"tenuously" poems
a cerebral grasping of existence’s resplendence
is insufficient
tenuously treading bereavement’s tide
i cradle life
twinkling moments spent on this planet
are hallowed time
i walk in quiet reverence as tears flow
at innocuous occurrences
god’s face aglow in each instance
perspective revived
a bumblebee drifting gently settles
evoking awe
i stand pensive aforetime unaware
in cathedrals we stand
eyes newly uncovered awakened discover
celestial dimensions
people replete with infinite spirit
are all that surround
my senses abruptly adjusting their focus
‘tis an earthly angelic realm
©2016janetaylor
May 19, 2016
May 19, 2016 at 6:42 AM UTC
My feelings are like dandelions.
Like ones in the spring
they can be linked
together in a chain
loosely held together
in a moment
tenuously connected.
but they are more like their fall counterparts, seemingly rooted, but blown away by a slight breeze
a field can be covered by hundreds yet they do not define the field
nor does the field define them.
what are my feelings if not definitively me?
like wispy dandelion seeds, soon to be more
but perfect in their imperfect potential
they are ephemeral fragments projected by heart and mind
my feelings are dandelions. i am not a dandelion.
i am a creator of dandelions and of fields and of breezes. of chains and of seeds.
i am the master of my universe.
i am the master of everything and i am the master of nothing.
i am the master of dandelions.
Mar 21, 2012
Mar 21, 2012 at 11:38 PM UTC
As the last waltz playing in my jacket ceased,
Loneliness and longing spilled out,
Along with a few coins and a recorder
From my roomy coat pockets.
The phone booth stood there,
Frosted by icicles of promises
Never thawed to life,
Yet a haven from my impasse;
A womb for the stranded & unwanted.
I closed the door behind me,
And fed the phone a few coins,
Punched your number with numb fingers
And fogged up the insides of the glass,
As I waited to hear your voice.
“Hello?” You said, but where were my words?
I must have lost them on my way,
I must have fed them to the phone
Along with the paltry coins,
Could you hear what I wanted to say?
“Hello?” You repeated, a little alert,
I listened to your silence, trying to smile,
It sank like warm music on my heart,
Waltzes and sonatas were so cliché.
Where were my words? Just one would suffice,
Couldn’t I sum us up in a single word?
I couldn’t find the kigo to our season.
I had lost it, left it with you,
That and my voice
In the world I was forced to leave,
And all this while I was held,
Tenuously to you by this phone call,
Till I heard the strained dial tone again,
In this silent world I’ve come to inhabit.
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 10:11 AM UTC
On elephant’s back,
Mahout tenuously perched,
Swoons over moon!
Jan 16, 2019
Jan 16, 2019 at 6:56 PM UTC
These words don't belong to you
or me
They come from down deep
From the low guttural rumblings
Of our sleeping planet
They come on the wind
as it flies into your ears and eyes
forcing you to take that deep breath: inspire
They come, gently, from the trees
whispering the song of the season
as you stroll beneath their branches
They come from the heart
as it pumps blood through us tenuously, with a rhythmic beat
They come from the stardust
of a thousand dreamy worlds
drifting slowly through the universe
and out the tips of our pens
May 5, 2017
May 5, 2017 at 12:35 PM UTC
Come walk along the cliffs of uncertainty
While you search for something delightfully new
There wrapped in an air of wondrous mystery you will find
Where your imagination can take you too
Softly cling to the shadows of infinity
Tenuously locked away in an unpredictable hue
Lost forever in a world that you can create
As you wander away with the moon
Radiantly shining like a bead of clear water
Such as a taste of the morning’s first dew
You can come away to this world and discover
How you can become a part of this too
Multi-colored butterflies will be dancing in the forest
Where the whippoorwills sing to the trees
In voices that light up the air so sweet
Like golden honey stolen from the hives of bees
Here the untamed sea can be seen forever
Stretching endlessly across it seems
And you can ride the crashing waves of ivory foam
While gliding on a current of dreams
The winds incessant voice will ring right through you
Whispering of the magical things to be seen
When you come away to this fair land of Eden
One must be prepared for most anything
May 28, 2010
May 28, 2010 at 7:01 PM UTC
You are banded for life -
marked and set apart
to be despised, hated.
The yellow stripes tell it all -
you're to be feared
should one get too close.
Only among your own
are you accepted,
and then but tenuously.
--
Oct 1, 2011
Oct 1, 2011 at 12:37 PM UTC
Red rooster is yet to crow
but I feel
my pulse racing to
to embrace the new day.
Shadows of the night
cling tenuously to
parked cars and trees
awaiting the golden brush
of dawn's early light.
Sleepy elbows and knees
complain in vain;
my brain yearns only
for the kettle's
shrill persistent refrain;
caffeine's coveted crutch is near.
Roasted vapors of
Kenya's finest beans
thrill the air
with redolent coffee streams.
Breathers flare,
lips quiver,
tasters salivate,
first sip is here...
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!
My heart sighs...
It's time to write!
~ P (#writerscrutch)
Nov 23, 2013
Nov 23, 2013 at 6:39 AM UTC
out where?
other than here, on this spinning
six sextillion tons to which we are
tenuously tethered
are there big eyed,
big brained air walkers,
silent talkers, beaming
among the billions and billions
of suns and deliriously dense
dark matter?
I think not, though
we
are not alone
if by chance
we were to encounter the
“non us”
I suspect it would be like a dog
trying to bark at a Higgs Boson
or perhaps a Higgs Boson
trying to bark at a dog
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 12:10 PM UTC
once more, with feeling
he calls as the bow skitters across the strings, my fingers
artfully pouncing down and around in a small space,
an elaborate tap dance and I feel my body reeling back as my soul
takes over, into autopilot and if I think, I'll make a mistake
I can feel the beat of the percussion moving through the section as I
am united to my standpartner and we to the rest of the world,
with feeling as the cellos strike their solo,
with feeling as the flutes take the melody,
again and we support the violas
I'm plucking now,
I shall never forget this,
the music swells and we are one, we are all
tenuously supporting each other with a connection that is so fragile
if it breaks now, it is lost, the world shall begin again but a little less
magical without it, the crescendo ripples and our hearts thrum,
too special even to write about accurately,
we know each other, we are all that matter now,
I have never felt more or less of a stranger,
it is just for the moment,
it cannot break, with feeling this time.
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 10:38 AM UTC
No man is an island,
but some are surrounded by water
just offshore
away from land.
Maybe we are bridges.
A golden gate or Brooklyn
or perhaps just a wood plank
here to join you to the world.
I am a peninsula,
joined only by one,
attached by but a thread
tenuously perched on the verge of seperation.
Drowning in salt water,
but saved by a bed of flowers.
Securing me to a place I see only from a distance.
Others are continents.
Surrounded by everything
home to many.
The lucky ones who are always full,
joined and attached.
Only a few live this way
No man is an island,
some are bridges,
others peninsulas.
Only the lucky ones are the mainland.
Sep 12, 2013
Sep 12, 2013 at 10:17 PM UTC
Rarer than diamonds, knowledge or hallowed life itself, valued beyond reckoning, two souls lay in the warmth. Their sire's face was awestruck, openly joyous at the miraculous news he had just received. The sheer happiness and tears that happiness had brought forth was almost as unprecedented as the event that caused it. His usually stone like mask almost completely melted as he embraced his wife and for the first time in 200 years, truly laughed. In the comforting softness of their mother’s womb, two consciousnesses peacefully rested, unaware of the joy that their existence had wrought. In this warmth they stirred, feeble minds looking about for something to latch onto; and something they found. Metaphysical tendrils tenuously probed the lowest reaches of the upper dimensions. The twin psyches emitted an aura of precinct, but naive curiosity, 'looking' for some form of contact. Feeling the projection and reception of joy from the warmth surrounding them, they absorbed, discovered an experienced that joy, if only for a moment. As the wandering tendrils of not-thought climbed higher and brighter they came to an open Plane; the middle. Unable to go upward or back, they drifted forward, each in an opposing direction. They 'saw' each other. Timidly and slowly, each danced around the other tendril of thought, assessing and recognising its companion.
Hesitant, wondrous and cheerful, the strings of unstructured consciousness circle closer and closer, until one audaciously brushes against the other. At contact, they each shyly shuffle closer feeling and tasting the other. The tendrils give a faint shiver, grow taut and then still, before glowing. Revelling in their newfound closeness, the twin minds rapidly pulse, imitating a feeling felt but minutes beforehand; crisp, pure and untainted joy. The sensation flares majestically, before dimming to a low hum of contentment. In the material realm, their mother looks at her husband, her face lighting up at what she feels inside her; her children. Diamond tears slowly wash emerald eyes as she is embraced tightly, from both without and within.
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 4:49 AM UTC
Lay with me
In this moment
The shadow tantalizing
Love I never believed in
The sky our divine blanket
downy earth the only bed we need
A green sea I'm begging to drown in
And dream of the knowledge
That flows between us,
An ethereal link of pure-spun moonlight
Counting clouds and wishes
Like we hold the key to the universe
Behind tenuously pouting lips
Golden the only color I see
Golden summer
Golden smile
Golden you
The joy of you giggles up like champaign,
Dancing the giddy line of innocence and passion
Certain in the teenage naivety
Of times and truths and us
Of a summer fleeting steps to more
Hold me with the strength to fight the world of sorrow
Preserve the silken petals opening
Slowly to breath your sunlight and live
Jun 11, 2013
Jun 11, 2013 at 7:54 AM UTC
you rock me
like the wind on an old sailboat
and i'm thrown off my balance
tilting from one toe to the other
tenuously tightroping above a terrible tide
with a smile plastered on my fragile face
so you don't know
that i'm hurting inside
that i'm dying inside
and my words never seem to amount
to anything at all
you hear them
and you answer
but do you really mean what you say?
would you really run away?
with me?
well,
i'm still here
and you're still
there
way over
there
and i miss you
but you rock me
and i don't know if i'll make it
to the end of december
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 8:24 PM UTC
Until that cold truth bubbles to the surface
I let the sweet, soft silk of your touch press into my thigh.
Unflinching vibrations, a platitude
Frothing vibrations as connections tenuously entwine.
The swell within, clench tight, open deeply
I will rewrite your troubled past.
Dec 30, 2015
Dec 30, 2015 at 9:53 PM UTC
Chaotic words, chaotic thoughts,
Bombastic ideas and pensive deliberations
That float, even fly like volcanic ash,
Pounded out of the molten Earth as if
God were hitting the crust with a hammer,
And the masses of ash and dust cloud the sky,
Streaming like red and black chalk
Across the asphalt of uncharted thoughts.
And they rain, rain down
Like a tempestuous conflagration,
Beating upon the earth like mallets on drums,
Vibrating ever-so tenuously in the ears,
But resonating with verve somewhere within,
And then it stops,
Never to be heard or seen again.
And in its place are the bright rays of the sun,
Shooting light like a harpoon toward the ground,
Digging into the supple soil with a medley
Of confusion and anger,
Of apprehension and isolation,
And they burn caustically,
Warm the body as if they were pockets of magma,
Sliding across the flesh
And trickling into the pores, digging down
Into the heart, shaking it, squeezing it, weeping atop it.
And then the night comes on
As the sun retreats below the horizon,
And it brings with it the complacent lights
Of the stars high above,
That glow gently atop our brows and
Reflect dully off our shirts,
Dotting us with the paint-like
Stains of the unbridled release
Of laughter and intimacy,
Of love and vivacity.
And the placid night lights,
They seem to **** up all the heat,
Seem to save it from its vice,
And they dispel it into the great beyond,
Into the great unknown that stares down on the Earth
And renders it quiet and inhospitable.
Yet for some reason,
For some ungodly or unholy reason,
This night brings peace,
Even if dangers lurk somewhere in the dark.
Sep 4, 2015
Sep 4, 2015 at 9:42 AM UTC
expressions of shocked elation
dot my facebook page
as my loved ones
fall victim to fashion
sloshing buckets wait tenuously
above the mindless masses
to splash down
a cure
but not for ALS,
for boredom
for the need to be immortalized
in a youtube video
posting presumptuously
thinking all the world will cave
looking at the little tin cup on the coffee warmer
containing the residue from the last processing
I contemplate a true cure
from a ****
extracting the essential oil from the cannabis plant
through a simple procedure
actually cures disease
gives lives back
restores families
…..has a bucket of ice ever done that?
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 1:48 PM UTC
Psyche soaking wet with devout atheism,
this lifetime skeptic now tenuously
linkedin with Unitarianism
attests, said upbringing proffered,
mine credo, gestalt,
leitmotif, sans abstractionism
eludes elucidation, delineation, clarification...
some readers might
dismiss as absurdism
defying established dogma fixed absolutism
millenniums, would be hashtagged heretical,
and such cavalier blithe
apostasy, declared alarmism,
now - twenty first century
extant accursed as alcoholism
within various non
Western statecraft enclaves,
barely tolerating agnosticism
no fool to *********
proclamations antithetical opinionism
where condemnation to death
(I obediently, humbly, and gladly accept)
inadequate punishment,
cited on par relegated to alienism,
amoralism, antiestablishmentarianism...
never does this anachronism
loosely cabled with pioneerism,
(when ****** forests bedecked America),
a veritable wilderness, necessitated
quintessential self survivalism
knowhow long since forgot,
which dependence on consumerism
finds yours truly afflicted against capitalism
commercialism, conformism, cultism et cetera
more aligned with reliance on individualism
nearly an extinct species,
where anti materialism
betrays, cavils, and discourages ecocentrism,
versus profit motive maximization,
though of late environmental dynamism
aggressive representative thank you
Greta Ernman Thunberg regarding criticism,
nee opprobrious global ecological terrorism
mandating staunch defeatism
as stave bulwark
against criminal determinism
to wreak irrevocable traitorous dogmatism
predicated on tenets of egocentrism
brewed, steeped, and
galvanized in exceptionalism
of **** sapiens and expansionism
exclusive to said primate
that requires serious assessment,
asper bracketing craven
doctrinairism edified fundamentalism
granting humans unfettered expansionism!
Mar 23, 2019
Mar 23, 2019 at 3:52 PM UTC
A thousand tailors stitching in the darkness
Cutting grotesque patterns from the whole cloth
And fitting them to phantom saviors
Who are fat or thin depending on the day
They use colored threads and wishful thinking
That tends to break at awkward moments
Leaving a garment tenuously sturdy
Until the moment when it’s not
As waterproof as cotton candy
As close fitting as an id
As cost effective as a wedding
As colorful as oil on water.
The garments must all be delivered-
A shiny new one every sunset.
Tailors strive to meet their quotas
Such urgent need for what they make.
They must replace the fraying tatters
Spattered with the grime of loathing
captured from the filthy air
And the footprints etched in mud.
They must fill closets ever empty
Though FedEx comes by every night.
It’s Cinderella’s slipper syndrome
When the clock hands stand up straight.
Tailors with their bleeding fingers
Have no idea what they make
And who will wear it for what purpose.
That’s why they labor in the dark.
ljm
Oct 30, 2017
Oct 30, 2017 at 12:33 PM UTC
Whispers that morph into screeches
Disturb the strands that tenuously hold
The ragged edges of reality aloft
In storms of self recrimination and regret.
Slender stalks of rationality bend down
Beneath the weight of foolishness
Grown fat and heavy in indulgence
That is justified by cobwebs of desire.
The music in the background plays
On bagpipes and a penny-whistle band
While the conductor tries to turn them in
To violins and harpsichords, and fails.
A river jumps it’s muddy banks
And floods the playing field with muck
As strands and stalks give up their load
And it all falls to nothingness.
ljm
Dec 16, 2022
Dec 16, 2022 at 9:40 AM UTC
Patience is an easy taste to slide across the tongue
When dull grey clouds accumulate as this long day is done,
When orographic clouds appear through every feeling sought
And rationale deteriorates with atmospherics bought.
Panic feeds the tendrils leading downward to my ****
As shards of eccentricity wind these turgid thoughts to lock,
Lock out all solutions to banish a release
Of all vestiges of patience from a tenuous sought peace.
War worn in a weariness, I cast about for friend
Full knowing this miasma deep within, may never end,
Full knowing the genetic flood engulfing DNA
May hold the key unlocking fragile answers to this fray.
Slouching in the shadows feeling tenuously spent
Reflecting that the best of all intentions often vent
A release, as a tear drop slowly trickles down my cheek
In accepting realisation of futilities I seek.
M.
Feeling so much better with that off my chest!
Hamilton
28 January 2017
Apr 23, 2018
Apr 23, 2018 at 5:52 PM UTC
it's like suddenly
the dam has burst
and the words
won't stop tumbling
and isn't that what
you get after
a drought
the flood?
my scalp itches
but i just washed my hair
it itches
begging me to do something
a dozen half-baked
thoughts accumulated
a blank space in the
narrative of my life
to recap
what i missed
the things i
never wrote about
a toxic job and quitting it
watching my friends
and former friends
get married
watching myself
get married
that time when
i almost died
the constant struggle
between myself
and the body i so
tenuously inhabit
my boring job
where i sit at a desk
there's a lot i haven't
let myself think about
and maybe now
is the time to do so
my doctor told me last
time i went to see her that
she understands why i don't
want therapy right now
therapy is just a tool
that doesn't work for everyone
(it certainly works
if you find the right
therapist and the odds
align to keep them
but i've done this before
and i will do it again)
so i should do
something that
restores my soul
to maintain myself
and i must have forgotten
how calming
it is to put things into
words on a page
in lines and rows
to let myself happen
hate that it took me
this long to realize
what i'd
been missing
after the drought
comes the flood
Sep 6, 2022
Sep 6, 2022 at 8:29 AM UTC
Meet the boy standing on the stump
of a tree, (species undisclosed) lopped because
of reasons unknown, on the sidewalk,
towering over his shadow unrolled tenuously
like a policy behind him on the road littered
with mouldy cups, hired ants, ****** breathing-
you cannot find him on a GPS.
That would be delusional.
You can't meet him either. He's a service,
a tangy satisfaction that doesn't want dinner
until he goes back to his house,
plonks his backpack, bats his way to consequence-
rounds up his Kinley heart,
that limpid stare-ahead.
Jan 24, 2019
Jan 24, 2019 at 11:08 AM UTC