"tarp" poems
The old man paints seashells
for all of the women he has loved.
He takes his husky for walks
along the beach, returning with
a bag of **** and a collection
of spirals and fans, still pregnant
with the whispers of the ocean.
By the window, he licks his brush
and steadies his nervous hands.
He will share a steak with the dog,
and wonder when the best company
became inanimate or at most; unspeaking.
He had long turned his back on Dylan
and Cohen, in favour of empty sound
and the rain hitting the tarp
in the garden. He recalls Diane
and the green of life in her poetry.
Louise, the blue of her moods and the sea.
Each woman had coloured his life
in hopeful hues, oh, and what a mess
he was in their absence.
(even the dog wouldn't sleep beside him)
The old man drew his last breath
when the silence became deafening.
When he realised he could not reclaim
memories through art, or through
the patient analysis of nature.
There was no shape or colour
that had not been created before.
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 5:18 PM UTC
I find comfort in being sarcastic, for it tricks my brain, and my feelings towards you. Like a black tarp, sarcasm covers my heart, and lets nothing sting. But that is not true. For this tarp is torn, my heart is sore, and I cant lie, to feel less blue.
Dec 22, 2015
Dec 22, 2015 at 3:51 AM UTC
Soothing, sensational,
elegant as the harp,
Semblance, integument,
covering of the tarp,
Ebullient, vivacious,
precision of the mind,
Vehement, appetent,
keen & one of a kind,
Perfervid, chocolate katydid,
desirable & luscious taste,
Delectable, ambrosial,
palatable & consumed with haste,
Sybaritic, voluptuous,
enticing to the senses,
Libidinous, hedonic,
enriched untightened hinges,
Efficacious, puissant,
robust delight to the eye,
Potent, consequential,
immeasurable symbol of the sky,
Pulchritudinous, gorgeous,
magnificent as the autumn sun,
Resplendent, vivid, lustrous
as a diamond-lithographed gun,
Sympathetic, affectionate,
condoling soul of a angel,
Altruistic, benignant,
warmhearted with no mangle,
Serenity, tranquility,
composure of divine peace,
Harmonious, amicable,
placid as the slow moving creek...
Jul 6, 2012
Jul 6, 2012 at 6:46 PM UTC
Houses sitting condemned, taking up the view
while the old guys sit sipping forties in forty degree
temperatures facing the wall so the wind doesn't burn
their faces too much in what could be called a modest December.
They turn their back to the guy hiding bags of rock
in his lips to avoid detection from the cameras posted
on both street corners. This place is set to a constant sneaking
violin pluck. We are all capers in a burgle commune.
I hung up a tarp today so the stray cats can hide from the wind.
In one stanza, January has set in and it is bitter to the bone.
We summoned the name of old man winter from repetition and
no one man may hold that burden. The ***** only warms their blood.
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 4:33 AM UTC
*So many spiderwebs
each with individual suction cups
******* blood and injecting poison....
a collapse lung....
withered and black....
festering in the hot sun
kissing silver scalpels
and *********** yellow pus
into crunchy white tarp....
capsules that release toxins
into a parched mouth
spiderwebs.... make love to my arm*
Jan 3, 2016
Jan 3, 2016 at 3:03 PM UTC
You were laying in the backyard on your lawn,
And you said we had done too much MDMA so
We might as well make it a cocktail and do some K.
And as we did it off the log pile under the tree
Your nose started to bleed,
Because earlier we had done coke.
We were such dumb kids,
It is even amazing that we were still alive.
And as we ran inside to make ice cream sundaes
I tripped over my own feet,
And then decided to make out with grass,
Because I fell in love with nature.
And we found a tarp,
And some silver and purple and black and yellow paint.
And we decided to get naked and become human paintings.
And it didn't matter that I was engaged because you are gayer than Tim Gun.
And I made a pond on your back,
With fish swimming up the river of your legs.
And we took pictures
And cried because we were the most beautiful models.
You decided you were superman and tried to climb the wood pile.
You fell so gracefully,
It was like you were a moving piece of art.
I gave you stitches and accidentally sewed a heart into your leg,
You did not mind.
You told me it was the only heart you had right now.
So I told you that scared me,
That it made me want to die
And I took the scissors and cut my leg.
But you took it away
And I made out with the grass again.
Simple is as simple does,
I am here now because because.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 11:37 PM UTC
It's sunshine and beaches, dolphins and sea shells
That keep me a long way from home
Its tequila and breezes blow'n cross this ol tarp
that keeps me from feeling alone
It's women, bad traffic and fresh broken hearts
That keep pushing me further away
But the Baja Cali playas
With 5 peso fish tacos
Quietly beg me to stay
(c) 2010 CJG
Oct 2, 2012
Oct 2, 2012 at 11:26 PM UTC
On an empty street, I once walked by a playground,
Abandoned in the night by the morning's children,
In silence, I can still hear the echoes of useless banter and spontaneous laughter.
Now dormant, redundant in the memory,
It woed and cried in the winter's chill,
This playground on an empty street could not forget the warmth of the sun under the tarp of moonlight.
Feb 18, 2019
Feb 18, 2019 at 3:46 PM UTC
*A Farewell.
Part One.*
Sun nearly angry with summer.
Silence echoes itself under
The dome of blue. Clouds so
Elaborate you'd think they were
Animated;
Giant. Few. Above the collapsed
Barn wall, where shreds of tarp
Dance in slow motion, I see crows
The size of falcons glide; high; barely
Visible.
After the storm settles in your little
Glass, you see how well the pieces
Fit anew. Two crows apart.
I have been given so much sky.
I will fly in it.
Jul 21, 2014
Jul 21, 2014 at 9:35 AM UTC
The body was quickly covered by a black sheet, but Tommy had still seen it, and the image seemed to stick to his eyes like a melted Popsicle. He did not feel sad, or angry, or even curious – Tommy felt nothing at all except wonder at the fact that you could exist one moment, and not the next.
“Hey there,” said the tall man in blue. He wore a badge on his shirt that said ‘police’.
“Hi,” said Tommy, nervously looking up at the man. He felt as though he should not have been looking at the body, as though it were forbidden.
“What’s your name, son?”
“My name is Tommy and I live down the street,” he said, the words spilling out of his mouth. He felt that he needed to explain himself. “I was just riding my bike when...”
“Did you see what was under that tarp?” the man asked, pointing at the blanket. The body had since disappeared, but Tommy knew that the body had just been taken away so others wouldn’t see. Tommy didn’t respond, but the officer nodded.
“Do you want to see something cool?” said the policeman, and Tommy nodded once more.
The policeman walked over to his car and dipped inside, ducking his head under the ledge of the door frame. He looked at Tommy and smiled, clicked a few buttons, and then suddenly there were bright colours, not unlike the colours Tommy had seen at carnivals.
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 10:37 AM UTC
I’m small enough to cry for those with frozen teardrops
who can’t get up off the side of the road to die in peace
So I'll abide in this polar freezing cold silent deliverance
where a hollow warmth hides the tears that aren't for
cryin’ alone
There’s a bitter arctic wind blows right through the tree trunks
there’s no shelter leaning on the dream of the leeward other side
This winter isolation grasps on impatient pieces of frayed light
like hope a mustard sized seed of shine may move venerable
mountain peaks
Who ever knows how long salvation lasts ? They said he died
sleeping on a cardboard comforter and blue plastic tarp duvet;
a holey old coat stained with all what went wrong in life …
And .., I feel a sickening guilt of a warming fire's thickening
smoke
The chimney’s icicles drip an angel’s frozen teardrops
But .., I can’t find no heaven in this big ol’ world ...
wild is the wind ... January 4th, 2017
Jan 4, 2017
Jan 4, 2017 at 11:10 AM UTC
(I)
So concretey, these jungles
but not like this
Glass shards shoot up 45 stories
only to have tarp covered markets
populated by shouters
Oh, Powerpuff Girls on backpacks
one green
one purple
one pink
And 10 dollar Gucci bags
these people have it made
Four blocks from the world stock exchange
these people have it made
(II)
You ain't had won ton noodle soup
Or chicken feet
Or shrimp stuffed eggplant
Or food from Chinese franchise Pizza Huts
which happens to be an escargot joint
What does that say about US?
hopefully not much
(III)
Red taxis between every other car
Double decker busses
more common than city pigeons
Still the city finds time for trees
whiskery ents rising out of
ancient volcanic soil
You would think it's a city full of sin
Seven million souls, what-
that's higher than I can count
It's not
Everyone here is cute and wrinkly
Confucian
except for the young
These people have it made
(IV)
In this city, you're expected to stay
home with mom and dad
As they get cute and wrinkly
you're to return the love
Confucian
these people have it made
11 seated dinners
these people have it made
(V)
Here in this ancient city
the gravestones dot the hills
coat the hills
And then the cremation jars bury the hills
(yes, they're dead)
cough
Here's how a Chinese name is structured:
[family name] [given name]
Confucianism
and then these names fade too
These people have it made
but it's alright.
Dec 9, 2013
Dec 9, 2013 at 8:18 AM UTC
Rainwalking
black umbrella, dark as the sky,
over head clouds moving slowly by,
dropping misty curtains as they go,
unveiling what my four eyes see
ahead, beyond the spots.
sidewalk walking,
glass topped bus stop,
straight ahead and slightly left,
blue sky tarp,
covers two shopping carts,
mirrored squares decorate the front,
hiding more belongings,
bust show your expression
if you dare look, yourself,
in the eye as you are judging him,
homeless, and using,
a corner of a bus stop as a storage depot,
temporary,
until a complaint, brings the transit police,
and a pickup to steal it all away,
oh and they brought their tazer, "just in case..."
"next stop, 94A and King George Boulevard,
Surrey Memorial Hospital"
©DWE012014
Jan 7, 2014
Jan 7, 2014 at 10:38 PM UTC
Now:
The EMTs respond.
A Jane Doe is found dead.
Beneath the I-90 overpass.
They lift her
Zip her into a bag,
And transport her to the morgue.
They can’t feel sad.
Today:
The few wispy strands of hair that remain
Dangle haphazardly from her scabby head
Jagged misshapen teeth protrude from dry cracked lips
betraying breath that stinks of infection and decomposition
Vermin gnaw on exposed flesh while parasites feast within.
Her eyes dim as her body putrifies.
Last Week:
Mission workers prop her up against the wobbly chain link fence
A thin blanket is wrapped around her bony shoulders and
Her blue-tarp awning is adjusted
She would be less wet and cold.
For a night.
They leave a cheese sandwich and chicken noodle soup.
The rats eat most of it.
She wouldn’t have kept it down anyway.
Last Month:
The shelter is scary and dangerous.
She couldn’t sleep without nightmares and her screaming disrupted other ‘guests’.
The shelter workers apologize and put her out at 2:19 AM.
She finds a spot between two dumpsters.
It reeks of **** but is unoccupied.
Sometime in the dark she is ***** and beaten by two crackheads.
The crime is unreported.
Last Year:
The fluorescent lights sting her eyes.
The antiseptic smell burns her nose.
The noise and chaos that surround her make her dizzy and disoriented.
She fights hard to get away but is restrained by strong hands – then leather straps.
A painful jab in her arm and then nothing.
Days or weeks later she emerges in a haze.
Kindly eyes greet her.
They stay with her.
They accompany her to the shelter.
They tell her to come back for follow-on care.
She never sees them again.
Before:
The divorce rips her heart in two.
She has nothing.
She is nothing.
Her world crumbles beneath her and she crumbles with it.
Where would she go?
What would she do?
Everything has become so wrong.
Once Upon a Time:
She was happy. Joyful.
Filled with life and hope.
He was smart, funny, successful.
Together they were magical.
Perfect.
May 9, 2017
May 9, 2017 at 3:21 PM UTC
The sands of El Dorado
Lash my tongue under tarp;
Wishes born something golden,
Fried eggs under beds
And homes, abodes in progress,
One peso at a time –
A tale and tear with every grain,
An allowance and granted only
Broken window.
The ragged lump of pillow
Where I now taste time,
Reeks of mescal with my
One white elbow
Tapping one bronze elbow;
Distant, under woven wanderings
And tattered dreams of parents
Wishing well – come subtle guilt,
Whilst the roofs of a prior Tibet
Tap atop my tether.
And while I ponder what strums –
Atriums, tempest and tubular,
I also reckon in what it means to be
Held and held alike
So that I can protect
And protect alike;
She’s waiting for me in “before”
And in Mexico, in the “now,”
So much sooner the past.
So to sooner, broken the future.
And so mothers will cry in kitchens,
Others laugh come the next fool
And yet others, abandon others
So that soon, recklessly soon, my feet
Make a wonderful twist toward away;
But at least I’d had this sunset –
Something to ride off into like the
Liquid dreams off a furrowed brow
And at least we’d had “we” on more time.
Just one more time.
Jul 13, 2016
Jul 13, 2016 at 11:46 PM UTC
the air bites at my nose
like an icy mosquito,
and raindrops plop onto
the roof and the giant
green, car-shaped tarp.
beads adorn the pointed
branches of the conifer
like tiny, fleeting noses;
they leap from their
makeshift perches into
the frosty darkness
of the garden below,
joining their brethren,
already pooling together.
Mar 31, 2012
Mar 31, 2012 at 2:25 AM UTC
I see my timeline on this site:
2014
From my older brother's diagnosis
to the death of my grandmother
2015
Falling in love with you
My brother disappearing
2017
To the breaking of trust in exchange of fluids
Never receiving what the law calls justice
2018
Realizing you were never my first love
Merely my first attachment
But I never wrote about finding my brother
dead
in the woods near the main road
white bones in a tent
not knowing who it was
only realizing after the police left my mother crying
for him
dying there alone in the woods so close to home
I cry for him
dying there alone.
Hidden by the wilderness
rotting away inside the plastic tarp.
I cried for him
and wrote for you.
This timeline is my reminder
holding my guilty conscience accountable.
Dec 28, 2022
Dec 28, 2022 at 8:59 AM UTC
listening to Nirvana's "Something in the Way"
and i am -now- just realizing how ******* good this song is.
i mean, the mood cuts right to the bone:
*underneath the bridge
tarp has sprung a leak
and the animals I've trapped
have all become my pets
and I'm living off of grass
and the drippings from the ceiiiilinggg
it's ok to eat fish 'cause they don't have any feeeeeelingsssssss
something in the way
mmmmmmmm
something in the way (yeah)
mmmmmmmhmmm*
it's jus kurt on the geetar alone till the chorus, doing a simple chord,
and, thing is, he isn't so much singing as he is speaking in loose meter;
and it's almost as if between the words he is saying,
".. well how the **** could song survive this thing i am talking about
yuhknow? i am giving you my guts."
you finally get some lilt and rhyme that might be considered song
toward the end of the verse, but this is immediately undercut with,
of all things,
given what preceded it,
a joke ---- it's okay to eat fish 'cause they don't have any feelings
holyfuckingshitdoesthiscapturetheabsurdityofthings
and i don't mean a joke as in hahafunny but rather
what. else. can. i. do. but laugh, else i'll cry; and I can't cry anymore 'cause
i'm all outta tears. why??
because this abyss
called "existence" - that history, heh, tells us is imbued
with rational purpose or intent, or whatever -
bats its pretty little eyes at me like a big fuckyou..
i think
kurt is, suggesting, here:
laugh back.
it's like Camus' Sisyphus:
i
dare
you
to roll that same rock called "life" up the same hill everyday all day
and summon (somehow) a smile,
------ or at least a s m i R k
and watch as beauty bolts through your dead fecund heart
removing that
thing
in your way
Jan 14, 2016
Jan 14, 2016 at 10:00 PM UTC
Hang in there,
My little bacon back baby
sweating from head to toe.
Those little piggies
are squirming in their straps
spilling their veins across the tarp.
Become the smoke
let you being take it in.
Swinging back and forth, intently
in a room lit so dim
willing yourself awake
briefly, paralyzed by the grin.
"We're having steak tonight boys
along with hawks and ribs.
The main course
tonight
is a helping of long pig."
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 1:40 PM UTC
I'm not a monster
But my teeth are sharp
And I've got a tendency to come out after dark
I found the old me wrapped up in a tarp
Half of me in my dads backyard and the other half in my mom's shopping cart
I asked for nastolgia and all I got was growing pains
It's been another year and my rage remains the same
Growing older and growing with me
She doesn't want to separate
Finding a home inside my veins
And I still remember the way it felt to jump into your arms
Wrapped in security I could never be harmed
The security you provided was never protection
I've met several versions of the same person
I always thought he loved me but he never had
And Over and over again I wonder who he is
Till I look into your eyes and
I want to seek comfort
I want to find peace
But when I look at your eyes I see every man I've come to meet.
You were suppose to protect me
I was your little girl
It was our world and you always kept me safe,
But I didn't know that keeping me safe meant from you, or all the other yous out there that exist.
The way you loved my mother
Taught me everything a man would do.
It was not a pretty love story either if you needed a clue.
I went to the infermery, the feelings you stick me with make me so sick only for the doctor to tell me
I've been diagnosed with homesickness from a home that was never real
But a place i Long and miss.
I've tried to read between the lines of who I was and who you wanted me to be
But I couldnt ever tell
I couldn't see what you wanted from me.
Now when I look into the mirror
And I'm reminded of who you are
I take a deep breath just to find we have the same scars
I wonder, am I going to be
Ignorant and violent and distant one day too
Or will I find all the good parts of you in me and show you who you could have been
If you didn't fall into the madness your grandfather perpetuated and your mother continued.
I don't want to be like you
At least the you, you are the one you became
But I am in every way
Maybe one day on your death bed you will finally tell me you are proud
But I know your pride eats at you and seeks for the parts of me that are apart of you
So I will burn down everything you've created me to be with gasoline
And I will rebuild each part of me with new parts of who I want to be.
Parts of me that will still feel the darkness
Parts of me who feel rage
Part of that little girl who still wants her father to be engaged enough to see her for who she is.
No matter who I become, I cannot hide that you will always be Ingrained into me.
One day you will find, you could have been who I have became all along.
And if I could go back in a time machine to change it for us
I would
To love you as a child
Just as they should
Just like you deserved
Just like I deserved.
Feb 19, 2025
Feb 19, 2025 at 12:25 PM UTC
What does wind think of the encampment on North 7th
as it moves under the overpass, the bright blue nylon riffling,
work shirts on a rope, the entry flap breathing,
an old man’s head bent over a chessboard, a rook tipping over?
What does wind know? Easy to say: nothing,
to say it knows nothing sweeping the day’s trash
down the avenue. The crawl says: fires in the West;
men with AR-15s; a mother and child face-down in the river;
children in cages; the rise of this, the fall of that.
We say the wind knows nothing as it drives fire like a blowtorch
across the land. We blame the grid, the lineman, the line,
though we know better. We say the rain inside the wind
knows nothing, as mud swallows houses, houses fall to sea,
floods push through cities, the ocean takes back land.
We say wind and rain know nothing. We say there’s nothing
to do. The wind passes through us and goes on.
A gust pushes in. A tarp snaps. A rook tips.
The old man uprights it, and waits for the next turn.
Aug 17, 2025
Aug 17, 2025 at 5:54 PM UTC
Know not lest ye be known thyself,
A phrase followed from some strange, onyx, snake placenta and spittle covered book,
From which phrases are chanted and sewn inwardly, perversely backed into the bladders of demons and spewed from the nostrils,
Solids and seeds of dollars and oil.
Know not lest ye be known thyself,
That evil phrase not written as we have been taught, shown in action
By those blocking fruits, pinching fingers at the ends of urethras
To keep children from being born.
Know not lest ye be known thyself,
That evil phrase preventing man and woman from marrying,
Withholding, slothfully, idling, waiting,
Placing plugs in all our orifices.
Know not lest ye be known thyself,
That evil phrase stopping perception: touch, sight, hearing, smell, taste, And any others if there are others,
Saying it alone will fill your mind.
Know not lest ye be known thyself,
That evil phrase keeping us working with the unidentified,
The unfamiliar, the unknown,
Keeping us discriminating, nepotizing, judging.
Know not lest ye be known thyself,
The summation of rejection,
Instructing us to reject those things around us except what we already know.
And what do we know?
The Cover-up.
One tarp can be pulled from off this particular hidden item in the garage,
That can be assured,
(though the rest may be inveigled away by filibustering and hidden, but hopefully not):
"Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged Thyself" is The Holy Bible verse to be followed.
Jan 22, 2015
Jan 22, 2015 at 8:51 PM UTC