tis the same
tally, a counting combination
of all that has been done, for both
better & worse, blessing/curse,
the key: revamp review reset
this day upcoming and welcome
all the major tasks, minor miracles,
that one can effect, select, elect!
by choice, a freedom so great it
tenderly rips joy thoroughly into
and from my cells, and my body
is enlightened, uplifted in this,
now a preposition, a conjugation, a
state of composition,
for the tasks given, the granted,
those that must be taken, those most
difficult, when knowing their choice,
entails pain, untempered, and
requires establishing a two edged
position of composure…
this is a hard and an easy
new proposition I create,
hard for I write on a tiny
phone screen, in letters so
small. it keeps me humbled,
a reminder of having
lived a span well
beyond belief,
for one took\gave body a
careless comfort,
giving little
of the differring
kind of nutrition in order
to live life, well and purposed
hard too, for my body has wept,
a steady stream of silent tears.
unceasing as I scribe,
making vision difficult, the
insight salty but clear and the
words contained within them,
flood for easy laying-down
for this AM workout of counting,
lists up and down, so many items,
of differring nature, even now
noticing for the very fitting first time,
the subtle hint within
differring,
for it possesses a doubling
of the enormity, the division
of what has been already
accumulated and what yet,
needs accomplishing, the tally
needy for resolving looking past,
for seeing with yet more tears
fast-as-you-can-forward
the tally never ends, paused only
for a quick question/happy deletion
of, and a resolute immediate, moving on:
***Where do I stand,
what is my position?***
keep on keeping on,
tallying has no finale,
no sunning/summing up,
for another day
will yet follow,
for you, and
your own
tallying must
goes on, on
and
not even,
nor even,
odd,
when mine,
mine no long,
and the
and yets,
no longer
commence
Dec 19, 2024
Dec 19, 2024 at 12:33 PM UTC
I'm on my way to where I started
This lonely place I have found myself in
Has too many followers to a certain crowd
of society that only participlated people live in.
They surround themselves with what they call a feeling of being perfect.
We are not perfect people, no matter how hard we try to be. There will always be controversy over who's body shape is better than another's.
If life has taught me anything, is that we are all one being, one thought, all connected in nature. Falling in love with your spiritual being is one of the most important moments in ones life.
Accepting is something I as a person often struggle with. Accepting oneself is hard because people think they could read about it in a book or newspaper down at the local gas station. No accepting oneself is to be loving towards themselves by showing off all their beautiful features that people love about themselves. Being. Insecure is a normal thing that all of us go through but reaching acceptance is like another step towards ones path to enlightenment.
Expand the mind to its fullest capacity. Fill your brain with all the information in the world that you can read in the New York City library. Share a coffee with a complete stranger in a hole in the wall cafe down Main Street. Tell them how you are on a journey to enlightenment and this is your stop along the way, meeting new people to truly find oneself. Taking notes of everyone you see with crazy colored hair like you. Tallying up the marks of girls you see walking in Central Park smoking American spirt cigarettes, cause you know you'd never quit.
Jan 13, 2017
Jan 13, 2017 at 7:58 AM UTC
This insipid night, Time has thieved you from me
As angels and demons cry on the other’s shoulders
The Gates of Heaven open wide for you
The halls of hell accompany my misery
But one day… he shall return me to you
At the crack of dawn, my world will bloom colours
And on that dawning, I will see
When I gathered timber to set your pyre
When I bore you with my numbed sinew
When I laid you, gently, upon your bed
When, as you lay, I set ablaze your bed
I cast my heart into the consuming fire
Behind the roofs of my eyes,
Seething tears shrivel to hail
The scent of the carnations I braided to your hair
The allurement in the purple stretch of your lips
The nap of the face I once held in my palms
I gather shards of me as it all burns into the air
Like your ashes, I hold myself in a clenched fist
Like pounce, I am seeping away through its crevices
The fire I lit, he rages, swallowing my soul
To your ethereal suite, he ushers you, my paeony
The fire I lit, carries the ashes of my soul
To the one who received me
To you…
The air’s now a smothering dense smoke
I hold a smouldering purse… your ashes
With my hollow soul, in my fumbling palms.
Cyra, writhing to hold you… I am broken.
This insipid night, her stars united to chain me
Her chain numbs my soul into the night’s blue
And every night after, that chain grew denser
Tallying every moment, I bide, for my sun to rise
That transfigured sun will melt her chains off me
And his sky will wrap me away from his rays.
Rest now, ‘Twas a long way from home
Until our sun ascends,
Goodbye, Cyra…
Mar 20, 2021
Mar 20, 2021 at 9:25 AM UTC
in all the condolences,
i find self-righteousness and laughter.
the laughter screams not of mockery, but sheer jubilation.
there are 12 cars, like 12 horsemen.
what will we do about this?
the sanctity of devotion has eroded
into stubs.
i will stay behind
tallying the wrongs
for what?
a grateful notion won't bring me back.
a moral lesson won't be learned.
we have bequeathed terror since our births
and there's no way out
never a way out.
Jun 20, 2014
Jun 20, 2014 at 3:42 AM UTC
The bright piercing moon,
perforates
the anvil black sky.
Tallying our time,
as it blooms and subsides,
like a grandfather
winking
a supernal eye,
surveying the lawn
of perennial pawns
and infallible annual gods.
With a logic all its own,
it salutes and bemoans
the Great Sphinx’s nose,
and the wind scattered scraps
of the Rosetta Stone.
Some seer will come,
before too soon,
or a scientist,
wont to presume,
But in gold and stolen
myth they’ll stand ,
like fraudulent kings,
yelping lambs,
flaring though spring,
with bluffs in hand,
until they wither
unto grains
of sand
.
Mar 29, 2012
Mar 29, 2012 at 6:49 PM UTC
14
Every song or sonnet
singular in its intricacy,
in time it becomes something
other, hyper-personal and resonant.
14 things may burst into millions.
13
Three times I've felt alone
this minute. I should stop tallying
hours in my schedule, messy
rubric.
12
11-years old and jumping off
mud-mounds, playing King of the
Hill. The strongest rises to the top.
The cleverest usurps.
11
One thing for certain:
we are human. We are
not human.
10
Six times in school I got
detention. It was often due
to my willingness to be a
follower, silly sheep to a
slaughter.
9
Five languages of love we are
sure of, no more so far.
8
10 tally marks looks a lot
like less. Some things, like
people, refuse to show their
face.
7
13 is supposedly an unlucky
number. At this age I uncovered
a part of myself I did not know
before. Discovery. This is luck.
6
A dozen is meant to represent 12
because it is simpler, same syllables
only one less letter, a convenience.
5
If you flip an eight on its side
you can see forever.
4
Seven times I've thought this poem
gimmicky.
3
[redacted for time constraints
and continuity]
2
The artist places her pen to
paper and borrows, not stealing
so much as salvaging, wrapping
old presents in neat new bows,
satin or silk or rough twine.
Nine variations on the same
subject.
1
Four lids harbor two eyes,
a galaxy, universe,
each hiding half a heaven
from view.
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 3:23 PM UTC
Every day I tally my days in this jail cell
Counting the days I’ve been in this solitude
Counting the days ‘til I’ll be set free
I’ve been seeing angels on the walls and devils in my brains
Counting the days I’ve been in this solitude
I’ve counted my fingers so many times it’s no longer ten
I’ve been seeing devils on the walls and angels in my brains
And the flowers I’ve planted grow from this concrete flooring
I’ve counted my fingers so many times it’s no longer eleven
But the guards lost my key; and the only escape
Are the flowers that grow from this concrete flooring
So I drown them in the thoughts I see.
The guards lost my key, and my only escape
Is lost in my insanity.
And I drown myself in the thoughts I see
Still wondering when I’ll be set free
I’m lost in this insanity
Counting the days I’ve been in this solitude
Still wondering when I’ll be set free
And tallying my days I’ve spent in this jail cell.
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 1:19 AM UTC
Growing old at seventeen,
my future’s sneaking up on me.
I dont wanna continue, gotta be cautious.
Just thinking about it makes me grow nauseous.
On the floor, a flurry of darkened pages.
Tallying up the waste of my life’s wages.
On a sea of flattend trees I’ll float,
putting stamps on my suicide notes.
You tell me I’ve got talent, is it true?
It won’t appear on a different spinner’s loom.
A lack of inspiration holds me in duress,
I’ll give it to those who’ll clean up my mess.
You can fight; in whose ground lies the fault?
I’ll take all your words with a grain of salt.
Around my quiet castle I’ll build a moat,
and in the mail you’ll find my suicide notes.
A beauty in the eyes in your sockets,
yet there’s no picture to fit in my locket.
An agreement to fill a gaping spot,
I always fill that of second best, do I not?
Let out a laugh, you’d never believe this.
Tears cover your face in a fine mist.
Glancing out at the building snow,
Your white knuckled hands crush my suicide note.
Feb 11, 2011
Feb 11, 2011 at 1:28 PM UTC
*All hail these small and sweet courtesies of life.
For smooth do they make the road of it.
Grace and beauty – each cut so deep like a knife.
They beg all these inclinations toward love at first sight.
Yes, ‘tis those courtesies which let the stranger in.
With tones and mannerisms - they do have such meaning.
Oh - ‘tis such a blessed thing,
One for which I could lose myself
To the honor of my aching.
I feel a heart which bears all to itself.
Oh yes, tis' open – ‘lest I shut it all out.
So I ask, “Are not my eyes the scout
For which my heart journeys?
That vision, is it not flowing through my arteries
Bringing my heartbeat’s rhythm in tune?
Oh, let that beat be mine none too soon.”
With that said, she laid out her arm in front of me.
Taking hold of her fingers in one hand, I aptly
Applied two fingers of my other hand to her wrist -
Firmly - and begin counting each heart throb.
“One – two – three – four,” counting out aloud
Measuring each heartbeat as it happens –
Hoping to find the art of her fever.
I close my eyes as I continue to count – thinking –
There is no occupation in the world comparable
To feeling a woman’s pulse.
And when I had counted to twenty five
I looked up into her eyes and
At that instant I felt her pulse quicken.
She clutched my fingers tighter in the one hand
While pressing the wrist of her other hand
Harder into my account.
Is it possible for two to become one flesh and bone?
And if 'tis true, what is everything else to become?
Sometimes yours while at other times the other has it?
All the while to be generally on par tallying up the score
As we each permit the other to share in ourselves –
At least in as much as a man and a woman have the right to.
Like a bag full of pebbles which started out jagged
And rough, with very little gleam.
Only ‘tis after being years in the bag together
Do the stones, having had many amicable collisions
Wearing down their angles and edges, do they
Become well rounded and smooth with the brilliance
Of their combined luster.
Nothing to either could have been
Accomplished alone.
She looks back into my eyes as she presses her wrist into me
and asks,
“How does it beat with you?”
Placing her hand on my neck I say,
“Feel for yourself -
‘Tis an improvement –
‘Tis my evidence.”*
Feb 3, 2018
Feb 3, 2018 at 8:22 AM UTC
Average aesthetics impressed upon
the dreamers asleep with the television on.
They are selling validation,
the slippery crutch of the only comfort craved.
Forget the details,
we are ****** clockwork,
counted on to come,
but never arrive,
where saying no to yes
likens to tallying time
until what you are chewing
wants to be swallowed.
Pearly white definition grinding moments into pulp
for the insatiable,
that never goes hungry.
This is all of it.
****** *** and the rest.
The patriarch in his Sunday best.
The wild generation,
rejecting the paranoia of their parents.
The whole of the god **** world
who copes with a regurgitated existence by selling narcissism.
Ours is a secret we are trying to tell with our lives,
when it’s realized it dies,
causing mystics to spill their insides
over silence, the answer that can never be vocalized.
Lo emotion,
the romance of confusion!
The one thing that can have no institution,
in our modern illusion.
Mar 28, 2014
Mar 28, 2014 at 4:02 PM UTC
Lately I’m just tallying grievances,
Just pending, just aiming for important,
Poisoning and drowning these fetuses,
But this subzero current feels constant.
And I can't get out and it's all your fault,
What was always will be and that’s that dear.
From now on, will this be our joint default?
I have been hounding you for a light year,
But the cosmic world wouldn't know this ache.
I'll engrave you into the skies for good,
From the cosmos can you see my hands quake?
The worst part is I still would- if I could.
I’ll erase you and I will erase me,
Leave me be or I'll do something extreme.
Mar 27, 2014
Mar 27, 2014 at 1:53 PM UTC