"tangles" poems
.
*1
Wet welling from earth
Deep valleys, hills, sweating *******
I plunge into her
2
We are lost at sea
In moonless night our soft cries
Curled waves drowning us
3
Above her in bed
Little breaths lifting our bodies
Eyes, fingers, dreaming
4
Her green eyes are set
Jewels from sargasso seas
My ghost ship is wrecked
5
Her long hair tangles
No struggle in rising— then
We are rapt in bed
6
Her eyes blinding me
Milky way of her body
There is a heaven
7
In forest we taste
Each other in evergreens
Hot dews on the moss
8
Blissful time kissing
My bare thighs sink into hers
Running sands so quick
9
As olive or grape
So shed, paired souls are threshed
Out of their bodies
10
Hummingbirds share truths
Nature sounds with all sweetness
Bee in the flower
11
Always in a field
Wild flowers— a bunch to pick
Herself a bouquet
12
In the park we walk
Flocks of white birds taking flight
Two hearts light as air
13
We kissed under moon
Pox of stars grew flowering
Nightshade of her lips
14
She took me to bed
Skinned in bliss— was reborn, lost
In her satin folds*
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 9:54 PM UTC
Kudos to Kaepernick.
I just cannot drown all my beliefs and ideas, even if it contradicts my flesh and soul. When I heard that not standing up to the tune; that has always succeeded on sweeping all of the messes underneath the sad reality, to be deemed as subversive, I know that Rosa would definitely clench onto the seat tighter than ever.
Kneel, my friend, kneel.
To drag our body out there, all over the precious hills and fields, while acting as if the scale has always been set fairly beneath you all this time, will hurt you more than myself. How can a mere matter of things decide our future, our destiny? We shall shape our fate, you shall shape your own fate, and to be judged on the perception biasedly built in the name of order for thousands of years, is a situation that should not be endured by anyone or anything in a tiny dot within this vast universe.
Kneel, my friend, kneel.
And for that, I cannot stand proudly and profess my love to you as of now, even though I will always wear my heart on my sleeve for you to see. To be cheated, to be manipulated, to be deemed as surplus, by those at the tip of the plateau, that cunningly asked us to forget all the tangles and wrangles for the love of this sacred land, while unashamedly distribute everything off the land, off the ocean amongst them, is the last thing that we should allow to happen. I am one of those people that are not able to put on the mask on top of our meant-to-be honest faces, to say hail to the thief is worse than the eternal grief. I have never dreamed of burying the hatchet with them, not even for a second and if I ever do it, I shall be condemned and dismissed for forgetting the roots, the fons et origo of mine. To love you does not mean to stand still to the soulless melodies, to love you does not mean to bow down to the meaningless piece of cloth that has overseen countless infiltration and bombing over the years.
Kneel, my friend, kneel.
To love you is to fight for the rights of many, by any means, even by not standing up. When black is no longer the symbol of miserable, filth and calamity, we shall then breath with ease, stand on our feet and fully embrace the real meaning behind all those majestic words.
Kudos to Kaepernick.
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 10:09 PM UTC
Us, lost in springtime . . .
All the twinings of our hair,
. . . Tangles in meadow.
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 6:14 PM UTC
Who is she? I do not know.
Inhuman. She tangles my mind like no other.
One look, she glances over your soul
With her pale hues and feline eyes,
I have been baffled with her tight grasp.
Celestial. Confusing. Crafty. Cold.
That she is,
She has casted a spell on me,
That can only be broken by her.
Who is she?
Puzzled. I have been,
A witch? Could it be?
Her voice is melodiously venomous,
I have been mesmerized,
She has clung to my soul.
A distinguished walk,
The childlike enthusiasm,
An enigmatic character,
Her signals are vague,
She is full of anonymity.
Marked with beauty, a mask hides her personality
The possessor of the key to my heart,
She is a mystery.
Dec 26, 2014
Dec 26, 2014 at 2:48 PM UTC
The way he looks at her
and she looks at him
makes love look so
effortless.
He doesn’t even notice
how he is leaning in –
towards her. And how her arm is
intertwined
around his so tightly;
with such a devoted glint of comfort
and familiarity.
I hope you're on the same train.
Making the aftermath
of falling easy, the complexity simply
luminescent.
Almost allowing me to feel light.
My heart had its fair share of
lightness, brightness – heavy now but
the smiles, the laughter;
It makes me feel as if
perhaps
that is what I yearn for in The End.
But will I ever find happiness if I'm overflowing with joy?
Because the
Melancholy
of a platform sliding out-of-mind,
with You standing there debating the
tangles in your shoelaces
warms up my equally tangled,
Masochistic
heart. Because that is not granted for me (us).
Not the handholding
nor the scent of your hair
when it’s 5 a.m. and your arms
are knotted around my waist and we
waste the day, the days, days in my bed.
Oh, yes (please).
No. I can't get that.
I remind myself:
"I don't need that."
I step onto the platform.
I mind the gap.
I dare do much
But I cannot dare to
trip, stumble,
and fall.
For You. (I already have.)
Feb 27, 2017
Feb 27, 2017 at 8:59 PM UTC
I. Neptune’s Theater
A rock spins through the universal tumbler
and its warm blue pools calcify
as turquoise Neptune in his cloudy blue bath bath
builds a lace castle with his fingertips
Sculpts a submerged eden of crimson and emerald
where painted parrots chat up cardinals
butterfly and angel fry sway with wave pulse
and foliated coral fingers beckon from arched windows.
Neptune’s children are flat and bright, spined and notched
free yet entangled in lace mesh ecosystem
beneath an array of bioluminescent stars
as a gangly pretender watches and blows bubbles.
II. Sapien Siege
The hot acidic hand of death grasps
the mesh rends and tangles
the ecosystem shattered
reef’s loosed children scream beneath planet’s stars.
Butterflies impaled
cyanide-swooning damsels
mesh-tangled angels hauled heavenward
coral to potash, corpses to coal.
The pretender to the throne blinks
rubs blurry lenses,
kicks plastic fins
and moves on to the next show
Unseeing and unaware
of the luminous filament in his wake.
Self-appointed divinity,
deus ex machina.
*******************************************************************************************
Ann says: All of the animal and human characters in this poem (except Neptune and The Pretender) are named after coral reef fish. Coral reefs, one of the most diverse ecosystems, are expected to be largely extinct within one human generation. Deus ex machina is Latin for “God from the machine.”
Copyright 2013 by Ann Marcaida.
Jan 23, 2013
Jan 23, 2013 at 3:43 PM UTC
.
1
Wet welling from earth
Deep valleys, hills, sweating *******
I plung into her
2
We are lost at sea
In moonless night our soft cries
Curled waves drowning us
3
Above her in bed
Little breaths lifting our bodies
Eyes, fingers, dreaming
4
Her green eyes are set
Jewels from sargasso seas
My ghost ship is wrecked
5
Her long hair tangles
No struggle in rising— then
We are rapt in bed
6
Her eyes blinding me
Milky way of her body
There is a heaven
7
In forest we taste
Each other in evergreens
Hot dews on the moss
8
Blissful time kissing
My bare thighs sink into hers
Running sands so quick
9
As olive or grape
So shed, paired souls are threshed
Out of their bodies
10
Hummingbirds share truths
Nature sounds with all sweetness
Bee in the flower
11
Always in a field
Wild flowers— a bunch to pick
Herself a bouquet
12
In the park we walk
Flocks of white birds taking flight
Two hearts light as air
13
We kissed under moon
Pox of stars grew flowering
Nightshade of her lips
14
She took me to bed
Skinned in bliss— was reborn, lost
In her satin folds
.
Aug 15, 2021
Aug 15, 2021 at 12:53 AM UTC
raw ******* thumbs drawing open the canvas of cavities
hot stink, tangles of pink wrinkles, ground turkey and beef
pulse of the earth in the groan of the springs as the sequence of spirits inhabits a lopsided carpet of blood, cardiovascular, creation, crawling
pineapple sweat, ******* neck licking saliva stains, flesh slapping, teeth jousting, chins grinding
explosions, eruptions, screaming, biting, clutching the rim, apocalypse, APOCALYPSE, the guilty apocalypse
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 12:09 AM UTC
"And in a funny way, the shaving of my, uh, head has been a liberation from, uh, a lot of, uh, stupid vanities really. Uh, it has simplified everything for me, it has opened a lot of doors maybe." - Stephen Malkmus, Jo Jo's Jacket
the first layer of skin i shed
was the bra
rid of the foreign metal sculptor producing a deep rift between skin
my third eye, swallowing gazes
rid of my **** , my ***** , my rack
replaced with sacks of fat and nerve and milk ducts
hanging, existing, for no one else
not even myself
the second layer of skin was the painting of the face
the concealing and erasing of imperfections, the lines of laughter of sorrow of life
redirecting attention and importance to the bow and symmetry of the lip
no longer did i have to put myself on in the morning
i woke up as i was, as i needed to be,
bare and uninhibited
my skin now breathed, and for no one else
not even myself
and then i grew another layer of skin,
made of dank tangles to protect my age,
i stopped shaving the years i'd walked this earth, shedding my womanhood
the skin grew to my armpits, little tufts of sweaty, odorous mother nature dozing in a fleshy convex nest
and to my legs, were the tangles wrapped around my ankles
preventing the spreading of the legs for every life
for not every life wanted what was not tame
and what was not tame no longer wanted to be.
my body did not conform,
for it was not brought into this world to be consumed for the pleasure of others
it exists for no one else,
not even myself
and as i was engulfed in this hairy wonder of my own body
i shed the last layer,
the shaving of the head
my brain, my being breathed
porous and exposed
vulnerable to weather and whispers
but i was all at once naked and calm,
having finally peeled away the layers of ***** over-sexualization and constrained femininity that had molded this meat sack that serves me,
a bundle of circuitry and solution balancing and bobbing on the neck
for i exist for no one else,
only myself
Aug 17, 2018
Aug 17, 2018 at 10:48 AM UTC
A tree stands still just outside,
Cast by sunlight through glass windows,
A silhouette reflected on a white wall,
An amorphous imprint of the tree on the wall.
Much like my memories,
Reflected through thoughts,
The abstract outlines of a figure like undefined edges of the shadow,
The changing colors of the background merging into a haze,
The shadows of movement cast by light from unexplained sources,
Define the silhouette of my memory.
I touch the silhouette,
My hand meets the wall,
I cannot touch the tree at all,
Like my memories reflected through feelings,
The tickles from an embrace of leaves that gather and play,
The bits of laughter bouncing off branches, it fades
The comfort of a voice as it echoes upward lost in tangles of branches and twigs
The hurt and then the tears like sap running through a cut,
Are intangible memories of feelings, a silhouette.
The silhouette of the tree,
There is mystery, there is beauty,
A wind that blows,
The branches sway and the silhouette morphs,
Within loss, a freedom that dances and twirls the shadow,
Within anger, a passion runs wild like leaves slicing through a breeze,
Within pain, a compassion that gives and branches forth,
And within my memories,
From the silhouette, from the reflection,
I see reality as vibrant as the tree.
Jul 21, 2016
Jul 21, 2016 at 11:10 PM UTC
In the evenings
the deer would emerge
from the edge of the woods
stepping over the tumbledown stones
of walls left untended-
they'd leave tracks through the snow
in a wandering line that led to the last apple tree
in the field by Orchard Street.
I remember that now,
staring at this antler I've found
in the clearing between the cactus
and sun bleached stones.
The lines of the antler
flow into the fractures of my palm-
two thousand miles from snow,
and two thousand miles from
the blue evening glow
of a shivering world
glazed over by twilight…
And the deer-
magnificent, pawing the snow
searching for apples that had fallen below-
emboldened by the frozen sweetness of autumn.
They were graceful even in flight-
when cars with chains
jingling and crunching the ice
rounded the corner
down Orchard Street.
Today I've tracked over two thousand miles
in my own wandering line-
the lines of the antler
flow through the tangles and hollows of time.
Sometimes I stand in a clearing,
sometimes hidden by trees,
sometimes I scratch below the surface,
and I run- but, less gracefully...
There are walls I've left untended
and some I've crafted too well-
it is through forgotten tumbledown walls
that memories come-
I thank grace
it was into this clearing they fell.
Tom Spencer © 2017
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 6:55 PM UTC
The first time you hear
"Beauty is pain"
Is when your mother is brushing tangles
Out of your hair
You're too young to care
The next time
Is when you're getting your hair done
For an event
Bobby pins everywhere
And this time it sticks
Your legs sting
After you shave them
For the first time
But you remind yourself
Beauty is pain
And go on with your day
You remind yourself again
As you pluck hairs
From your eyebrows
It helps you somehow
Beauty is pain
Your stomach growls
You haven't eaten
Because you want to be skinny
You want to be pretty
Beauty is pain
Is all you hear
When you walk into surgery
To change your face
Beauty is pain
Lingers in the back of your mind
When your boyfriend hits you
For the first time
One day you look in the mirror
All you see is pain
You wonder how it ended up this way
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 2:19 PM UTC
Dog in a bush.
Dog lights a smoke.
Dog has long scraggly hair.
Dog sleeping on streets.
Dog scratching her face.
Dog picks at her skin.
Dog lights up again.
Dogs hair is in tangles and messy.
Dogs skin is ashy and broken out.
Dog cries at nights.
Dog wonders how to get her hands on the monster.
Dogs skin is becoming more flawed with every run up with the monster.
Dog hears wispers at night.
Dog still wanders ally ways.
Dog lets people do stuff with her in order to get in contact with the monster.
Sometimes the monster is laced with one of its friends.
The dog never really does pure stuff anymore.
Dog told herself she would never get addicted.
Dog is addicted to the monster.
Crank
Monster
Crystal ****
Oh yes!
Dog does ****
And dog loves her ****
Dog signed a contract with the monster the very first time it enter her system.
Dog has a life long relationship with ****
Dog ****** up.
Now her life is uncontrollable.
Dog isn't stupid.
The monster controlled her.
Dog was smart loving and sweet.
Monster was controlling addicting and very very
Very
Very
Veryyyyyyy
Persuasive.
Dog holds hands with the monster now.
May 3, 2016
May 3, 2016 at 11:30 AM UTC
What are fingertips but pulses and pauses?
A spinal sigh---a cradle to all existence?
The punchline of all sensory implications,
the culmination of our tangles and departures?
All flesh is ephemeral, soft to shards in hours;
Touch is but a ****** tendril in memoriam for desire.
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015 at 3:08 PM UTC
There's this burning desire, that's igniting my heart,
It tangles my throat, my stomach and rips himself out.
I call that flame passion, it's probably caged.
From all the venom that surrounds this horrid, ****** place.
I feel like a puppet, with short and tough strings
They want me to do what is right to their means.
All this makes me sick, may I please throw up?
This place was so beautiful, what could have gone wrong?
It isn't that hard, we've all been deceived,
By two hateful men, one who doesn't even belong here.
It's also our fault, we should have seen through
All the paraphernalia those two put up for you.
Now one of them's gone, the other won't die,
And we're left to this mess, with and *** to the ward.
This donkey isn't working, most of us saw it coming
All he's brought are tears, death and more problems.
This desire wants to fight, and overcome this all
We could use a little help so this will blow up.
For now all we have is prayer and love,
Let that desire resist and the light will show up.
Mar 13, 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 1:42 AM UTC
It's like this, and then there was total recall. Fast like a safety plan made wrong and then bouncing in and out all the way down the hall. Up through cable cars, Korean fast food market, wet fish, soupy street, concrete cracks filled with crab meat and **** heads. Just a square, a five block, two street, sideways quadrangle, beat of the Tenderloin, hour of the dove. Every one's dead on these loose ends. Hills of the back of her backside, skin of the back of her neck. Rapture is the grave of the sunset, memory is that thing that I said.
No one cans in carnivores, no one runs moves like a shepherd. Sunday, daft as candy, luck in the ways of the prophet. Canon of the blaze of every woman that died today. The sleep setting, the motorcycle bending the hollow, the ravines noisy interlude, up through the rough and the tangles, huddles in a six pack, three or four walking up the block to meet the rest of them.
The skin doesn't fit right, it wears wrong, the shoulders stiff, the masseuse excuses himself. Buckets of flowers hang from the ceiling like stripped cat christmas decorations in suburban mastermind serial killer resort town. Everyone is quiet because they gotta. They move their feet like they were hurrying death into a red volcano, like they were the errand of red from the top bell to the bottom of the town.
I sit on a roof top, baking in the noon day sun. Stripping sticks and stems off the side to sideways, just roasting away, laying, low in the afternoon light. I see a girl with her hands on her skirt, wobbling, scooting a priest card on a periwinkle terra-cotta. I move my head, turn it upside round to take a better look. No one counts to ten when they see me. The gangster that woke up isn't the gangster that went to sleep last night. My wickedness ended my words mean your bright decay. So I ride the pavement exhausted, burying my coughs in an L-shaped arm
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 12:32 PM UTC
Why do I struggle in bed?
I feel like my body wants to jump out of my skin.
Why do we think about things?
That makes our brain wants to jump out of our heads.
Lost in my thoughts, all of my patience and waiting
and waiting for you to come in.
I don’t want to be here, not even hell could create a cage that can hold all my sins.
Why do I struggle in bed?
By the way how my covers look, seems I was dancing instead.
All of these strings,
Abandoning me.
Tucked away, stored
Creating new ways they can trigger me.
Into thinking
I’m breaking
And yet create tangles inside of me.
Why do I struggle in bed?
Why must you make nightmares out of rawness and sweat?
Everynight I wake up, it’s like my body is soaked.
Drenched.
Why do I...why do I... keep having nightmares in bed?
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 4:21 AM UTC
winters day getting a tan in my yard
i can feel the ocean of the spring breeze
taste its intoxicating salt and sand on the air
feel its breathtaking beauty as the sea washes up on me
only a few hundred feet through that tangle of palms and
tangles of quick brush
lay wide open lush sands
and forever summers soft light
and the beautiful breaking waves
in staunch hand needed but the
deeply tanned smile on the old mans face
as he holds out a greeting and offer to run out to your skiff
but you'd rather swim
at last the days full face comes to bear
a hippie family roasts hot dogs in a pit fire
and you share some white wine
music plays from a transistor radio
that has seen better days
but this is the land of forever summer
and nothing can taint the smile you share
with your lover
nothing can touch the soul deep
expression of joys
Mar 15, 2014
Mar 15, 2014 at 2:23 PM UTC
As the warm days of summer give way to chill, and shadows grow longer as days shed their hours.
High winds and rain storms scrub the tired landscape down.
Colours are changing from rich green to gold, from yellow to red and orange to brown.
The grain has been gathered, wheat, barley and oats, cut and collected, sifted and sorted and put into store.
Grown by God, and by man with machine and by effort of hand.
Poppies and stalks now mark the spot, of the return for their labour. The wealth of the land.
Birds follow the tractor, rising and falling, swirling and soaring they move like a cloud.
The farmer is out and turning the stubble into the ground.
Rooks and crows, gulls and wood pigeons, starlings and magpies follow him round.
Hay long since mown is now bailed and in barns, or rolled up and bagged, ferments now in high silage towers.
The countryside has yielded reward for all Adam’s toil.
Work done in rhythm with the seasons, sowing, growing, reaping, ploughing and tilling the soil.
Gathering goodness, from garden, and greenhouse, carrots and courgettes, tomatoes in bunches.
Fresher than any you can get in the shops.
Picking the bounty gleaned from the hedgerow. Rosehips and cobnuts, damsons and hops.
Elder and sorrel, mushrooms and puffballs, sour green crab apples, and brambles in tangles.
Sloes that were missed by the late winter frost.
Not all are pleasant and some really can hurt you, pick only those that you know and trust.
Take full advantage of God’s generosity, share it with gladness, with thanks, there is plenty for all.
Sticky syrups and cider, wines, cordial and beer.
Pies, puddings, sorbets and ice creams, jam, jelly, and chutney and enough pickles to last into next year.
As the warm days of summer give way to chill, and shadows grow longer as days shed their hours.
High winds and rain storms scrub the tired landscape down.
Colours are changing from rich green to gold, from yellow to red and orange to brown.
Oct 23, 2011
Oct 23, 2011 at 3:16 PM UTC
You start your journey, the moment the world became your cradle
Experience the possibilities of many opportunities
The cards have yet to determine your precise future
Can't you hear the chuckling of amusement
Your bonds will create an sense of connection
The strings tangles when dealt with confusion
Are you able to turn zero into one
The dog following close behind whispering when you might fall
"Your dreams move you forward."
-Reverse-
That dog is no longer able to whisper guidance as it's truly free
Your dreams no longer blind your perspective
However you remain there, not moving
Unable to accomplish your desires but able to achieve success
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 12:21 AM UTC
Ruby red slippers, rich with passionate love
for you, dear state, as I search your land,
grazing the colors, the life, and the mystery
of weeds choking gravestones, tangling the dead.
But you, dear state, yourself is so gentle.
Kansas, you stretch to ****** my curls;
to stroke my tender cheek with a
flock of sunflowers, blooming vivid gold and
a mizzle of musicality, too high, too loud for me.
Your screams of country overwhelm me.
Why you, dear state, never treat us to
tangles of concrete nor mazes of glass?
Kansas, your heaven gives me migraine.
Aug 10, 2014
Aug 10, 2014 at 9:59 PM UTC
she’s blazing ease
young summer, things
are kinda difficult
when i don’t know how to drive
says he likes my body
and i don’t know how to feel
when i don’t see my body
the same way he does
odd serendipities
the sun stupefying, thick grass
tangles beneath our thighs
and our ceiling is the sky
adrift in a reverie
but it feels so strange
sunday uncanny
playing around with odd satisfaction
May 6, 2018
May 6, 2018 at 10:11 PM UTC
.
*1
Wet welling from earth
Deep valleys, hills, sweating *******
I plung into her
2
We are lost at sea
In moonless night our soft cries
Curled waves drowning us
3
Above her in bed
Little breaths lifting our bodies
Eyes, fingers, dreaming
4
Her green eyes are set
Jewels from sargasso seas
My ghost ship is wrecked
5
Her long hair tangles
No struggle in rising— then
We are rapt in bed
6
Her eyes blinding me
Milky way of her body
There is a heaven
7
In forest we taste
Each other in evergreens
Hot dews on the moss
8
Blissful time kissing
My bare thighs sink into hers
Running sands so quick
9
As olive or grape
So shed, paired souls are threshed
Out of their bodies
10
Hummingbirds share truths
Nature sounds with all sweetness
Bee in the flower
11
Always in a field
Wild flowers— a bunch to pick
Herself a bouquet
12
In the park we walk
Flocks of white birds taking flight
Two hearts light as air
13
We kissed under moon
Pox of stars grew flowering
Nightshade of her lips
14
She took me to bed
Skinned in bliss— was reborn, lost
In her satin folds*
.
Oct 14, 2017
Oct 14, 2017 at 1:01 AM UTC