Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Desires aren't ripened tangerines
They do not fall off the tree when they are ready
They do not fertilize the roots below
They do not shrug off the sense of un-pickedness,
just like that,
Not like tangerines do.

Desires unspent are starving termites.
They bite into living bark
And burrow into the breathing deep
Past rings and rings of precious age.
They corrupt the tender core
And, soon, no new leaves grow
And no more fruit drops.
the summer that made the sound of crickets mean more than it did two, three, even ten summers ago.

the summer that gave a warm glow within the halls of that familiar seasonal cottage
the creak from each step on the stairs was each a song to be sung
out the door to find her waiting for me

My heart taking delightful punches with each step closer to me
her sundresses a different shade of yellow just as the sun
It rays peeking through the trees to compliment her lovingly
Everyday was Sunday for us
as they flow with each skip my mind slows her down
watching every detail of her grace

the summer I learned that sunsets were made for girls with brown eyes
the earth revolved only for her so the sun would descend across the sky just so right to only fall into her vision
and to remind me "this is what home feels like"

the summer I found out that the gift life had given me was the gift of her presence for seven weeks.
the beauty in her was too delicate to give away to anyone and she let me
out of all the people on this planet see what god made special about her

the way she blinked three times when perplexed, before asking to know more
listen more
learn more

how she always peeled my tangerines
because she knew i didn't like the peel to get under my nails

when she laughed tears would always stream down her face
no matter a roar or a soft chuckle
and then she would swear the optometrist sprung a leak when she got Lasik

when she was sad that that leak was easy to repair with a Jerry Seinfeld  impression

The lone flickering street light on our street did not compare to her illumination at night
a glowing goddess amongst someone so meer
she was the embodiment of the sun

but summer begins to drop into fall.
as the trees started to lose green she packed to leave
and I did too
she was going back home and my home was leaving me

this girl was the ****** of my story and only at the tender age of 22
and I know my tale will never have its perfect resolution without her

that summer I found out she was the definition of my love
but to her I was just another girl in a sundress
sparked by a tweet i saw that read "sunsets were made for girls with brown eyes".
Sarah Writes Jan 2014
(A Song to Me)**

Write your love inside your eyelids, cast verses on
Sweet violets.
I have drawn for you a map
Of story and of song.
Point your feet toward the sea, take it with you when you’ve gone.
Each hand will carve the other.
For this is all there is to know of love;
Two beings carving one another.
Presented as a present, all wrapped and tucked and clean,
Tied with dandelion string,
Clothed in cream-colored linen, walking near the ocean,
The taste of a faraway notion, this
Is all there is to know of love.
A room of books, a room of birds,
A line to hang your dresses and your sheets,
Brass bowls of tangerines,
Willow-bark dreams.
Inside, even the snow is sweet.
This is all there is to know of love.
Sad selves sold soft to willing souls, we are
Only a little drunk, not like last time,
Or the time before.
We are milk and we are honey, we are coffee in the morning,
Our soil is rich and never rocky,
The sky is clear and often sunny,
Good rains fall each year, and the weather changes slow
So our gardens always grow.
We eat tomatoes from the vines,
Read our fortunes in the lines
On palms that have been calloused by our years
Of digging through the dirt in our past loves’ chests, darling, someday you will rest.
Each love will be a map for the you that is to come,
Each loss will be a song.
This is all there is to know of love.
You will walk a thousand sunshines, let your hair grow long, until
Someday,
Hands stained red with beets, you’ll be laughing in a kitchen with your lover,
You will sleep in tangled sheets.
You’ll have smile lines, clear eyes, and freckles on your arms.
Someday, a wraparound porch,
A trickling stream,
The sound of little feet.
Smiling, always smiling, you are everything that beats.
You are everything that sings.
This is all there is to know of love.
Akira Chinen Jul 2019
If you saw her heart
you might mistake it for gold
but I know it is the color of sunlight
lemons and tangerines
the sweet blood of honey
the song of the first morning bird

when god asked for light
it was her who split open her ribs
and it was the radiance of her heart  
that filled all that was once dark
and when god saw her
god trembled in awe
and wept the first tears of joy

and where gods tears fell
all the  dreams of love
and all the dreams of beauty
fell from those tears
and they swam out
into the empty cosmos

it is there in her chest
where the sun gets it color
where all light is born
from her heart
made out of sunshine
lemons and tangerines

filling what is empty
lighting what is black
giving dreams of love
giving dreams of beauty
giving meaning to everything
giving meaning to life
all life
I had started this poem once and forgot where I had been writing it (if you read "all life" before I took it down, that was put together from what I remembered of the first draft of this one, which is now a combination of both...
Joseph S C Pope Feb 2013
I

Wonderlandia, torn off the submerged lung
of a daydream diary.                   Reoccurs
as she does with silver eyes, weary Alice
during tea time--bullets burning past her
                                     like flowing nations.
Everyday similar tsunamis fund
                                     the lack of 20/20.
Nose to tail--the surge of angry engines
splits the ends of her blonde strands.
    Each one the last witness to maddening hospitality
--utopia never sweats as it talks and withers.
Amnesia blots,
new aspirin machines
vaporize apples and ***
on the other end of spectrum,
                                                     trans-positional labels--

Guillotine gargling teapots
       have no patience
         to the bushes of Olympus opiates
                                      bound in yellow barrier tape,
                     five o' clock traffic
               welcomes her back to what we are facing.


II


Dreary weather of late fall                       and her beautiful,
              powdered face

great mouth of atomic hell,
         when she speaks--80,000 deficiencies boil alive
                                                   --Trinity's teething test
                                                           on the tired bones
                                                   of a story-teller's raspy cards--

"None the wiser," she speaks,
                                "during the transition of ships
                   vermin turn into krakens culturing
                               on the surface of a raindrop.
    Heroes, villains, animals frozen together
                 after now eating for four days.
     The transition of one genocide
                                                        ­  to the other,
                the delineation of cat-and-mouse,
   mingle too long
   with the dead
   and its necrophilia."

                 Blind Alice wanders off the highway,
leaves her brewed cup of steamy static
on top of the unimportant saucer, sticks pins in her *******,
             and enjoys the sound of Cleopatra
             rolling over in reincarnation.


III

      Dear Alice smells
sunbathing, studded tangerines
                      assimilating liquor within the vast,
       empty, glowing nausea that is--
                        the warm germ

Oil                                    and                 ­          water
               rippled glass too silly for skulls
              made humid by distant salt water,

blood, acid, enzymes,
cheating probability
that runners with drunk kids
have blood between their toes.
                                                      Death­ to the distillation within
                                                    --the chronic diamond too polished
                                                       in *** to see the roses in her *****
    She curses these wood songs,
             heritage patriots with the pelts of wild lions
             with antlers over their heads,
                                                  faces advertising war paint
                                                applied by gargoyle hands
                    --sad memoirs always drink people
                                                  that use God as a cookie jar.


IV


  Gorgeous names
  on graffiti institutions give her a home
                                                         a market
                                                         a nickname
           still                  Alice only accepts Alice.

Grace periods where she misses tyranny
                  rise and fall like endorsed breathing.
    Now Alice feels her dress fall off,
                                  extinct years message future occupancy
                                  about what to wear.
New era, this era, past eras plead guilty
in a      clinic museum
             of forcing demons
              down the medical
              throats
of first graders. Court adjourns at 9:01 PM, Saturday

             The populus can sleep now,
                          but not her.
                 No one gave her clothes
                 to cover up the drained monochrome.


V

Instead she celebrates her flesh,
                                        the broken glass,
   and quakes and leads off to expose
           others to its potential vital prosperity.

         Instead
                     headlines like bumper cars read
                     about the beheading of weeks,
                     failing rescue missions,
                     and debates on teenage tolerance.

Nicotine intoxication points Alice
to over-extended memories--wards of music
sequenced to point out the extinction of marble tigers.
                        Only 550 expected to understand
                         tethered to millions able to survive.

  Flood waters look at moral standards, a mean hurricane
                                   that collapses the death toll
     all patented 50 states
     have a dating service
     and huff paint as a way
                              to pray to art.
                                                      Double­-canvas faces
                                                      dyed in pixel     hope
                                                       that the media levees hold,
             but volunteer to herd sheep into poppy seed fields.
                                            She refuses to stay,
                    to watch the long night
                    of castration on men with mud-covered ankles.
                                      Television says eunuchs want
                                       to be prodigal's children,
                                       everyone wants to come back home
                                       to mom and dad, safe zones, away
                                       from themselves.
                                                     ­                 It says our ancestors want
                                                            ­          this for all of us. They worked
                                                          ­            so hard to tie up the hair
                                                            ­          out of Aphrodite's face.

                                     They treasure the silver eyes of Alice,
                                          but call them blue,
                                                  they issue her high cholesterol
                                          but pump sweet ****** into he stomach,
                                                  they tell her to put down the drill,
                                            so she can finish their orchestra--

her lightning
    is
     a
  string
     of
  souls



VI


     She decides to depart Sunday,
to discover the ordinary beginning,
                        painting WHY? on its delirium.
re-arrangeable viewers become
                      inserted sounds under percussion and piano.

       Caging various important charts
                                          undetermined
   ­                           as finished attention.
                                                      ­              Three movements in flux
open end the people                     vacuuming
                            craftsmanship blocks
                   from                                dogs and zen.

                                                 The
                                 suspended letter               is happening in 1951
   drenched in existential white                                            spacing
        ­                                                   the viewer
                        from integrated architecture.

Down
the
bell is a structure called
"the quarantined wheelchair."
                               Dead ignorance changes pattern
                               after six movements of the second hand.
Alice speaks, "To you all, know
                                       that this is an un-dramatic situation.
          Everyday windows with the same
           participants have girls drinking
                                                     orange juice, activate fluid,
                    both exist as objects
                    and caught propaganda."

                                                   ­                      Six tunnel
                                                          ­      audiences are watching
                                                        ­        drown in the plastic silk
   her                                                       built by the motorized collage
                                                         ­                                        spider.

          Alice, a kinetic mannequin pop star
                        is limp in the glass point.
             Rhythmic flux is objectified war torture
                         censored in fitness magazines
by simple toilet literature.

                                        Six tunnels worth of eyes
                                 latch to the *******
                                           as a way to bury **** protesting.
                                  A coat of pepper spray
                                   works in front of the exhibition.
This stage is shaded by moans.


VII


      Alice the female, has a door-to-door friend
                                                          ­    over the sea
of the cathedral's ceiling               who died of disemboweled
pulchritude             at the mutilated nuclear other-place.
                     Her friend was a synthesized example
                     of staged catastrophes. Her friend is her, silver-eyed
                                                     ­                                             Alice.

            ­                     She performs herself and herself
                                 but they are played by polished, scored poets.

Everyone of them incorporates the events
                                 of a dancing gunshot. Everything rests
                                                           ­ at an intermission

               but after fifty minutes of pondering,
          the lost audience remembers
         her name is Alice.
                   So it comes back on with a shower of sweat
                  and this clear
                                  substance
               ­                                 called
                         ­                              patience.
       This composing, peering vulnerability
                        psychologically destroys the flux tension
              like analog genocidal dictators.
                                   Ultimately this is dream liquor

     commentating war to the war tree
      using trauma and chairs as humor.



VIII


               Patience on the water level lives translucent
                                            on networks that brand flesh
                                            with displaced identity.
Alice convinces us all that pickled ***
                                                             ­               takes eight years
                     to ****** and we accuse it
                                         of being fake. Afterwards, her character dies
in confident silence.


IX


     Not majestic, but she does cough
                  to mock the earth.
        The seeds of Alice are ripe,
                        harvested early, and now her children come out and dine
        like speaking tongues on gibberish.
                          The room is fat with hair

and kindness. Feeble, mundane hands chew on each other,
                                                         feet stand proud.
We even call her Alice or "the beautiful *******,
                                             a black cloud feasting
                                             in orange."
                       Everyone feasts on the nectar
                                                         she has, but never the rye
which makes her round. Juice is squeaking and her children laugh
                         as in competition.

     It's a distinguishable game as the mixed
                                                           ­      couple up front
              begin to play whistles as
                                         everyone eats
                   the pride of the silver-eyed Alice's children.


X

                                                ­ The children's souls
                                                       bow and say
                                           "Thank you for barely growing."
                                                   and dissipate after five minutes.

          "Curiouser                                   ­                                      and
           Curiouser"                                                       ­                   they
           say                                                              ­                        as
           they                                                             ­                       leave
           this                                                             ­                         homage.
                  The decimal backbone
                     of each of sweet Alice's
                                   blonde strands
                   divorced by the gust/ of a green light's/ allowance.


XI Epilogue*


  The day crawls away
                   a vigilant pest
     of the nocturnal project
                   --suns beam down still, like
                  stomachs of grinning felines
                           at Valentine's day.

toxic-dyed fingers
                        soldered
to bodies pittering across rainy streets

--legionnaires with hearts on stones
                         we are waiting for her orders,

     thistled-teeth clench,
                                         but did she
                                          actually
          ­                                ever come?
Andra Apr 2015
i woke up this morning
with a snowflake on the tip of my nose
and i thought i became a sleepwalker.
its the first time that im haunting
the dreamworld
with my eyes wide open
and i believe.

i was sleeping actually. and it was
fog
and hoarfrost
and everything smelled of oranges.
mom says it smells like Christmas
but i dont sense any pine-tree.
so no.

the snowflake melted and i still did not wake up and i almost had a panick attack because i was not sleeping, i was not awake either and i was home, where it is impossible for snowflakes to fall.

tangerines. yes. not oranges.
it might not be very logical to you, but it make sense in my head. mhm.
Roberta Day Jul 2014
I crave you
more often than I
crave delicious fruit
I always want my citrus
thirst-quenching juiciness
but I’ll take vitamin D over vitamin C
and save ripened tangerines
for when I’m feeling a little weak
in the knees after squeezing your
blooms—good enough to eat
The prompt was Tangerine, I believe.
L Seagull May 2017
It is
And it's changing
The wind into summer shower
Into mushrooms and birds mouth
From river to the sewer
It is and it's changing
From dark to light to dim with
Speckles of sun born by the
Mirror in you childlike hand
You are catching dust bunnies
Sneezing and laughing
And the dirt could be followed by magic
And the kiss isn't greased by the notion
Of sin and the sin is only a word from the book
Death and insanity
Are frightening and profound
Your world is built from
No buts but ands
And they flow into peace
Just as well as the film of oil
On the ***** puddle
Astonishes you with
An iridescent rainbow
Duality is born by fear
You split and separate so
Caught up in the survival game
To keep that face and partake
Of wealth and fame
Empty is locked in the dungeon
And the words interlock
In plain patterns
Yet alive as they produce sounds
And the smell of tangerines
On a tree by the coast of Sicily
Reminds you of the day
When you could still enjoy
The warmth of sun
It absorbed into its juicy flesh
And there's no need to run
No need to stay
No need to cut off the ties
When life offers you more
And the heat and cold are feelings
That gets names as they replace each other
As they flow unstoppable
Dripping reactions
Burning like acid and smooth like milk
All in one glass
And when you have no thoughts
Ask questions
And when you feel the pain
Stay present and consider humanity
Karijinbba Aug 2018
Speak
When you speak I see cascades of life.
Life and light tend to look the same.
Your light is turquoise and the color of jade sitting just beneath the surface of choppy water.
When you speak I feel heat.
You have yet to burn me.
You are the steady warmth of new born embers of a fire
yet to blaze. When you speak I smell salt water.
Even with a sting, you’re the most refreshing thing.
The ocean is not as paradoxical as your passionately
calm surface. When you speak I taste loneliness.
Bitter sweet like underripe tangerines.
I cannot know this beautiful mind of yours without encountering  cold, rusty, metal walls
When you speak I hear midnight.
You know how to play the silences.
I hold my breath waiting for the next sentence you’re carefully, mysteriously orchestrating. Whisper or shout
speak to me againHole in my heart
Speak Karijinbba Beloved!
Never had a problem speaking was friendly yet cautious--bit shy when meeting people who seemed to have me under a microscope as an adult yet still enjoyed listening to them speak my true love was my best teacher in the above but he never hung around long enough to break the ice nor he just poped the question I was to beg cry sing for him ask him to marry me but I was a hybrid  ET Cindi couldn't order the mice to help me out much less ask a king to be mine
i observed body language what they say and not say i deciphered the in betweens the thing NOT revealed All gets recorded in our memory bank. As a child I was silenced in a nunnery five years not allowed to speak but only with Yes or No by an evil nun as a hate crime.a form of turture
The subconscious sees hears feels tastes eats drinks it all-it's our photografic memory recorder for everything good and. bad!
We get to experience, right?
the tangible and intangible things we are that thing which God created in his image I did learn to Speak read even other languages in time i overcame that grip of evil, uderdtanding the beauty and ugliness in SIlence!. By the way Karijin my poetic nick name is a lovely hole in Australia it looks like a woomb giving birth to blue waters a honeymoon trip I missed along with my beloved groom Pc/rk.
~All tights received.~
Anthony Williams Jul 2014
It was in total a fast track ticket to the moon
and I can't return to transaction dock 8 too soon
the star checkout lane at my local supermarket
tops balloons with rocket science aeronautics
that pilot's service areas binary counter perfect
exceeding expectations bent into global orbit

My items sped along to muzak her slim milky way belt
a smile beaming discount countdowns heaven sent
taking off in bit lips when her priceless item buttons
almost burst free to air with a strain of special promotions
helpfully assisting my every excess flight of fancy
made impulse buys a baggage allowance necessity

She stroked parts of her radical laser station
to fully engage hygienic wiped spills of imagination
and I felt the warp of hyperdrive tangelo engines
urging me into a dive to scan juice ripe tangerines
a last minute save fuelled by stalling flashback cavities
gyrating in tight nets as we escaped earth's gravity

With a twist of her wrist I was into fits-the-bill ecstasy
as the whirr of electronics cut loose such quality
with a lick of an index finger our mission was bagged
handled too efficiently for any danger of jet lag
no flyby chance to not exchange standby coupons
my trolley emptied of offers too galactic to pass on
by Anthony Williams
A B Perales Jan 2014
I came of age
as one of the
many young
knights who would
mature and become
Pirates.
Our kingdom
stretched from
the end of
the world along
the cliff
lined Pacific.
To the
low side of
Alma.
The sprawling
wild canyons
of 6th street,
to the railroad
tracks along
the waterfront.

Daring as we were
we drank straight
from the
bottle while
constantly
losing ourselves
beneath the
shadow of the
Owl.

Our friendship
was a brotherhood
and a hand shake
meant a hell
of alot more
than a greeting.

Black eyes and
stab wounds
worn like
medals earned
in battle.
The ******* was
white as bone
and the girls
were still as
fresh as the
Tangerines we
picked from
our neighbors
yards
in the summer.

The young Pirates
of those days took
all this Town
had to
give.
And even when
beaten down and
hungover.
The need to
experience still
fought on for
more.

The Armor
I wore in
those early
days was
youth.
And that armor
with stood
it all.

Youth can and will
endure many
things.
Almost all things.
All things
that
is but
time.
Pen Lux Dec 2011
Here's something to impress you
it's my heart wide open, curious, fearless
approach me, remove the flowers from my hair
take them home and wait for them to die
then tell me about the thoughts that possessed you
in the moments you tried to cry, but couldn't.

There's always something eating away at you, isn't there?
Keep scribbling, croak louder! Wake the town, bring me down.
Take me take me take me down! Build the wall of silence just a little thicker
I want to be sure I'm not nervous, I want to release all solidity and flow
through you as liquid, as sunlight, as starlight as wishes as glances you cast me
that I wasn't supposed to notice, (but did).

I love you is a funny way of starting a sentence,
a sentence is just something we use to get through the day.
****** up communication building blocks burying me deeper
than I can climb and they're crumbling like your emotions when you've
got hallucinations spreading in your spine, breaking you down, back broke,
stomach chalk throat choke nose coke short ****, inhale me like you do your smoke.
I taste the same I taste the same.

Yes yes yes yes yes I forgive you, I forgive myself
self-love self-help self-yelp
telepathy wavves like fog in a graveyard
retracing your steps because everything's changing
and you're burning wood
cast your fires on me, I'll be your shallow shadow
and I'll guide myself as far as you'll let me,
don't drag me down
just take me there.
Quickly, before before before.

I start to miss you and I think
I'm just recycling my gatsby complex into something more tangible
than tangerines in the middle of winter
or a wind storm,
trying to eat when there's a lack of corn,
and you can't digest it anyways.

you don't
belong in this
wagon
this wagon
doesn't even exist.

I'm memorizing you in ways like cutting with knives
and thinking about listening but then getting distracted.

Re-birthing in the direction of “i thought you might”
dying downwards and backwards and all the ways you've seen me
because that's what I do when you see me. I die.
It feels better than being alive so **** me killmekillmekillme.

There! Right THERE! That's the separation.
David Nelson Aug 2011
Spiral Staircase

first you go down and then you go up
dancing inside your paper cup
your dreams of tangerines in your head
the staircase never ends so many tears are bled

you can try tearing down the walls
pacing back and forth in the halls
you can hide but you can't run
playing keep-a-way not always fun

flap your wings but not your jaws
pain of a thistle in your paws
you cry but nobody hears
they became accustomed to the tears

so what's the use of loud belching tones
when you can know deep in your bones
there is no way to win this race
not up and down the spiral staircase

Gomer LePoet...
Riley R Jun 2015
It is easy to think me a fool,
the foolish boy whose foolish dreams
melted his wings and
broke his father’s heart.

What is harder to see:
I knew the math of it all,
remembered the geometry of
wax and feathers
so well I could taste it on my tongue
scraping like cardamom
and sour sweet like tangerines
on the roof of my mouth.
Height and wind speed,
melting points and velocity,
lift and ******,
bird wings turned to equations
I held in my heart.

But oh,
to fly is nothing at all like math.
It is nothing at all like diagrams of
birds and insects and cloud formations.
To see the sun, The Sun, oh,
to spread your fingers through it’s warmth
as the air becomes tangible like the sea,
oh, there was no room in this heart for
the coldness of figures,
they were melted long long before my wings.

So judge, though the sky has never loved you
and I will yearn for the sun, The Sun,
oh,
from the bottom of the sea.
You arrived suddenly in my tangerine bliss
with my heart clinched in your fist
you touched me... and the dance started
with a gape of spontaneous combustion
you swirled me around the dance floor
dancing cheek to cheek....

we skipped the light fandango
fox trotting and waltzing to the beat of tango
the big band broke into a swing
while the love light shone as a crystal disco ball
jitterbug jive and a reet beet
dance macabre and so light on our feet

You lead me by the hand bodies musing
all the while... you lead me out by my hand
and made way into the galaxy for our feet
as we danced like fine wine...becoming intoxicated
by its beauty~ you danced me into Shangri-La
with my eyes wide and full of imagination
we danced through tangled forests of light

like Fred and Ginger
tiptoeing upon the backs of stars
dipping into galaxies and twirling on quasars
i hold your hand as you pirouette
upon the moons of a mystic world
as our romantic lambada is unfurled
forbidden planets and forbidden dance
the secrets of whirlwind romance

we were like Phoenix that had risen
dancing into the morning dew and nectarine
and I kissed you as the tangerines fell
from the sky~ dazed with a trial of stars
and then oh yes then.... I pronounced myself
as yours....as we escaped to paradise
dancing all the while.....cheek to cheek
as you gave me the Tangerine Kiss.....

tangerine kisses, tangerine dreams
sipped of the nectar of the gods
the fruit of creation in the form of love
a blessing from goddess, earth and above
we dance the steps of swoon and lean
and sweet nuances of tangerine
with every blessing in between

I felt a kiss upon my frozen cheeks
a clear promise of all our tomorrows
as I sleep with love within our hearts
your sweet tangerine kisses and dreams
are part of our creation... straight from above
My heart is dancing and dreaming
with you always a blessing from God.
What a joy and what fun to write collabration with awesome poet wolf spirit aka quinfinn
CastorPolydeuces Jul 2016
I have this vague vision of tangerines bleeding
into blue green skies.
Or maybe cat puke melding with the emerald
carpet beneath my feet.
Some sort of merging, colors, textures, clear and
pristine but elusive.
I have no idea what I'm going on about but I
know it is important.
College has broken me.
Cameron Haste Jan 2015
Glances shared at infinitesimal instances
trickle up my vertebrae,
blow the dust away
& chew the tin foil for me.
Nonchalantly running a gauntlet
that I designed with architectural
displeasure.

If you absorbed all the gold you've ever touched,
feverishly drank the blood of gods,
suckled the syrup from tangerines
until you blessed a famine,
stole your story from a pack of gorgeous wolves,
or inhaled the whispers of every wise soul
it would still not explain your unprecedented
growth & elegance.

A superlative pressure wave in the eyes of
a politician.
Purely an enigma.
Beauty in the form of human nature.
I truly flourish in this experience.
Love
riwa Jan 2017
I am melting into a dream of tangerines;
Falling, passing the branches of citrus blossoms that once were.

I land on a rigid peel,
the brightest orange in the colored pencil set.
There are indents in the skin,
depressions, each belonging to a different story,
this tangerine has been through a lot.
From a young bud,
to a ripe fruit,
it has grown.


Do not make the mistake of calling it an orange, or a clementine,
it is not.
It is a tangerine.
Peeling it almost sounds like a symphony.
Inch by inch, the orchestral rhythm plays off,
until you are slicing it, accidentally rupturing its walls,
in that moment, it sounds like a little boy, who doesn’t quite understand why it’s encouraged to chew with your mouth closed.

A tangerine,
each segment of it looks like half a pair of healthy lungs,
pure, and fresh.
It is a surprise when you bite into it.
Realize, the prettiest things are not always the sweetest,
they can be a little tangy, a little sour.
The taste bouncing off the inside of your mouth like it is a trampoline.
Realize, it is a tangerine;
**from a young bud,
to a ripe fruit,
it has grown.
This was actually a school assignment ****
(1.22.17)
Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root,
Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,

Set in the window, bringing memories
Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies

My eyes grew dim, and I could no more gaze;
A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways,
I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.
Ranjini Malhotra Dec 2014
You asked the color of my dreams.
In sleep, my eyes have sought
The inky black of raven lashes.
Starry nights and sooty ashes.
Prussian blue of fading violets
Indigo of clouds and silence
Beryl skies and turquoise seas
Blue-green waters of the deep
Peacock feathers of emerald green
Mossy dells of faery queens
Fields of wheat and brilliant suns
Amber gold in mid-autumns
Coral reefs and salmon streams
Marmalade and tangerines
Auburn sunsets, titian lips
Hennaed hands and fingertips
Blushing brides and rosy cheeks
Pink hued walls and white topped peaks
Silver moons and crystal nights
Downy geese in graceful flight
Ask not the color of my dreams
The question is not whole;
Deep within my rainbow’d sleep
Lies the color of my soul.
one day a man who lived across a vast ocean asked me the color of my dreams and I sent him this in reply.
ponny jo Jun 2014
You are words I do not know,
From worlds within and far below,
With eyes required that do not grow,
Comprised of lights that do not show.

You hear and heed not,
In tow I go,
You speak and breathe not,
hope though, I stow.

This ground you tread not,
I still search low,
Your vapors perfume not,
For me on winds they flow,
I know.
Jack Oct 2014
I’m thinking of a place
With a monkey and a sled
A brand new jar of cottage cheese
Just resting on the bed
An envelope with butterflies
Upon the stamp it wears
And a basement sitting at the top
Of someone else’s stairs
~
A very special place
Where the beach is at your door
And multicolored tangerines
Will help you mop the floor
A casserole with tuna
In a bowl of cocoa beans
Where a question is an answer
Or at least that’s what it seems
~
A place where you will notice
That the sun it always shines
And toaster ovens tick away
Below the shuttered blinds
Jeopardy is on the tube
Wherever you may go
Antiques shuffle down the street
As every road will show
~
When you are in this special place
A trolley will say hi
A weeping willow sings a song
As it forgets to cry
Hibiscus on the front porch
Welcome all who do drop in
The price it has been lowered
As the morning comes again
~
You’ll see while in this special place
A necklace on a whale
And smiles at the dollar store
They always are on sale
A seagull and a crescent moon
Now share the skies above
But most of all while in this place
You’ll see that you are loved
~
You will learn this special place
It lives within my heart
To offer you a haven
When we find we are apart
A sanctuary nestled deep
That forever will be true
For here within this special place
I always will love you
we gathered in a lighted tower
of a lower Manhattan promontory
seminarians listen
to discursive ramblings
of bank industry experts
on the finer points of
Basel II
Tier Three
op risk

towards a better better
best practice
we pique our ears to hear
the critical
dispassionate annunciations
of expert expertise

a panel of practitioners
a panoply of knowledge
networking opportunities
and hands on insight
we are granted
institutional affirmation
nesting warmly
in a corporate cocoon
13 flights up
off West Street
10 bucks a seat
30 for non-members

we settle
in soulless white rooms
divided by long
horizontal wall panels
bleached of all humanity
visualizing phantasmagoric vistas
of changing regulatory landscapes
in strait backed chairs
resembling the blanco armor acrylics
of Imperial Stormtroopers

on watch for Black Swans
the panel's moderator incants
if one appears
we told you so
if one fails to materialize
risk managers
have earned their dear keep
seminarians chuckle

the dais backdrop
a massive SONY plasma screen
stares down seminarians
with ruminative bleakness.
no digital blips or power points
will convey any meaning
turn a clever phrase
sprout a statistic
paint a pretty picture,
just the plain spoken word
of highly credentialed
speakers with bios
many paragraphs long
confers license to speak

the screens blackness
a perfect counter point
to a rooms spare whiteness
and pedestrian furbishment
save a day glow Warhol Print
of the heroic MTV moon walker
and a predominant majority
of Far Eastern attendees

questions from the floor
drizzle the panel
tied tongues
use tight selective language
of lexiconic colloquialisms
speaking a queer vernacular
of erudite bombastic bunk

questions are mumbled
with increasingly greater acuity
dancing around bank meltdowns
and global economic catastrophes
with a self anointed smug absolution
and poignant failure to acknowledge
a failures paternity
pink elephants and 800 pound gorillas
remain dance hall wallflowers


to be sure language evolves
the moderator instructs
as regulatory guidelines converge
to address market flux.
Is everyone comfortable with
the current acronyms
we devised
to describe our
present situation
best laid plans
and timely initiatives
to safeguard capital adequacy
and institutional solvency
right here in our own
little tower of Babel?

My tie is too tight
to clear my throat
I can't ask my question
of apples to apples
dust to dust
and oranges to tangerines
while the halting speech of others
is broken up
by timely ring tones
from Jeopardy
and Gene Autry's
Don't Fence Me In

every once in awhile
a chuckle is raised
we laugh about the score
in this inside baseball game
of capital requirements
regulatory Nexis
and smart *** traders
plying bold arbitrage strategies
blowing us back to Basel I
after the global bank implosion
oh the hilarity
of credit crises and crashes
the jokes on us
the joke-sters R US

some begin to
urgently finger blackberries
sending confident commands
to be dutifully carried out
by young back office minions
impatiently waiting
hanging on every word
of unintelligible texts
eagerly biding time
to take
the solid senders warm seat
in these cold blanched rooms

Closing the seminar
the moderator's summation
offered the thought
that her fondest hope remains
scenario analysis,
stress testing
and the new
emerging paradigms
will become
embedded in
risk management
best practices
and that fewer regulators
will be needed to regulate
and we will continue
to be employed
(nervous chuckles)
clapping
reception for networking
to follow
questions
and
cocktails
in the next room

I move quickly
to fill my plate with brie
English tea crackers
and a smoky tangy cheese.
A fellow seminarian
approaches me.
He smiles and asks,
Whats your name?
What do you do?
I tell him
and ask the same.
He says he is 50
and unemployed.
He sounds unsure
and frightened.
I bite into a chunk
of exotic cheese.
******* crumbs fall
onto the lapel
of my freshly pressed
pinstripe suit.

Music Selection:
Miles Davis
Red China Blues

jbm
NYC
03/03/09
Meri F Clason Jan 2014
it begins crisper than november,
still, chilly, ice blue sky,
then warm, then cold, then crazy frigid,
wind cat-yowling,
and on the windows,
frost feathers that do not melt all day.

the solstice sun creeps warily
across the south horizon,
glancing brilliant off frost-sheathed trees,
so cold the very air is frozen--
sparkling ice crystals float rainbow colored
like dizziness before my eyes.

Christmas eve starts grey and windy--
rain at two and snow at three--
the huge flakes my mom called "horsebirds".
And just at sunset, a patch of blue,
a sky tunnel for those tiny reindeer.

Christmas morning, four together,
first time in years we all are here:
Best-Beloved, sad eyed lady,
   maker of donuts and hi-test coffee,
      sings a bit, weeps, smiles;
the Exile returns, hoodied, shy smiling,
   coffee in hands, and heart full of plans;
and Carborundum Starshine bursts in the door,
   in corduroy & goofy hat,
     Paul Bunyan beard & glitter cheeks;
and  i
   am here.
Talk and cookies, hugs and pictures,
   Merry merry, the peace-pipe passed,
      carols on the radio,
the scents of spruce and tangerines.

the "week between" a roller coaster,
t-shirts one day, parkas the next,
wind that moans like Marley's ghost,
and snow tornados  on the road.

new year's eve and big soft snowflakes,
sparkling lights and laughing shouts--
on the street, drunken kisses and auld lang syne--

but not for me, i listen only;
there's work tomorrow, quick to bed,
a brief flight,
   all-night jazz    
     and sleep.

time tomorrow to begin again.

(1-1-14)
cheryl love Oct 2013
Colours are never in short supply
Nature’s wonder and is absolutely free.
From a show stopping azure and apricot sky
To a burgundy and emerald sea.
A walk in the woods on a crisp Autumn day
The bluebells in a mauve and lavender wood.
Rich red colours of a raspberry sorbet
Making our mouth water the way it should.
Lemons and tangerines dripping in a Spanish field
Blue Sapphires, topaz and amber in the sunlight
Tropical fish;  their iridescence revealed
Once trapped in the opaque frothy white.
Colours are awash in my mind
Flooding my head
Bringing life like a sharp citrus rind
Making me blush like a pink rose bed.
howard brace Apr 2011
The Christmas tree resplendent, decked in magnificence
where peeping out from underneath, bought with benevolence
were gifts, keeping occupied, excited little fingers
the best so far, a wind up car, the worst, two woolly jumpers.

The aroma from the kitchen, kept wafting through the door
with greedy tum' a-rumbling, ( there's more presents to explore )
the table set in splendour, upon that festive day
the brilliance of the cutlery, displayed in bright array.

Crispy roast potatoes, Christmas ******* by each plate
brussel sprouts and chestnuts, ( our dinner guests were late )
roast pork and juicy crack-a-ling, fresh stewing apple sauce
sage and onion stuffing *****, were all for our main course.

Unwrapped and sat a-steaming, and crowned with holly leaves
Christmas pud' and brandy sauce, stared at with disbelief,
tangerines and nuts to shell, dried fruit and pre-****** dates
and then... as a special treat, dark chocolate 'After Eights'.

Much later still, before bedtime, clothes filled with corpulence
my little belt let out a notch, to ease circumference
and then to bed, much over fed, with dreams of clockwork toys
of Boxing day, of games to play, of Christmas filled with joy.*

...   ...   ...

'trademark'
sunprincess Aug 2018
A poet's dream isn't like any others
Poets dream of translucent colors
Colors of a summer sunset,
Palest pinks, slivers of purple
and tangerines

Poets dream of arising with a phoenix
And flying far beyond tomorrow
Beyond space's emptiness,
Beyond a storm blue horizon,
Beyond infinity

Poet's dream of love immeasurable
Poets laugh a genuine laugh,
Poets cry a genuine tear
A poet's dream born of passion
Born of inspiration

Poets carry dreams in their heart
Dreams of love, dreams of life
Dreams lasting a lifetime
Dreams even of a forgotten star
Dreams carry a poet far
Moe May 2013
I’ve felt lost
Like tangerines being pushed into the
Discotheque of animosity slowly murdering each other’s nebula with
Arms crossed over and eyes blazing joints among the durable and dangerous
Architectures where the faculties of the skull
No longer admit the worms of the senses
How much time may be disjointed while everyone
Takes to their wondering sky
The glass floor the rock beaten path
The somber shadow of neglect justifies
My hiding from the world somewhere
I shatter into a billion pieces and slowly the collapse remembers how it once
Felt the ugly ball of lights thrusting each beam into my skin
A metallic taste in my mouth
The groovy red liquid that makes life dependable as painted laughs
Migrate to the other side of dawn
No one hopes for anything
Let it all disintegrate into the coming rainfall
Gathering in small odd shaped holes all over the cities belly
Barbwire disguises melancholy gasps of breath
I’ve seen you in those hours where anything can happen
And it does
No longer waiting at the long table
No response no self doubt
My particles coagulate in my throat
The simple thought disappears
A night of unrest turns your skin inside out as
The violence escalates into silent picture mode
Only thirst recovering from three days of religion
And no explanation is needed
I know when all those beautiful sad laughs you send out on every
Other month finally arrive I’ll be ready to open my eyes
Hold my hands out and receive you in full
Is this your spirit?
Or the glare coming off the street lamps
Just close the door
And lose all memory of me
Zelda Jun 2023
We kept waiting...

Exhausted
Another treatment, another doctor, another realization
More medication, more promises, there is no solution
You still can't shed your scales, your scars, your skin
No more pain

...guess I was hoping...

I don't want to be drunk while I'm loving you
I'll lose myself when I lose you
Twenty thousand leagues within
the city of Angels that was supposed to save you

...but in the end...

We are bathed
In golden rays
And my fingertips heal the shadows on your face
We'll share tangerines and the rest of these drowsy days
In white rooms where weathered vinyl tiles echo like a knife on a bottle

...there was nothing left to do...

I pour my love over your grave
And I wait for the wind to rise
I alway thought my soul was a crystal to be shattered
But it's dust to be scattered throughout the cosmos
Don't wait for me
I sit with the mourning waiting for the morning
To rise for a new day
But it never comes
It's just another day

...my faith has fallen...

What a beautiful age you were
Doug Potter Jan 2017
From a straight back wooden chair, I see
a cyan-blue ceramic bowl filled with
tangerines next to a desktop radio
tuned to NPR &

out the kitchen bay window
birds bicker over seeds
overflowing a feeder,
& a raccoon scours
the earth below --

I keep in mind the fact
all of these things will
be absent from my
sight one
day.

— The End —