"tarred" poems
I dream of you in ten shades of blue,
belly as beastly as the moon as tarred as the rounds of your eyes, I bud feathers beneath the bulbs of my lungs as your chin crepes down to the sun, I dream of you as the cold bites my blossoming cheeks, palms as big as the sky, as bold as my tongue during a spat over and over again, love and hate and versa and versa, I dream of you during my wake as I lay shaking, bones glued to the pulps of my skin, I dream of you but only as I breathe and so then what of my death, will you leave me as she left you and he, I and her and we, baby, baby, tell me, do you often dream of me too?
Nov 14, 2016
Nov 14, 2016 at 10:29 AM UTC
A pigeon loft on the protected building list!
We should add a Fishermans hut they will all be missed.
They are built around the docks hung with nets and pots,
That are repaired and stacked for the next tidal slot.
The smell of fresh fish and tarred rope in the air,
Lots to sell and some spire.
Boats are moved and huts come down,
Progress changes Seaham town.
Replaced by cafés and sailing boats,
No more lobster pots with coloured floats.
Improvements are made so we can move on,
What can we save before it’s all gone?
Apr 21, 2010
Apr 21, 2010 at 11:47 PM UTC
If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet,
Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street.
Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark—
Brandy for the Parson,
‘Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine,
Don’t you shout to come and look, nor use ’em for your play.
Put the brishwood back again—and they’ll be gone next day!
If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining’s wet and warm—don’t you ask no more!
If you meet King George’s men, dressed in blue and red,
You be carefull what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you “pretty maid,” and chuck you ’neath the chin,
Don’t you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one’s been!
Knocks and footsteps round the house—whistles after dark—
You’ve no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty’s here, and Pincher’s here, and see how dumb they lie—
They don’t fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by!
If you do as you’ve been told, ‘likely there’s a chance,
You’ll be given a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood—
A present from the Gentlemen, along o’ being good!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark—
Brandy for the Parson,
‘Baccy for the Clerk;
Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie—
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen bo by!
3.3k
I am so very broke, I can’t afford to pay it thought.
Fettered in a cage by poverty, left only to pray and rot.
The feathers of my soul have been tarred and stained by life.
So much so, I'm not sure if they'll ever again shine bright.
This Bird in my heart used to sing for my hopes and dreams;
Mourning every tragedy with requiems that gleamed.
A little Canary to be all mine until the very end of time,
Staving off this cold world and reminding me I'm fine.
This poverty starved her slow and deep, down to the very core.
Melodies that once remedied despair gone forevermore.
Nowadays, all I can ever do is reminisce about that yellow bird;
How she'd bring warmth to my life's cold hell of a blur.
The way our voices would harmonize on little notes;
Prophecies of a better future foretold from our nook.
That's why I still cling to the distant sound of their words,
Because they ramble on in me until nothing seems absurd.
I like to think she still sings sometimes, though no sound is heard.
That music of hope rings in my mind still, all thanks to Bird.
Jun 12, 2019
Jun 12, 2019 at 4:31 PM UTC
The country road like poet’s fancies unravels
Through the giant hanky- sized paddy fields
And the dream sized ponds
Dotting the landscape
in perfect squires and riots of skewed and regular shapes
The green spread and the muddy beds, spell the village beauty.
Parrot green fields
And stark blue skies look at each other
In perfect silence, like mother and babe
And a great , grey house exposing its ragged bricks,
Bared like the buck tooth of the old
Provokes a village memory
Past picking itself slowy and ambling into the future
Its wooden columns
stand like mute exclamation marks!
or so it may look to me.
Flies the skidding scaly tarred snake
Fast and spreading like the traveler travelling on it.
Patchy it looks, now;
And full like the misery of the scorned lover
Eager like the maiden speech of a parlimentarian
The country road, runs fluid like a stream after the rains.
As the rustle of the engine trips and falls
into the divine air.
A roaming peacock calling adds charm to the great whole fare
A winged beauty, struts across
Nudged by the sputtering , speeding me.
The exotic avian attains the hedges galore
With its metal blue feathery strangeness blurred in my glancing eye
A species rare, found only in ornithologists diary.
A clamour in the air
And the school boys emerge in buddy pairs
Beneath the village banyan
That let loose its tresses to dry like a country maid.
I see, a promising glint in their eyes
The will make themselves of king and ministers of the modern days
The sonority of ringing bell
clubs the cacophony of school boys in into two dead parts.
They return to their classes, sanctified by the silence,
And open their minds to the feminine vocie.
A Glorious moment ,
As the morn of wisdom is born
Rich are the sightings of poor country side
And many are the mappings on the way,
My sensibilities recouped,
I drove back
not spent
But profound.
sound.
Sep 13, 2010
Sep 13, 2010 at 5:15 AM UTC
What happened?
Oh wait I remember
A president was elected
But we didn't get him
Instead we a got a dictatorial regime.
Freedom of speech was the first right to go
Slowly but surely
Prisoners of war
Accumulated in the prisons.
College kids and Activists
Beaten, ***** shot, ridiculed.
They might as well have been tarred and feathered
How sick do you have to be to shoot at a girl
Sitting
With her eyes closed
Crying for her country?
How sick do you have to be to paralyze a 15 year old boy
Walking
With the rest of us
For his future?
And don't get me started on the grandpa
Who was marching
with his grandchildren
Or the violinist
Dedicating a tune to his country
All trying
To escape from this country
Plagued by insecurity, inflation, and corruption.
The only thing we have left
Is a small scrap of hope.
Jul 31, 2017
Jul 31, 2017 at 1:09 PM UTC
#
*You are absolutely beautiful--
Immersed within this magical-Unfolding
as music mates to words
Fingers, strumming now
Now finding their perfect placement
..On the keyboards
of her newfound freedom
A beautiful spirit now returning
to a once-little body, beaten
for being her beautiful spirit's home.
Now with headphones on ears
there is a restoration
of years and years and years,
locust-eaten
...Of those years, and years, and years.
. . .
Tell me about pure Joy, churches..
the nice cars in your parkinglot,
aint showing
The look on her face, while untethered
tells me everything
You can only dream of
ever knowing.
This is true Church--
This beautiful Sunday-mornin' glowing
This spirit-infused flesh
A perfection of music
momentarily, flowing.
From hidden cloud
her flesh-infused spirit
is my one chance
at pure Joy, knowing..
My love for her,
continually-growing..
In heart,
tarred-n-feathered..
In Art, all hers
I am become
Untethered.*
#
Oct 12, 2022
Oct 12, 2022 at 10:18 PM UTC
She hides in pockets of flesh in my gums
I can taste her in the morning when I spit
at night I can feel her swimming in an ocean of mouthwash
In sleep she oozes onto my pillow
moistening the dusty fabric under my cheek
When shes really playful
she will wiggle herself into my cerebellum
and dance furiously with my dreams
or gently sing lullabies when my heart wont let me sleep
when the world and its filth have commandeered my hope
she is there to brush away the dirt with untarnished hands
she is my religion she is my ******
without her I am sick
a smoldering heat of black matter and fungi
she is antibacterial soap on my soul
Lysol wipes to my tarred lungs
with one whiff I am cleansed of debris
she saturates the oxygen in my blood
she resides in my abdomen
I can feel her in my kidneys.
Oct 8, 2011
Oct 8, 2011 at 5:08 PM UTC
Reaching back,
Back to that fork
In the road
Where irreversible consequence
Hid like angina
In a dunhill bubble
And you veered left,
Smitten by the decadence of mint
And mythical circles
Blown with liberal disdain
From a camel's ****
You followed the green line
Rippling like waves
Of vintage wine
Through gomorrah
Caution blown
As a midsummers gale
Between tarred lips,
Your ship sailed
The straits of cool
From bogart to newport
If dean only knew
Nat the king
Could still be singing
Nature boy on the square,
Live
He might have spurned his spyder
And lucky strikes
For a slice of life
Beyond 24
And you might have
Veered right
At that fork in the road,
Swapping scarred consequence,
Tarred lips,
And angina
For the whole pie
~ P
(#FromTheCamelsButt)
12/24/2014
Dec 24, 2014
Dec 24, 2014 at 10:04 PM UTC
i'm walking down the street
bare feet, without a care
**** uber, metro, I hate public transportation,
i'm dirtying up this sidewalk, for a few years already
i'm writing down a will, in my mind, close to my eyelids,
because i'm on the wrong side of my mind
i feel sick, tasting the bitterness of humanity
when I wipe mankind on the side of the pavement,
at the very deep, there's masculinity mixed with *****
i'm walking down a bridge full of empty shells
i pass hordes of girls who are smiling insincerely
and again, i feel a boost in my veins
and again, i'm louder than mirrors
and as in the mirrors, voidness space,
and it is me, who takes the best from it
i absorb this poisoned air.
In the ears of mine, i can hear electro heat,
i feel like one man one Jean-Michel Jarre,
rain is pouring through me, sticks to me like fog,
i wrap myself in the warmth of two MDMA's,
someone glances surreptitiously and steals my soul,
you have a backpack full of cash, i have a suitcase full of emotions,
i'm going on a journey through the cursed city
like a hermaphrodite with a broken rod,
streets, like stigmas, cry with hollow screams,
in front of clubs content abortions on the sidewalk,
let's leave this lie, like the walking dead
assertiveness and pride to the gutter washed away.
And again, this booster is kindling my veins
i'm dirtier than a new jerusalem
and similar to it, i'm sticking to everything
and so I'm taking the most out of my heart
and I absorb this poisoned air once again.
and so the booster flows through the aorta
it is flooding my tarred heart,
destination reached.
and my wallet is shimmering with bitter crystal
nothing will change the course of this chemistry,
betrayed. betrayed by their own bodies
vidi, no vici, veni on its own,
and i'm catching a laugh, standing still in the subway
i am still absorbing poisoned air.
hatred.
jealousy.
i've seen enough.
today, in my city, sun rises in the morning.
you will remember this day forever or forget it for eternity.
Jan 4, 2019
Jan 4, 2019 at 4:43 PM UTC
Sara not so plain and not so tall
Daydreaming in the shopping mall
As blond as a summer day
Speaking of herself in a peculiar way:
"I'm pretty, yes, but I wish to be better;
To be the admiration of a love letter."
But her beauty is the kind that lasts
And makes your heart beat especially fast.
Finland born but London found,
Lovely, sure, but greatness bound.
And the nights grow more tiresome,
as her chest beats a tattered drum.
Her mood too dreary for speckled eyes
that will dim if night blurs into sunrise.
"Sleep why do you run from me,
as my memories grow.
Eyelids, be a blanket,
And melatonin, a pillow."
Victoria Lucas in her head,
as the bell does ring until fed
by the words that sound soft to us
but are actually strong and thus
she is misunderstood-lips are red-
Like Greenwood inspired, kissed dread:
She can save herself before jarred,
Before feathered, before tarred.
And it is my faith that lets me know,
That her happiness will one day grow
Because Sara not so plain and not so tall
Is the strongest of them all
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 1:51 PM UTC
In straps, of wire saplings,
Becomes one wild rose.
Alone in the dawn,
A solitary crow knows
That this is beauty,
Greater than his own
Shiny black robe.
Impossibly regal
Red as a scarlet wail,
A siren, amongst all
The greens and yellows
Of a meadow, of the entire
World, is the rose, above those,
Especially the bleak, envious
Crow, latched to a branch
As scaly and gnarled as his soul,
Blacker than eternal night,
Beside the shining light
Of the rightly charmed
Wild rose,
Alone.
Sorry is the crow—
Most of all unmatched, strikingly
To long flame of chalk faced moon,
Rides in airs, misbegotten, makes
Desolate cries, of wounding caws,
Self inflicted, so, somehow seems
Unalive, tarred, undead as smoke,
His fettered, black, unfeathering
Eyes. Not like the blooming spark
And flash of the stunning, runner,
Unbeaten, indomidible, shocking,
Wild rose, unmired by bramble,
Wood nor motley thorn of bush,
A star of life, razor cut, blistering,
Free, this spirited, ****** heart,
Set, a rage, on jagged leaf.
In tangled straps of green wire saplings,
A Rose is even more a rose, next to crow.
Mar 30, 2015
Mar 30, 2015 at 5:19 PM UTC
While the sun pours over the early nightmarket
An old woman sits, chewing
Betel seed adrenaline into
Wilting veins sprawled arachnid
Behind her knees
She, the center of all activity, is merely there
A few children lift cinder blocks
And their fathers solder wire
To help put up the gate
Before a white temple
She spits a thick *** of it into
Her *** a young woman nearby
Pulls starfruit from a stall
Starfruit, whose name should belong
To the most elegant fruit, what a
Pity it has such a wretched tang
By now, the old woman is bobbing around
Her murky mind, a betel juice
Aquarium she can barely perceive the precision
Of the cremation ceremony next door climaxing with
The scattering of jasmine leaves
To indicate mourning and forgiveness
For untimely suicide and when the
Cameraman approaches our old woman
She spreads a numb smile, revealing her
Black oily teeth
Tarred over in betel juice
Oct 30, 2010
Oct 30, 2010 at 4:26 AM UTC
Memories of past magnificence
A pall now hangs over her
Echoes of screams in the west
Decomposed disillusion
Inhumanity
Insecurity
Split personality
Search warrants for the haves
Kicked in doors for the have nots
Mr. Officer……Mi innocent
The muzzle of your gun has me reticent
From slavery our ancestors did run
In the streets the blood of my countrymen run
When will di trouble dun
She has been battered and scarred
Her name feathered and tarred
While the gleam in her eyes is diminished
She is by no means finished
Still the heartbeat of a nation
Vibrant, trendsetting, schizophrenic
Sometimes there is panic in this state of chronic
Some more equity is required in my city
The financial capital
What about human capital?
Some deemed worthless
Existing in communities of sacrificial lambs.
Others are sacred cows…..Wolves in sheepskin
Who pollute the air with noxious verbiage
White collar facades hide evil intent.
She will rise again.
If we have the will and the way
My city……KINGSTON!!!!!
Jul 11, 2010
Jul 11, 2010 at 2:34 PM UTC
Here's a poet's plight:
To force words to come is a fight;
Gorgeous nothings hold no light;
Meaning shall not bow to might.
Thirty thousand words or more –
All just sounds heard before;
But somewhere deeper there's a door,
A certain feeling from some core.
Or, in clearer words:
I have nothing Great to say,
but That shouldn't stop me anyway
From speaking when I feel I must;
No other way to reverse this rust.
Perfection is a savage
Curse to ravage the mind
'Round and round in circles, growing blind.
But of all the stones and stars
Or overpriced, shiny cars
The greatest gift of all you give
Is that you let me gently live.
You accept me as I am,
Tarred and scarred and marred with gray,
There's a thousand whispers, but they're all okay
When they won't be judged anyway.
There's this frustrating little tic
Where no words can quite click
Because no lovely language can compress
or stress enough meaning into a tiny little space
That could give a hint of a trace
Of the meaning that was felt.
Suffice to say it seems somehow insufficient,
Nothing Great, simply true:
You're wonderful as you.
Feb 18, 2019
Feb 18, 2019 at 1:58 PM UTC
"Little lass with the pink parasol,
standing by the sea
where your face was forgotten
and your dress dirtied,
what can you tell me of the wind?
Have you noticed its paws
tugging at your parasol
and how it dances 'round your tip-toes
and freezes your eyelids
with icicle pins?
How it shields your drinking sight
from sunlight
by raising a blind of your hair?
Or
have you instead chosen to count the peaks on the waves?
How each pinch in the watery fabric
pistons up and down
in the oceanic mattress
with the nature sporadic
of a mad stellar twinkling.
What treasures belch age and air bubbles
under the surface
of a fingertip's breadth?
Of such sweet gems and precious metal
surely are the gifts of its deepest depths daring.
It has been counting the times you've dipped your nose under,
under fear of the fathom's fingers
finding your face to be pretty,
and withdrawing.
You'll catch cold, lass.
Standing by the sea so often; always.
At the least you will go mad
at the infinite sound of roaring laps
against the shore
and the gales born of sea and sky
scrubbing memories of stillness from your mind.
Little lass with the pink parasol,
what do you hope to find
standing here by thesea?"
I asked her.
She was silent.
And I heard every word her own,
though uttered tangibly
by winds of local overcast atmospheres.
In the wet soil 'neath my tarred heels
did a coolness rise,
finding my lungs dry and welcoming.
The horizon joined grey and blue
and she was eyeing the vanishing point.
My eyes joined hers in trek
and I found infinity.
Nothing was visible along the skyline.
Meaning anything was beyond it.
Nothing was visible beneath the tide.
Meaning anything was under it.
The wind suggested transparency
but a secretless wind is merely still air.
She said nothing
and I understood;
the sea seems larger
when you are close enough to be kissed by the waves
because you forget that the whole world is behind you.
I am right now
standing by the sea.
The little lass with the pink parasol.
She is here, too.
May 9, 2013
May 9, 2013 at 11:01 PM UTC
.
In straps, of wire saplings,
Becomes one wild rose.
Alone in the dawn,
A solitary crow knows
That this is beauty,
Greater than his own
Shiny black robe.
Impossibly regal
Red as a scarlet wail,
A siren, amongst all
The greens and yellows
Of a meadow, of the entire
World, is the rose, above those,
Especially the bleak, envious
Crow, latched to a branch
As scaly and gnarled as his soul,
Blacker than eternal night,
Beside the shining light
Of the rightly charmed
Wild rose,
Alone.
Sorry is the crow—
Most of all unmatched, strikingly
To long flame of chalk faced moon,
Rides in airs, misbegotten, makes
Desolate cries, of wounding caws,
Self inflicted, so, somehow seems
Unalive, tarred, undead as smoke,
His fettered, black, unfeathering
Eyes. Not like the blooming spark
And flash of the stunning, runner,
Unbeaten, indomidible, shocking,
Wild rose, unmired by bramble,
Wood nor motley thorn of bush,
A star of life, razor cut, blistering,
Free, this spirited, ****** heart,
Set, a rage, on jagged leaf.
In tangled straps of green wire saplings,
A Rose is even more a rose, next to crow.
May 5, 2017
May 5, 2017 at 5:18 PM UTC
.
In straps, of wire saplings,
Becomes one wild rose.
Alone in the dawn,
A solitary crow knows
That this is beauty,
Greater than his own
Shiny black robe.
Impossibly regal
Red as a scarlet wail,
A siren, amongst all
The greens and yellows
Of a meadow, of the entire
World, is the rose, above those,
Especially the bleak, envious
Crow, latched to a branch
As scaly and gnarled as his soul,
Blacker than eternal night,
Beside the shining light
Of the rightly charmed
Wild rose,
Alone.
Sorry is the crow—
Most of all unmatched, strikingly
To long flame of chalk faced moon,
Rides in airs, misbegotten, makes
Desolate cries, of wounding caws,
Self inflicted, so, somehow seems
Unalive, tarred, undead as smoke,
His fettered, black, unfeathering
Eyes. Not like the blooming spark
And flash of the stunning, runner,
Unbeaten, indomidible, shocking,
Wild rose, unmired by bramble,
Wood nor motley thorn of bush,
A star of life, razor cut, blistering,
Free, this spirited, ****** heart,
Set, a rage, on jagged leaf.
In tangled straps of green wire saplings,
A Rose is even more a rose, next to crow.
.
Feb 26, 2022
Feb 26, 2022 at 9:41 PM UTC
i see myself -
unshaven and distraught, at peace with who i am and despaired by a world i saw coming but couldn't prepare for.
i see myself -
sitting in the old house, civil war ghosts whispering through the cracks in the dry red clay. sherman burned this town once and now i get to watch the sun do it again.
i see myself -
the hedges are overgrown and i never stopped smoking cigarettes. the shadows on the walls are mapped out, a mimicry of life in an empty heirloom.
i see myself -
head in my hands thinking about history. The Last Gilded Age. The Second Gilded Age. what good are comparisons if no one's left to draw them? how does the past make room in a world already strangled by its present?
i choke back -
the same addiction that made geraldine shoot herself. it occurs to me that i am probably the last person alive to remember geraldine ever existed. i think that's what drew me to history - i've always had the past living inside me. there's a whole family tree intertwined with my ribcage, like kudzu over tarred lungs.
i fill my -
flask with weedkiller. i inherit an open wound. i try to find my place in a history that no one will ever read.
May 4, 2021
May 4, 2021 at 2:15 AM UTC
**The heart, full of hatred
Hardened with tarred emotions
It does not beat with rhythm of Love
Discolored beyond recognition
Pumping thick fluid of crass
Across all veins in the body
Paralyzing the mind and the limbs
Finally, hatred suffocates
Unable to breathe the fresh hope
As the body is full of vicious hatred
Asphyxiating the last breath of hope
To revive the chances of Love again
Hatred wins, and the soul, succumbs**
© Amitav (Radiance)
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 4:52 AM UTC
No saintly tears for this belted
asteroid 208 .
A rock headed into
insignificance , as it twirls
around some son/sun of long
forgotten already tomorrows .
Life's long road ,
crushed rock , hopes , and dreams ,
are tarred into
submission ;
driven madly over in derision .
Yet you dare crave more
than time , and space , and memories .
When we know that tears from heaven
saintly flow forever .
And will wash all traces away .
Like the riders of the storm
that deluge the three rivers charged
with pain , forgotten love , and time's
indifference .
Hush now , the last flickers of light dim ,
thy song was beauteous , but there are never encores granted
by the Angel that never cries .
Jul 2, 2015
Jul 2, 2015 at 2:36 AM UTC
Cigarettes are enticing
when they are inhaled between
the lips of a beautiful boy
with a perfectly crooked smile
and mysterious eyes.
But his smile is stained
with traces of nicotine,
and the puzzle in his eyes
is impossible to solve.
And when you kiss him,
you can taste the stale smoke
lingering on his breath;
the stale smoke that has filled his lungs
and left them black and tarred.
He says they’re nice
when you’re feeling numb.
So you take a drag
in hopes of filling your lungs;
filling your emptiness.
But it leaves you black and tarred
all the same.
m.s.
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 9:31 PM UTC
an embrace without a lost paradise
your cabaret words like a trance
I walk through the corrosive noise
I find my way to your footsteps on narrow streets
you hardly look back at your traces when they erase your touch from the map of time
so painful the hands left alone
you are touched by a melancholy impossible for some mornings
I am touched by reverie, entropy and memory
next desire on display a stain or a broken destiny
the weight of our shadows unknown
a foreign tissue is carrying the profoundness of thoughts
bear with me this heart tarred with pain
a moon song be the night
when trees remember how deep their dreams run
Nov 2, 2023
Nov 2, 2023 at 6:21 PM UTC
The only job in sight
Is the mining task
It’s time to dive into the eternal night
Wearing an exotic mask
Surrounded by the earthy walls of uniformity
With a pickaxe in hand, I start the dig
The barren days have drowned me in pity
Hopefully I will find a gem worth BIG
I am not the only one in this mining tunnel
Thousands of other miners try to strike gold
I feel stuck in the bottom of a funnel
The only miners that can prosper are the lucky and the bold
In utter desperation
I grate the rough soil
Using new strategies to alleviate the frustration
I pray for a fortuitous end to this fruitless toil
With exclamation of sudden cheers!!
Some of the workers now start the upward climb
Many of the tarred workers break down in tears
Which day marks salvation this time?
May 16, 2013
May 16, 2013 at 10:01 PM UTC