"thereabouts" poems
Driving up mountain miles
of washboard switchbacks;
jarring the dusty rearview mirror
in my mind:
"but don't look back in anger"
... I heard you say
stuck in the cloud of dust
befogging my daydream
back somewhere thereabouts
the washed out bridge
that tore us apart
like a flash flood
It was so long ago
since you were running
and I was hiding in plain sight,
from what the storm
in my eyes did tell
Mindful — you were only watching
the growing distance gather;
finding what you didn't lose
looking back to see
what you can't forget —
like a hesitant child
reluctantly wondering
if anyone was still looking back
at you ― still running away
from each passing storm
Jesse Stillwater
June 2018
Aug 2, 2018
Aug 2, 2018 at 1:13 PM UTC
The bloom of the cut rose
leaks into the water glass.
She fixes breakfast.
I sit thereabouts waiting.
I trouble my coffee with a spoon.
Her slippers scuff softly on the floor.
Her dreaming slowly leaves her eyes.
I rub my homely morning face.
The finger of a tree taps the glass.
It will not be admitted
with the pale, newborn light.
The world already goes its way.
It minds if we are slow to follow.
The street grumbles at my well-used robe.
Matins bells predict a running out.
We keep our peace
longer than we should.
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 8:50 AM UTC
Moo-Cow-Butterfly
Not a happy lass
Stubby little wings
Superfluous mass
Four long stringy legs
Twirly-whirly tongue
Moo-Cow-Butterfly
Highly strung
Weasel-Emu-Rangutan
Fifty shades of fur
Quite the oddest vertebrate
To naturally occur
Burrows in the jungle
Terrified of heights
Weasel-Emu-Rangutan
Restless nights
Labra-Hippo-Jellyfish
Slimy furry blob
Genetic Engineering
**** poor job
Moping on the seabed
Can’t fetch sticks
Labra-Hippo-Jellyfish
Sink like bricks
Chameleon-Begonias
Origin unknown
Disappear rapidly
As soon as they are sown
Neither here or thereabouts
But somewhere in between
Chameleon-Begonias
Seldom Seen
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 4:36 PM UTC
Take my hand to continents only known in the books,
the blue maps on tiny tables sat in stacks
ready for the lesson on Mexico, or thereabouts- third this week because
the timetable is weak, poorly thought through and cobbled
together out of half-dressed evenings in the lounges of
teachers; ones once loved by the master and mistresses, leaders
of the well dressed and caretakers.
Take my feet and walk with them, balancing
on borders separating language and currency,
the gymnast's beam looking out over the forestry,
its taller trees than you and me standing upon toes tipping
down towards the urgent ground, urgently warning to stay
upright and stick around, with her holding your hand.
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 8:43 AM UTC
Yes so much indeed of this need!!!
Love...
LOVE IS ALREADY
Has always been and always,
Will Be
Willing to refill!!!
Only what We through this...
\ /
*Shared process have had, shut down, casting off out,
Have shut off through some,
'Big Squeeze's'*
\ Hugg's /
We long for...
He-Art
Dream's Of...
/ Lovingly...\
Waits Eternally On
t'ill it be
Of this re-filling;
He, S'he-Art's
Heart Mine
LOVE
Love
***IS
ALL
THERE IS
'Understanding'
'Seeing' 'Hearing'
Acceptence...***
/ \
Turn of process in re-fulling internally till over fulling,
Spilling and pouring out 'All Over Within Her' this 'Him';
/ \
Of which and by,
We Already,
Know Of!!!
***Imperishable Spiritually
We are granted as much as the 'Dust',***
STAR
Dusty Ones
Dusted
Star's
*Light
Star Dust
All Known As
EMcSquared's too,
We know our ******
Existence depends what is,
It's interdependence upon,
So Too...*
~***Without Is
As Within...****~~~
LOVE FROM:
Of Whereby She Sprung
'IS' Infinite' and too interdependent,
With this EMcSquared Domain...
<3
<3<3
<3<3<3
***HE-ART
HEART HEART
HEART HEART HEART***
***Therefor it is 'He', 'more' 'so missing'!!!
She' is in Her Own Turmoil, with and for this,
Shaman Master J said 'not even 'He' knows when,
These inherent forces come to restored balance' or,
These things that 'must come to pass'!!***
*Nostradamus too understood so much within,
With and about these could find no conclusion,
Of otherwise what was self evident,
Certain kinds of trends predictable,
But a blank of 'time/space',
That went blank thereabouts by,
Nine Times Nine the 81st page,
'The Lost Book of Nostradamus',
Where it was left open...*
IS... Us...
Knock Knock!!!
BLISS
You can become
***'One' with this then 'Great Architect',
See, Understand A Midwife Be Need,***
***Then Also Completely That None Can Be Left Out Indeed!!!
How else could 'It Be'!!!
OUR X'Factor'S' IS,
Are Klear Like Krishna's,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That Flute Still Playing On,
In Such This Way Eternally...
This Such is the Spirit LOVE YES;
'Is Defaulted Upon Us'.
**** straight that is with Joy, Fun
'All Deep Connective Pleasure', BLISS'ED!!!***
I myself am Overly Grateful for Every,
***Each of 'All the Birdy's' Whom Still Shout 'even if'
We Are Only Hearing these as Whispers, Upon 'the whispering winds'!!
Re-Calling:
These X'Factors is Now Most Klear,
More On 'Cue',
Being more 'Key' to the...
'Always Open Door of ALL;
ALL WHOM SO MISS
KISSS'S OF THE BLISS'S;
'So Lonely Without X's of You';
On the Ever Imperishable River's In,
OUT OF THE INFINITE SEA OF LOVE,
SHE AND HE TOO ARE INTERDEPENDENT!!!!!***
*There are no dependents or independents,
outside beyond this first off and foremost;*
Come Home All Returning!!!!
~Sa Sa, Ra!!!~~
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 12:31 PM UTC
Is there still a tired cafe
On the corner under canvas
Pondering the long boulevard?
Does the faded owner smoke all day
And complain about the haze
And how finding pretty waitresses is hard?
I once lived thereabouts
And earned a meager pay
Writing broken tales for magazines.
Nights filled my belly with wine
My eyes the chanteuse Lise
She starred in my most fictional scenes.
I never found a way
To read my ink blot cards
and learn where my psyche led me wrong
It oft' left me lonely
With just black espresso
And the echo of Lise's sweet song.
One day I moved away
Back to blue ice and snow
From that old city of fumes and haze.
Yet still on thick warm nights
A song burns in my soul
In familiar, best forgotten, ways.
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 3:32 PM UTC
Standing on the overpass
i stop to look away
the endless stream of cars
sprinting from under my feet
dusky yellowish lights
start to illuminate the night
the city is beautiful at this time
yes it sure is
as the autumn winds blow
coolness grows
the heart feels barren
for no reason though
stars in the sky
twinkle once in a while
each one is an unknown dream
each one is too far away
a drop of rain fell from thereabouts
i saw it so i reach out
it touches my cheek
slips out of the corner of my eye
then in a trice
It floods the cityscape.
Sep 17, 2023
Sep 17, 2023 at 7:18 AM UTC
Morning Greeting to God
On waking I say (thinking, really)
“You’ve been here all night.
You’ll be here all the day,
Providing time, my needs,
And more abstractly, destiny.
The trick is to be welcoming,
A trick that makes the play of pain
More comfortable,
For comfort is so comforting.
When I say pain,
I do not mean
A shoulder ache or thereabouts.
It means the pain of all around,
An ‘all around’ that’s all unbound
Which one will never have the skill to grasp,
Or power to reshape.
The day’s blank piece of paper,
Bland or stimulating,
Filled with action or quite still –
Always etude and apprenticeship.
So I ask myself (symbolically)
What can I learn?
With no idea of what’s to come,
Anticipating nothing
I accept each crumb that falls from
Shall we call it ‘heaven’s table’
(just a metaphor.)
Heaven’s table may be fable,
Morning’s greeting, fleeting phrase;
Both are ways to start the days
With positivity, an energy
To improvise with happy creativity.
What could be better?
Morning Greeting To God 9.25.2017
God Book II; Nature Of & In Reality;
Arlene Corwin
Sep 25, 2017
Sep 25, 2017 at 5:44 AM UTC
only English has disgraced itself, as a language,
it didn't learn from it's other Latin
orthographers, whether french or german,
just didn't learn from them,
i mean, English, the language,
could have started improving its style,
its orthography, adding accents, here and there,
improving elocution, it's worth the
particulars in harbours, ironically it isn't
a universal language, there are no universal
instances in using it, there are plenty
of particular instance that do require stresses
and other such involvements,
but the six brothers dreamed up too much
technology prior, the Grand Father of the Empire
split the cabbage patch between the five brothers:
gave much to the American son,
much also to the Australian son,
much also to the Canadian,
the South Africa got a part of Europe from the 1940s,
the Caribbean son received a pretty sunset,
the English son got ****** in the ***
and given what the newspapers are covering
i'm really sceptical while only children migrants
are welcomed... ********** the tournament
of who can shove an ice-cube into a teenagers
*** to make **** *********** seem cool?
really sceptical while the prime minister only
wants children... come, you following-up
the hot topics in british journalism?
but like i said, the one chance the English language
had to improve itself, to succumb to the
judgement of the preservation of the Latin via
a - z was to add diacritical marks, instead the internet
emerged and we simply got an Eaton mess...
look how mishandled English is among the young!
omni acronym omni short-script,
omni dyslexia,
lazy lazy buggers... while the Germans are fiercely compounding,
Rindfleischetikettierungsueberwachungsau
(law delegating beef label monitoring) - now let's
do some syllable surgery on it to get a tennis ball
bouncing rhythm:
rind' fleische' tikettierung' sueber' wachungsau' -
or thereabouts in Pomerania - and the French
such hark rather than trill Rs and produce excess
spelling via tongue ties upon tongue ties
(every time i hear it i just hear bubbly blue
bubbly blue bue bue and Moulin Rouge cancan) -
English is shrapnel, empty pistachio shells in comparison,
and yet still the internet proved how ugly
things became... *** LOL (e.g.); and yet i'm
finding it the most effective language for volume.
May 6, 2016
May 6, 2016 at 4:37 AM UTC
PREY.
He sits at the corner of the bar,
fades into the shadows.
Unnoticed, non discript
among the regulars.
He eyes the dark haired woman.
*Well nourished female, 130 pounds,
5 foot 6 (or thereabouts)
Red rose tattoo across left upper arm,
hands tied behind her back, feet bound.*
She sips her drink, laughs at a joke.
He watches, waits.
*Stab wounds to her chest.
Cause of death strangulation,
evidence of ****** assault.
Evidence of mutilation.*
She leaves, waves from the door.
Excitement swells his veins,
tightens his chest.
He starts to follow.
Someone shouts: “g’night Cinnemon!”
He retreats back into the shadow.
Prey can’t have a name.
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 6:59 PM UTC
In the currency of our current world
I have been taught for as long as I can remember
That my value as a woman
Exists only
In how worthy I am deemed by men.
'Remember, no one wants someone that everyone's had'
Was a favourite of my elders.
A line reiterated to me
Since I was old enough
To be made conscious of being sexualised
To be considered one day by men
Disregarding any of my own desires.
Letting me know
My exchange value
Is worth nothing more
Than how much they might want my body
Or by this we mean
How little they may want it
Once they might not have been the first
Or somewhere thereabouts.
I am no one's virginal prize
No one's to define or demonise.
I am too much ******* woman
To be reduced to such confines
To be fit into a category
Fit for only men to use
To determine what it is I am good for.
I can be the Madonna and the *****
Whatever I choose
And every bit of brilliance in between.
But make no mistake
Not one bit of our womanhood
Is here for your judgement
Make no mistake
Not one bit of my existence
Is woven into how worthy you find me.
Aug 15, 2017
Aug 15, 2017 at 7:04 PM UTC
Boo!
One and one make two.
Coterie of magic made.
One on one create.
The rudiment of life.
Shown in embryonic form.
Implant.
Once protected against unwanted risk.
Removed.
Another wanted implant
Now implanted in the wall of life.
Once was mere ball of jell.
Definite form created.
Gesticulation unborn wave.
Still in uterine home.
Impregnable in warm and cosy world.
Glancing via ultrasonic image waving back.
Forty weeks or thereabouts.
Grand entrance made.
Visage of cutie.
Baby beauty.
Born at last.
Welcome to the world of life!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 12:52 PM UTC
I hold my doll,
Fluttering eyelashes
Curly black hair
Cewpie face
Francie I think her name was.
Hold up in my room
Tender age of three or thereabouts
Sense of terror
Vastly blown out of proportion
To my chronological age
Cover Francie’s ears
As sounds of rage and terror blast
From the living room.
Crouched behind my bedroom door,
Father in a drunken state
Railing at Mother again.
More than a score of years later,
Who knew the pickled apple
Wouldn’t fall far from the tree?
Feb 4, 2012
Feb 4, 2012 at 12:29 PM UTC
NIGHT LOOKS IN.
Night looks into
my window; I sleep
in a dark nowhere
a nowhere spitting
up steam, the streets
in their wetness, the
rolling night, the moon
unbroken, hidden,
like the eye of fall
that blinks cold tears,
then recedes under
the soft ground.
A rogue wind and
a new season overlap
life and death; a damp
chill on my spine
illuminates it, as it
throws off the mem-
brane of fear. I seek
possibilities; they
have given up looking
for me.
I have given up
fighting back the chill
of solitude; a bare-
knuckled wind
holds summer at
arm’s length.
The snakeskin winds
itself around my mind,
shedding its snake,
pouring out cold venom
this is the best winter,
or the best in a long time.
I surrender to the movie
machine, the great blinking
eye, a shroud of black-
and-white. In shades of
in-between I find the
new ability to live
inside the celluloid;
this is where I make
my hiding place, and
I scamper from room to
room with no notice.
I forever sit and listen
as the great Rubinstein
plays, makes love to the
keys, coronates Chopin.
I am safe here, in 1950,
or thereabouts, sitting
in a chair apropos to
1950, and I answer no
phones and in fact, am
not truly of this world,
nor of Rubinstein’s,
but I can migrate well,
A Zelig of diminishing
returns, and a kiss is
the only thing I lack, and
it is getting warmer, and I
still wear my old coat,
And when night
again breaks into
my house, I am in
a better place, away
from the lost children
of my old hopes,
Away from the
fangs of tyrants who
want me happy;
Away from the blind
moon and the rocks
I could never stop
throwing.
Steven Stone
January 2012
May 3, 2012
May 3, 2012 at 12:45 PM UTC
"I bagged this one
out in In-di-A!"
...the braggart's boast.
"It's a very rare
( these days)ALGERNON!"
And indeed, an Algernon
bares his teeth
above the roaring fire's
mantlepiece.
He looked startled as
he had been shot just that second.
"The head is splendidly mounted
complete with handlebar moustache
...& monocle.
One feels that one could
pop next door and there
would be ha ha...the rest of
Algernon
sticking out the other side.
The glint in the eye
the sneer just so
...right.
"And to the right of the Algernon
is a genuine Cuthbert.
Again from 1901 or there or
thereabouts."
"It is indeed a perfect specimen of
the good old chap..."
the white rhino brags yet again
of what he calls his baggings.
White Rhino's
collection of colonials
is the envy of
all the other animals.
"Some more hot *** old chum?"
But the White Tiger
puts a paw over his glass.
Declines.
The fire's flickering
leaping up the wall.
The shadow making
the humans almost
come alive
as if the Cuthbert
could turn to the Algernon
and say
"OH...I SAY!
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 10:11 AM UTC
Haters reaching out stretching hate to all they can put in a noose She's turning 80 and Love's Love and is willing to yield to the truth Regardless of a lifetime experience telling such and every authority, history book, politician, the clergy of clergy's lies their coverings rotting off thee untouchables of Love like Gold it's going to remain beyond ruse, deception and especially ones brain....... But what has made us great, and not for it's the USA, But for the inspired genius just beyond the First Amendment, in part, the part T. Jefferson coined as Separation of Church and State...is a minimal necessity if humanity is meant to survive itself. If we are seven billion thereabouts we have thereabouts the same amount of personal beliefs... PRAISE that or count that blessing or don't feel an inclination, there is no right or wrong...!!! To shove a belief system down someone's throat, being, brain, heart, civil liberties or have that your AS YOUR FEAR.... With your every BREATH, in your very BED, on a CARDBOARD BOX, a PENTHOUSE SUITE, any ole ALLEYWAY, in need to serve your ****** FUNCTIONS..... Speak your heart, with thoughts pressing through one's mind to ink, to type, to voice and FIND YOU, YOUR KIND HAS BEEN Found by some Predators who want you on a noose, your president, commander in chief..... They are ready on command for some false set of values that say **** and it is in the name of God and Love.... It is written, in some book that cannot be refuted or seen in any other way, yet it is seen 7 billion ways over at minimal by now... They will say it is in the name and claims of 'our founding fathers' '-------------------such 'n such falsely claimed values'. But those who won't tell you what it is about and for thousands, hundreds or so many decades of years. But in the name of , '------------' what does it matter it's exactly the way it's been done just before and the time before that and as far as history records and does not, and none tells any part of any truth to anyone about next to anything. Count we are blessed or not or were and need to be again and it's this thing or that. So easy to swallow the intended deceptions about the Frankenstein no doubt so many will not deny was an effort of intentional making, perhaps with a result beyond hopes and or expectations. Hope that we would swallow hook line and sinker!! The monster is on the loose America, it's not about you or me or even our sons and daughters but the descendants of humankind.... Beyond, Hook, Line and Sinker America, World, Who Knows, When Beyond All That We Swallowed THE WHOLE FISHING BOAT!!!
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 3:07 PM UTC
Why didn't you look when my friends all left me alone to play,
Why didn't you look when my teacher sent more work home everyday,
Why didn't you look when my response was never I'm doing okay,
Why didn't you look when my brown were eyes wet with tears today,
Why couldn't you look my way,
Why didn't you smell my blood stench where I'd ripped my teeth out,
Why didn't you smell my *** stained pants from my nevus doubts,
Why didn't you smell my scented marker stained blouse,
Why didn't you smell my hair around the house,
Why couldn't you smell my thereabouts,
Why didn't you speak up when I couldn't talk,
Why didn't you speak up when I was always being mocked,
Why didn't you speak up when I was always the talk,
Why didn't you speak up when I was falling into shock,
Why couldn't you speak every time I was stalked,
Why didn't you hear about my date,
Why didn't you hear about my embrace,
Why didn't you hear about him going farther then the third base,
Why didn't you hear about how I didn't even want to go to home plate.
Why couldn't you hear about how I got *****
Why didn't you, ever taste, my pain,
Why didn't you, ever taste my veins,
Why didn't you ever taste, all my restrains,
Why didn't you ever taste, my little remains,
Why couldn't you see,
all the drain,
all the loses from anything I gained
because I still want to jump in front of cars, buses and trains,
but I rarely complain,
because your name,
is only a single blood stain,
out of the many stains,
that have left my heart bleeding in pain,
but I just wish you could look,
possibly,
at me,
Apr 29, 2015
Apr 29, 2015 at 4:14 PM UTC
It would be nice if you thought I was somebody.
A decade passes or thereabouts and you pass on me like an side dish or salad, you'd rather not.
No thanks, I wont be bothering with that today.
As though our friendship was a meal you're just "done" eating.
What you could once have called our "friendship" is in ruins
And all that's left when you're "done" with me
are the tattered remains of a once great civilization of camaraderie.
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 11:25 AM UTC
I'll be right here
Or thereabouts
Have to fight fear
Endless bouts
Year after year
Who I am is denounced
The end is near
Shamelessly announced
The truths back there
A mute man shouts
Doesn't matter where
The blind will pounce
A future seer
Only raises doubts
The amounts one drowns in
Could be less than
A powder or liquid ounce
©2024
Apr 14, 2024
Apr 14, 2024 at 9:26 PM UTC
confident embracing failure
comfortable with self-doubt
curious about bumps and scrapes
convinced I've found what counts
balancing needs with desires
encountering more than I sought
wondering if it's really about
leaving with more than I brought
climbing beyond the summit
flying above the clouds
reaching where I aimed to be
least there or thereabouts
Mar 19, 2022
Mar 19, 2022 at 7:28 AM UTC
Who are we to be brave?
Strutting against a rhyme scheme or a meter or form.
Fighting against a current that tides us all in. Endlessly.
Maybe patterns arise and patterns and patterns.
Adding and subtracting memories broken apart or together by the mind.
Maybe they don't.
Maybe we're left wondering what the **** happened to us, or thereabouts.
But whatever happened happened and that shouldn't matter.
Or maybe it should.
It doesn't matter.
Maybe it's ok to live in the future or the past or the present.
Maybe it's up to us to choose two.
Maybe it's not up to us at all.
So is life a wheel? Endlessly turning and spinning towards the next destination.
Or is it a block? Where sometimes we push and heave and can't budge it forwards.
It towers over us as we dent our hands and our shoulders and our foreheads trying to shift it, trying to ease it out of the dirt, trying and trying and trying.
All we can see is where we stand and where we've been.
Is fear ok then?
Fear is always ok.
It's the second strongest emotion.
Sometimes fear is the bravest thing we can do.
And so, standing against this block, heaving with everything I have, my feet digging down into the dirt beneath me I want to say with great fear and wavering that I love you and that I want to push forwards until it doesn't hurt to look back.
Aug 23, 2017
Aug 23, 2017 at 2:32 PM UTC
Open and Shut
There are those of us
in the human community
walking around enclosed
in self-constructed shells,
shielding themselves
from random stones flung
or darts purposely aimed to hurt.
Taking no chances,
even their soft underbellies
wear secure armor
against any possible onslaught.
Nothing comes in,
nothing goes out.
Others walking among us
are tender as children
still full of innocent trust
like delicate blossoms fully opened,
redolent with sweet nectar
destined for honey,
and seedpods freely given up
on gentle Spring breezes
carrying away bits of future beauty
to distant fields of wildflowers,
blissfully ignorant
of tomorrow's killing frost.
Everything comes in,
everything goes out.
Eileen Auger
2007 or thereabouts
Apr 19, 2014
Apr 19, 2014 at 11:33 PM UTC
most oft, the
wherever I write,
is duly noted,
it is a due,
due you,
and hopefully,
the why I scribe,
arrives ‘pon your eyes
with Steuben glass,
of diamond tooled curettage,
a clarifying visual of
beauty,
but always
with fair detailed precision
is the
when
denoted,
for it is the timing
of the mining the specificity,
of the exact momentous,
a precious decision
taken by you,
when to turn words
of a few seconds
of a heart’s unburdening,
with
an inescapable reminder,
of the
thereabouts & the whyabouts
the very verity of a serious
causality
that parented the
casualties
we call
our poems
join me then,
in the processional
of denoting the origins,
linkage contained therein
to the work we
c r e a t e
*•for in the recording of the reckoning•
•exactitude of the longitude•
•and l’atitude is the truest revelation•
•of yourself•*
Jan 3, 2025
Jan 3, 2025 at 11:21 PM UTC