"tamped" poems
In the divet between mountains
Resides a wooden cabin – ostensibly an amalgamation of the scape
Adroitly - I - quondam female warrior flit
Down massive (ancient) hand-laid, hand-cut carved stone steps
Bounding from contingent step onto the dense pad of turned soil
Tacit compliance between gravity and soil holds footprints bound
A compressed deflating crescendo as pace ignites with bounds
Cadences of protuberant wildflowers and grasses erupt from swollen terra
A winsome chromatic menagerie, dispersed in ecstatic fistfuls
A venerably ancient ritual
My nascent clandestine vocation
Personally meted out - a beatification for my provisional sanctuary
Along glacier-fed stream
Lissome fingers shadow inert stalks –plucking dormant beginnings from their desiccated ligaments
I am austere and unadorned save for a festoon of pyrite flecks trailing my semblance
Residual gilding from my ante-meridian swim taken after requisite gathering of wild blackberries, goose berries, and rhubarb along oft-tamped path
The sun, nestling into its requisite apex endorsed my completion
I reclined into the hassock of soil, feeling the elements settle about with an embossment of my form
Imposing verdure arched subtly as compressed soil beckoned hyperbolic flux
As I lay within the basilica of opulent living columns replete with comestible bounty
Lingering dew honed inflections of sacrosanct petrichor in unison with piquant clover
Wild purple clover buds saccharinely tinted and inundated nestled nerves in mine cribriform plate
Birds pitched and galloped through the frond tips and beyond in the lapis expanse
Frequently snatching damselfly’s and assemblages of midges from their ephemeral drift
Auspicious rays transcended stippled diaphanous gravid clouds
Light inundated ether entered humbly into the cathedral oculus
Pyrite speckled terrain beneath, and my bare gilded form above
Cast a refracted aura about my sanctuary
Precipitously the elusive vaporous embankment distended further
Ashen atmospheric correspondence inaugurated liquescent sustenance to my mountain abode
And I -
Lingered beneath the descending gobbets, curls furled in a puddle
Fresh topsoil cupping my corporal topographic contours
Pressing blackberries into my mouth between smiles
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
I ate too much for breakfast today
And lunch was spent wondering if I should slip away
Wondering if I should go back for seconds
**** it, why not?
My feet jiggled nervously under the table
Trying to think of an excuse to leave
Trying to figure out how much the barbeque chicken pizza would hurt on the way back up
Trying to figure out how much I’d regret it
Trying to figure out if my body was okay
My self esteem balloons up and down
Somedays I look in the mirror and like what I see,
Think I look cute and quirky in my glasses and skirt,
Think my body is almost okay
And then like black crossing over to white, like a light switch flipped on
No inbetween
All of the sudden I am ugly
My body takes up too much space
Loving myself, loving this body seem like an impossible feat
The little critic in my head is back
And he wants to move back in,
I’m not cured
Recovery is not about loving your body
Recovery is accepting it
I’m still working on that
The calculator in my head wakes up,
Regenerates every time I’m around food
My hands still hover over the diet soda before forcing myself to pick something that scares me more
I still have to bargain in my brain
Eat a salad so I can eat ice cream and cookies
Skip lunch so I can have a big dinner
Strip naked in front of a full mirror,
Watch my body standing up, bending over, sitting
Grabbing, pinching, prodding, poking
Surveying this piece of meat
This thing
This body
That I know I need to be kind to
I weighed myself for the first time in almost a year
My toe lingered over the cold surface of a scale
Like a child about to dip his feet into water
I knew standing on that scale could drag me under
And I did it anyway
Loving myself is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done
When self hatred has been tamped into my soul
When my eating disorder was the only thing I good at
This secret lover, the most attentive one you could have
Took my hand and showed me how an empty stomach could feel like love
My eating disorder was my best friend,
The abusive relationship I kept going back to,
The most interesting thing about me,
The thing that was killing me
Having an eating disorder is easy;
Allowing yourself to slip into a disease out of your control
Having someone else make all your decisions
Your life reduces itself to the numbers on the scale
The slipping numbers on the scale assure me that everything is alright
But I can’t live like that
Having an eating disorder is easy;
Recovery is hard
May 28, 2016
May 28, 2016 at 3:19 PM UTC
Maiden in the ashes
Robed in silk
Robbed of milk
No mark on your tender skin
No sign of turmoil within
The coal does not yet scorch your soul
...
You walk your delicate path
Bearing the sightly, brightly beaten cut bloom of spring
Luscious petals not yet knowing
They will drop from the stem
No seeds to plant, and not her fault
the only water here tainted with salt
And the ground here is hard, turned up in its roots
And the soft garden bed tamped down by boots
Do you know the path you tread does not want you?
Do you not yet feel the cut of the stone or burning of the coal to your sole?
Or does this black earth need your bloodstained steps as much as you need to bleed them
Is it possible for one woman's blood to nourish this dead soil back to life?
And one woman's love to seed them
Apr 10, 2024
Apr 10, 2024 at 5:14 AM UTC
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
.madame's stifled feverish
tittering,
voice raucous as tamped in a
corselet,
translucent skin akin to pellucid
drapery,
overwrought hands entwined in champagne
hair,
madame's eccentricity is her
lunacy.
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
.the mellifluous static of the ebony
radio,
dulcet hallucinations imbricate in her
Crumpet,
ephemeral visionary of the
erstwhile,
Madame’s a suitable fandangle tenant of the
bedlam.
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
.madame scrutinized the greenwood through the
crevice,
appetency for the veil of sea
smoke,
imperceptive to her
frenzy.
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
.ensnared in an austere
plight,
madame’s urbane actuality,
disenfranchised.
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
.the exuberant dimension of reciting
hysteria.
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 1:24 PM UTC
many of his posts tilted
like trees tired of the wind; wires sagged,
red rusted, but still jabbed the errant cow
when duty called
three quarters a century
he rode the same trail; of late,
he had gone afoot, the saddle too heavy
for him to heft
walking, he reconnoitered
the tracks with more care--hooves of his myriad steers,
a few equine signs of the farrier’s labor
still there, fast fading
his boot prints were
more numerous now, and sometimes
tamped down by the few beasts left
in his herd
across the line lay his dead
neighbor’s pastures, peppered with mesquite,
pocked by fire ant holes; no livestock grazed, but the giant turbines whined, white whipsaws slashing not timber, but blue sky
driven by the relentless winds,
they called to him, in chanted chorus, issuing a premonition:
one day soon, your fence will fall, and the path you trod
will bear no new tracks for other souls to read
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 10:40 PM UTC
A cliff of weathered stone and moss
with tamped dirt approaching edge
smiles down on cool sea below.
Sun rising on the eastern coast
wears shoes for diving,
a gainer off into the light breeze.
She stands with arms through her coat sleeves
watching with one open hand inviting Fate.
Photography is the death of living the moment.
Sun nimbly on the trapeze,
lose trust and surely
she will be thrown.
Dance, my Sun,
bliss will come
to those who run.
Embrace her fate
or likely it
will dissipate.
Jan 4, 2013
Jan 4, 2013 at 12:27 AM UTC
antidepressants, that I am not
some war that bereaves you
of your fix, your stark face blots
purpling stains under eyes glued
to the buzzing of insects by your lamp—
a light that catches a reflection of
their veined wings clear; like veins tamped
in brown, the black tar shoved
into your limbs, into my heart
the idleness in your eyes and pace
of your feet dragging, they impart
me of your glass maze chase
of mirrors cracking like teeth, a scrape
against each other, shattering to escape.
Apr 8, 2011
Apr 8, 2011 at 8:22 AM UTC
The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, some of which include: chips of cloven hooves, beating in rhythm with a grand conqueror on high, brethren united in one charge; sweat of a migrant, summertime rain cooling between his shoulder blades, stones callusing fingers; blood of one and many terracotta men, giving their lives for God and king; new silk chewed up by moths; jade and chrysanthemum, a nobleman’s wife’s treasury; sun and wind, a flood, grace of a new emperor - my life, reaching backwards into pockets of rice fields, scholars’ tables, great-grandmother’s childhood castle, everything I know.
Apr 26, 2018
Apr 26, 2018 at 1:19 AM UTC
It becomes clear that it is not so clever
when you're stood in the line.
And behind you the clock is telling you
yelling loud at you that the moment is now or is never.
Time to sever the links of the knots and the kinks
that have tied you in chains
which in turn have become the keepers of the pain which resides in you
glides through you.
The clock is quite striking
I've taken somewhat of a fancy a liking
for the Ivory dial.
Every movement relays
what delays I have made and the line starts to fade as we move on some more.
But that clock is a doorway and one day we'll knock
and hear as it says,
'Welcome to always you'll always be here'
There is nothing to fear but the chime
but the time
stood in line
being date stamped and tamped down as the second hand
starts to bear down
and the queue you were in has got thin with the worry
what's the hurry?
we're all getting there
where
time stands so still
on the hill of tomorrow in a sunken grey hollow
we wait.
May 4, 2013
May 4, 2013 at 8:07 AM UTC
at the end of light, more light.
it is why I have been walking.
since you’ve known me
I have walked.
I am leery
of your sadness- you’ve mock deer
on your lawn.
you bird watch.
you rake a single leaf, give up.
sadness is your gut is
tamped properly. when I recall
on highway of abandoned upkeep
pipe tobacco
and knowhow
my hands
make visor.
a car slowly passes
other cars. I call this car
my death, and then revise.
Jul 7, 2012
Jul 7, 2012 at 12:12 PM UTC
Dig
We were nearly back to the house
when the front end loader shattered
the silence and back filled the hole
drove off some vireos and cowbirds
amped up seven whitetail browsing
the pine break above Calusa Way.
American Spirit *******
a new moon **** of mouth
the operator feathered the lever
while gathered together we grazed
potato salad, deviled eggs, sliced ham, rain
from the Gulf over to Melbourne
soaking the operator’s boots
ducking into his pickup truck
for the long drive home to Pedro.
It hammered the tin roof shed
out back where your tools
tarps, trouble lights, line trimmer
home brew insecticide in unmarked
milk jugs, old spark plugs
a lifetime of nuts, bolts and washers
huddled warm and dry on shelves
ball peened the tamped sand lozenge
on the ragged fringe of the silent ranks.
It’s hard to find even with a map
Calusa Way coiling through the bahia grass
flowing past stone faced theater goers
house lights up well past their final act.
Vireos and cowbirds
even the whitetail browsing
the pine break pay me no
mind down on hands and knees
undoing the honest work
of the operator, sifting handfuls
of sandy backfill for something
I might have missed.
Oct 19, 2016
Oct 19, 2016 at 7:27 AM UTC
Quiet
my Soul?
How could I have tamped it down,
Muffled it to such a whisper
for months on end with you
Rattling my brain,
Disintegrating my thoughtspace.
you drowned out the Fire alarms-
Police sirens-
Tornado warnings-
with your shouting.
For being the
Loudest thing I ever heard
You sure ever said nothing.
Jan 14, 2019
Jan 14, 2019 at 3:51 PM UTC
Venture to try her out
But venture tamped
I feel a little trapped
in what I, for myself, created-
I look straight and I’m private,
I’m Catholic and I’m quiet,
even my sister won’t acknowledge that I love women.
We’ll attend to that eventually.
Aug 18, 2020
Aug 18, 2020 at 2:04 PM UTC
i was half asleep on a kitchen counter
curled up around the steak knives and
soup ladles, threaded through thick duvets
when you came and tucked yourself into me
with your burlap jacket, but I let you under the
covers--and I distinctly remember pressing my fingers
under your shirt only to feel how deathly cold you were
as if you had just come from the outside, or had risen up
from the snow drifts, opened your ribcage and let the cold
seawater fill the cab
but you were whispering something, a secret I couldn't make out
an undiscovered motive, slight of hand, slight of breath
you were lieing and I was letting you in, letting you in
beneath the weapons, beneath my skin, into my body
and you reached in for a handful of grain but I was a
barrel of cords and twine
meshed and tamped, you found the soft damp earth where
I grow and we somehow managed to make it seem ok
make it seem ok
you're out there ok
crimped and furious
a mean cuss on your lips
touching still means too
much to me
Aug 15, 2016
Aug 15, 2016 at 11:39 PM UTC
The tears of her heart
sizzle in the tamped ashes –
of her loneliness.
May 16, 2021
May 16, 2021 at 2:35 AM UTC
the vines began to creep up
we didn’t know when they first started growing
little green buds buried deep below
I tamped them down with my feet
like weeds, they'd regrow stronger
they tied themselves around my ankles
robust enough to immobilize
converting my legs into a mess of thorns and trunks
my body paralyzed at the centre
the branches took the longest to grow
when the first one shot through
I thought I'd be upset, but felt only relief
the black flecks of my eyes became the dead of winter
not a single leaf could ever grow on these limbs
but as the roots thickened, I began to forget
what it felt like to ever walk or speak or love
I knew thirst and hunger, the need to grow
taking no comfort in feeling rooted
but not remembering how to move, either
drowned in my own thicket
I needed to be felled to bud anew
Oct 16, 2018
Oct 16, 2018 at 3:33 PM UTC
days when all you had to do was
arrange the furniture and watch the passing
of shadows in mellifluous slowness – ready to catch
you in heft of mesh.
nothing keeps her in place.
that is what you said. you said you were
always moving
from the north up to the south,
and at times the north of no south
that refuses to be held close into straight paths.
you gave it no unction – this abstraction.
christened with the water from
your measures, slipping out of grips,
from where you are and where I found you in,
retained in some sense of placeness,
almost cuts with the sharp dagger
of wind in mornings when you peer
into the putrid landscape of Manila asphyxiated
by the rise of smog.
her sorrows remain untouched and intact,
given urgency by the emptiness of her
hand. he had to be elsewhere and you
were in the midst of nowhere but the hollow
oblivion of your home, and I took it, I took it
and I fragmented it to gather from it,
a sacrament or say, the looming of dangers for
mine to situate in defeat,
and I placed you somewhere like a new truth
that you’ve grown fond of,
like the only voice you hear in the night
is yours, and gathering that indistinct sound
from the stray of light was the
lover having left an impending need.
my father proposed to watch a film
with my mother and I see potential
in something that had gone away even before
the empty din of the sea played its exhausted
machinery, telling me something known and familiar,
which I refuse to utter because it would double
its terror.
we ought to meet somewhere, you said,
a bridge, a tangent, a straight path
or a perilous curvature. you will never break
as the sparrows close in,
as the disparage quavers,
as an old man stops his engine somewhere
under a bridge beneath rondures.
we ought to meet somewhere,
you said. a word tamped into shape,
lugged into narratives,
so easy
breakable
and false.
Mar 22, 2016
Mar 22, 2016 at 8:29 AM UTC
when i was younger books were a part of me
literally i couldn’t get them off of me
all the words flowing through my hands that i use to
S-P-E-L-L out with my hands
as if i am the writer and the words are my advantage
to create with imagination in grace
taking a big pace with the words in my hands
they are my best friend
my lover
my light
books are apart of me
they swim in my veins
twisting my brains
my thoughts are my in a poetic movement
reciting quotes that made me insane
only because of the meanings behind their sayings
becoming carved into my back and arms
shaking my core
for words mean much more to me
then what other people believe
while the cloud of overthinking and emotions flood my brain
books keep me tamped
like a lion locked in a cage
yet the lion will one day unlock that cage
of fear and doubt
and get out with wonder and cheer
like book theifs who steal and conceal
their hidden books
for the pure golden that is in their hands
for books stand as more then a book with just words
while i am skin and bones
books are my heart
because i L-O-V-E them
don’t you?
Dec 14, 2015
Dec 14, 2015 at 4:33 PM UTC
Pause,
Along the lines of,
Universal time.
Suppress the hands of the minute and hour
Entrap my thoughts in a cage
PAUSE
Make sure to double lock them
And throw them away.
Don't forget to burn the key,
I really need a second to breathe
PAUSE
Perhaps, a couple seconds more
Understanding me, the forever misunderstood
Stamped on my forehead,
Engraved on my skin.
PAUSE
Can you read me now?
Now that I'm,
drowning in seconds,
engulfed in minutes,
gone for hours.
Yet, time never paused....
Apr 22, 2017
Apr 22, 2017 at 5:37 PM UTC
Dirt Daubers
They float in and out all day
long on low interest wings
cramped toes of abodes
accreting like tamped syllables
compressed into lines, bellow
bad things about the mothers of their
fellows from laced lattice work
**** like champs in the bushes
hip sprung and hands free
while I ignore the noise and hunch
over muddy simile, worry
concentric rings of rhythm
into pages of imperfect tubes
just waiting for habitation.
Oct 7, 2016
Oct 7, 2016 at 8:48 AM UTC