"tiptoe" poems
A pair of lily white wings
dangling in the dappled moonlight esprit;
hang entangled as silken spider web
draped in the sweet Magnolia tree
From beneath there was no way of knowing
why a pair of abandoned wings lodge mislaid
One could not help but wonder how high
one might fly with cherub wings
But these callused feet tread far below the treetops
too high up from roots to climb
No telltale tiptoe prints cavort to be the talebearer
No feathered traces scattered all around
A hearken say, tickle-footed as a ladybug,
hold forth in a breeze brushed ear
Not completely undoubtable heed spoken;
a language bestow from another ether
softly breathe a whisper'd sigh:
"Behold the wings of a fallen angel;
uplifted by love's amazing grace
Lost alone in a moonstruck blindness
an angel flying too close
to the ground
~
Jesse
Mar 8, 2018
Mar 8, 2018 at 3:05 PM UTC
I hold the feather’s weight of your artery in my pick-ups,
and tiptoe the tightrope about which life and death abuts.
You’re a 2 AM trauma and we still don’t know your name,
the social worker’s thin lips had mouthed: “estranged.”
I read your anatomy like a text as you flat-line:
your hands turn blue as your heart falls still in mine.
The monitor hums "out of time," but by Epinephrine,
and Grace, your chest resumes its rise.
I leave trauma bay in prayer: for the surviving, not the knife;
for the closeness of my hands in your chest, our joining in this life.
Tonight I see you at the Kroger, buying TV dinners and beer.
I hide behind cereal, admiring the life I’d held dear.
But you look so tired, and my heart breaks for how when you died,
I would’ve sold the shoes off my feet to buy you more time.
I wish you knew how precious was each of your heartbeats,
I wish you the wisdom of my view:
How fragile the stent is where your veins meet.
Apr 5, 2018
Apr 5, 2018 at 7:32 PM UTC
I say;
The drifting rain dissolves sea salt
Turning tears into dangled monsoon
Under the bleak ballad of dying dawn
Where I long for heat unbroken
You say;
The drifting rain drenches my tiptoe
Witching smiles into deranged equinox
Upon the downpour of ancient daybreak
Where I pray for old snow long sunk
All was as if the days faded
And morphed into younger sunset
It was as if mercy was drained
And no one preach as desired
The downpour stench though remains constant
Of rotting perfume of the rouge graphite
You drowsily drip from dowsing fingers, they lit
Into pages of burning, dancing melodious lads
As will, you may keep those imageries for you
And give up old stories as my slumber lyre
Whether it is about the burnt down marching boy
Or the bloodstained pianist from our ancient joy
For the bleak heart aesthetic
has affected a new kind of love
And the bleak heart aesthetic
would never let you feel so certain
So please keep your drifting rain of strings
During the downpour of the deranged equinox
When the snow goes black and slowly sunk
Into pages of firespit melodious lads
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 7:19 AM UTC
They say
Tiptoe through the tulips
But where did they say
Smash through
The violets
That are blue
Like my heart
Or the roses
That are red
Like the blood
Pouring out.
When did they say
Make sure to crush
The sunflowers
Once golden
Like my future
But tiptoe
Through the tulips
Heavens forbid
They come to harm.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 2:37 AM UTC
You've always been in my heart
Where you've stayed since the beginning
You're like a little sister to me
Like the twinkling stars are to the beautiful sky
Like the driftwood is to tiptoe across
Like the romantic couples are to sandy beach strolls
Like the glowing campfires are to cooling nights
Like the soft music is from crashing waves
Like the white seashells are to listening ears
Like the gigantic ships are to the rolling sea
Like the wiggling fish are to the squawking seagulls
Like hungry people are to their picnic lunches
Like the playful families are to the never-ending coast
Like all eyes are to the breath-taking view
Like the smiling faces are to the digital cameras
Like the crying children are to their tearful goodbyes
You're like a little sister to me
We've always been, one way or another, the best of friends,
And we'll forever be, until the end
Copyright 2014; Sabrina Denise Healey,
~Angelmom~
Jan 30, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 7:03 PM UTC
I constantly tiptoe at the brink of insanity,
Continuously treading so close to its realm.
Sometimes I wonder if it's worth the trouble
Or if maybe, just maybe
It would be wiser
Smarter
Bolder
To welcome the insanity
And tumble in
Head first.
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 1:50 AM UTC
I'll follow you through
sunflower cranes, stood
straight up on one leg,
tiptoe-heads above. Thick,
trunk stems support eyes
as though a field of giraffes
came to Loiré on holiday,
a tower of swinging faces
basking in a summer breeze.
Sepia yellows peg out
like eyelashes, shine
against that blue wave
of ocean sky, barely
frothing a cloud. Atop
your shoulders, I'll try
pinching a bud to keep
for home, looking back
a thousand suns echo
a staining rust, autumn
reds sinking as they set.
Jan 16, 2014
Jan 16, 2014 at 5:11 PM UTC
i’ve never known
something so fragile
i hold whatever this is
(you and i)
carefully,
with both hands
like glass,
it could shatter
the pieces
scattered
while i tiptoe
around the sharp fragments
trying to not let them
hurt me
like snow,
it melts
when the sun
comes up
to heat
the ground
and every time
i wish it’d stay
i hope my heart
will not become
like broken glass
i hope,
unlike snow
on a warm winter day,
you will decide
to never leave me
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 11:51 AM UTC
Don't touch me,
I'll break.
I'm made of glass,
You see.
But, that's right;
you already knew that about me.
It's why you tiptoe
whenever we meet,
and turn down music
with a piercing beat.
You remember that I'm fragile—
to be handled with care.
Don't dance near me.
Don't you dare.
You know what would happen—
you know that it's true—
I'd shatter, I'd break,
and I might cut you.
Mar 21, 2015
Mar 21, 2015 at 11:52 PM UTC
Standing on the tiptoe
of my universe
I found I had
Nothing but love to offer
While the nature of
Anonymous cruel indifference
Can seem unnameably cold
I admired the ability of it
To make us feel free
Insolent as my fate had been
Greener than the word May
The mast of these afternoons
Only beggared for moderation
And that enraptured simplicity
From which I came
That was enough, and so were
The rest of the years that I was given
at the asylum of the eucalypti
I would rest, and it would be
Wondrous and christening
Like a white sunset.
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 9:43 PM UTC
One without looks in tonight
Through the curtain-chink
From the sheet of glistening white;
One without looks in tonight
As we sit and think
By the fender-brink.
We do not discern those eyes
Watching in the snow;
Lit by lamps of rosy dyes
We do not discern those eyes
Wandering, aglow
Four-footed, tiptoe.
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She loosens on tiptoe
the latch of her window,
slides upward the sash
and the shine of the moon
pours over the sill,
like it's rushing downhill
like a silver stream,
flooding her room.
Mar 8, 2017
Mar 8, 2017 at 1:31 AM UTC
Carved in stone, lost in time,
freezing my parted smile,
Peering down into the unknown,
I sit next to you, toting my arms:
Where is the world
that breathed you to life?
On this lonely peak, tires
upon tires of hopes and dreams
retreat into the the terraced
spirals of mists; Every mystical
dawn dissolves into the lakes.
Gnomes bear the burden of
mysterious gates to the beyond,
as whispers tiptoe to strains
of the Quijongo.
Here epochs and worlds end.
And counts begin all over again.
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 1:40 PM UTC
Sapphic sapphires glisten in the moon
These ladies say that Hades makes them as dry as a sand dune
Maleficent and Cruella mark their spells on their heads
And quietly they tiptoe and sneakily their treads-
Move with a rhythm only grace can create
Enchanting are these women, seeing them is fate
To be an audience member to their auras and their moves
Is an opportunity that is divine, spiritually proved
Indigo in color, L words leave their lips
Straight and curvy bones and fat vibrate from their hips
They mesmerize, they enchant, they let their inhibitions soar
Until they dance away, unhinged, and you can't see them anymore
Remember this encounter, it is one that will inspire
It will make you feel a type of way, it will ignite a fire
Feb 9, 2017
Feb 9, 2017 at 10:13 PM UTC
Mother, mother, what ill-bred aunt
Or what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you so unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she
Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and nod at foot and head
And at the left side of my crib?
Mother, who made to order stories
Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,
Mother, whose witches always, always
Got baked into gingerbread, I wonder
Whether you saw them, whether you said
Words to rid me of those three ladies
Nodding by night around my bed,
Mouthless, eyeless, with stitched bald head.
In the hurricane, when father's twelve
Study windows bellied in
Like bubbles about to break, you fed
My brother and me cookies and Ovaltine
And helped the two of us to choir:
'Thor is angry; boom boom boom!
Thor is angry: we don't care!'
But those ladies broke the panes.
When on tiptoe the schoolgirls danced,
Blinking flashlights like fireflies
And singing the glowworm song, I could
Not lift a foot in the twinkle-dress
But, heavy-footed, stood aside
In the shadow cast by my dismal-headed
Godmothers, and you cried and cried:
And the shadow stretched, the lights went out.
Mother, you sent me to piano lessons
And praised my arabesques and trills
Although each teacher found my touch
Oddly wooden in spite of scales
And the hours of practicing, my ear
Tone-deaf and yes, unteachable.
I learned, I learned, I learned elsewhere,
From muses unhired by you, dear mother.
I woke one day to see you, mother,
Floating above me in bluest air
On a green balloon bright with a million
Flowers and bluebirds that never were
Never, never, found anywhere.
But the little planet bobbed away
Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!
And I faced my traveling companions.
Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,
They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,
Faces blank as the day I was born.
Their shadows long in the setting sun
That never brightens or goes down.
And this is the kingdom you bore me to,
Mother, mother. But no frown of mine
Will betray the company I keep.
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Tight roping the catwalk of life's hopes and dreams
I tiptoe through trying to avoid hurting myself upon
Jagged pieces of broken glass
Obstacles to my aims and desires
Atop the saffron walls of my blue sky thinking.
From here I could allow myself to fall into blackness
containing all possibilities
Or stay safe aloft and on high
Continuing to follow my narrow path
My feet tire of this peregrine journey
And yearn to search for colours new
To allow myself to pass through deepest black
Through to purest white
And enter the rainbow
Where in life's spectrum
All souls glow within its flow.
Jul 31, 2016
Jul 31, 2016 at 12:09 PM UTC
Every morning
walking through campus
I tiptoe across
a vast yard of hearts.
some broken some brimming
some silent others spinning
Every morning
spent walking through campus
I tug my jacket front shut
A little bit tighter
I keep mine close
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 1:01 PM UTC
I’ll bloom in spring
Alongside the Californian hills.
When the rain paints
The terrain green
With speckled white wildflowers,
I’ll tiptoe on sunlight
to touch the sky.
I’ll be the brightest star
They’ve yet to discover.
Shooting, shining, falling,
And wished upon.
Dry land, crispy and brown
Underneath my feet on
A winter night.
Mar 7, 2021
Mar 7, 2021 at 2:03 PM UTC
The apartment hasn’t been cleaned for so long and has housed a depressive in it for the same length of time so that there is a glaze of slime-dirt on the floor, made of dried coffee, hot chocolate, maybe some **** or some spillage from a tube of steroid cream to treat an inflammation that never really goes. The rate of ooze changes?. Clean textiles are piled up on the floor, never having been folded, and mix here and there with ***** practical fatpants that make me look like a geologist and white-white cotton blankets that can be washed on HOT with lots of bleach that I purloined from some mentalhealthfacility. The inbox is full of—is bristling with—remonstrances from Programs for the Nondoer—you haven’t filed, haven’t turnstiled, haven’t had your hologram chip assessed by central CENTRAL intelligence, what is wrong with you. Upon stepping outside there is a beat during which I think maybe somewonder might swirl and buoy but no, just wethumid and ***** sidewalks cruddy and Haitians and quasi-Haitians muttering “taxitaxitaxi” in front of their Gypsy conveyances with their dubious certifications. I should go for a ride in one, a dubious passenger for a dubious palanquin. I tried the library but it was too hot and decrepit and too filled with Books For African-Americans, which always ****** me off; are only African-Americans going to read Wright or Douglass or Brooks? Everyone is overrated, anyway, movies and theater and the moribund beat of commerce, and as the dangerous autos pass, sometimes not running you over, you can see morechange in the pockets of the shareholders of BeePee and Iacocca Coach-Wirx. Any friendliness exhibited seems to contain an underovertone of You’re Not Included Whiteboy White ****** Ghost ***** all archaic names I’ve been almost astounded to be called usually while balancing on tiptoe on some lurching, roaring dieselbus, grinding past off-off-off brand groceries that do a dubious business. While making my police report I wink at a sevenyearold boy and I get a lustrous wink back butalas this is not enough to beat back those slurrycolored brainfazes.
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 2:09 PM UTC
Anna who was mad,
I have a knife in my armpit.
When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages.
Am I some sort of infection?
Did I make you go insane?
Did I make the sounds go sour?
Did I tell you to climb out the window?
Forgive. Forgive.
Say not I did.
Say not.
Say.
Speak Mary-words into our pillow.
Take me the gangling twelve-year-old
into your sunken lap.
Whisper like a buttercup.
Eat me. Eat me up like cream pudding.
Take me in.
Take me.
Take.
Give me a report on the condition of my soul.
Give me a complete statement of my actions.
Hand me a jack-in-the-pulpit and let me listen in.
Put me in the stirrups and bring a tour group through.
Number my sins on the grocery list and let me buy.
Did I make you go insane?
Did I turn up your earphone and let a siren drive through?
Did I open the door for the mustached psychiatrist
who dragged you out like a gold cart?
Did I make you go insane?
From the grave write me, Anna!
You are nothing but ashes but nevertheless
pick up the Parker Pen I gave you.
Write me.
Write.
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Today, I am sick.
My mental illness is shaped like a prison
and I am in the waiting room
wanting to ask
"What are you in here for"
like
what kind of crime has your head committed
that you are trying to lock it up
with prescriptions
and weekly meetings filled
with uncomfortable confessions
and numb palms from sitting on your hands for too long.
They say it's like playing in traffic,
a red-light-green-light game
where we beg for help
but don't know how to move
when we're asked to explain how we got here.
Do you even remember
what you're running from anymore?
Tell us about the days
where you can't tell if waking up
is a trench or a hill.
What has your head told you to do
and have you done it?
How did it feel when it was over?
Did your head congratulate you
when you were done?
Did you get a prize
like new scars?
Or three more handles of liquor?
The last time you prayed
did you have trouble unlocking your fingers?
Did the weight of God
keep your hands closed tight
in hopes that you wouldn't forget him
like the last time you saw Him
in the bottom of the pill bottle
and you smiled back?
Everyone here says the word Friday
like it hurts
because we know that the weekend is here
but we just can't seem to feel it.
Today we are sick
and nobody notices because our noses aren't running
we aren't openly bleeding in front of the one's we love
we do it in secret
just in case they ever catch us.
Today, we wanted them to catch us.
Stick out their hands
like a safety net
but it doesn't matter what height we fall from
because bones hitting bones
like a head on car collision
will never feel like warm sheets
blanketing our bodies
but we can't help but wonder
if the sheet they will cover us with
after they find us
will be warm too.
Today we are tired of being sick
tired of waking up looking like police chalk lines
tired of walking into the therapy rooms
like they are our parish
but we're too afraid God might smite us on the way in.
We shouldn't have to flinch
when certain words are said
that pull us back loading gun
but are too weak to pull the trigger.
Today WE are the triggered,
the empty promise of tomorrow being filled
with another prescription
another drink
another list of second hand hope
coming from someone who is probably
still trying to remember what it says.
We would rather tiptoe between eggshells
and take our time
than let you know we are struggling.
We are STRUGGLING.
And it makes us so very tired.
So today I am tired
and I will tell you that
instead of reminding you
that every day I am sick.
Mar 27, 2015
Mar 27, 2015 at 3:28 PM UTC
i am but a child with my eyes closed believing i am invisible
cloaked in my own curiosity
i tiptoe over sentences and ask about big words like
what does ************ mean?
My mother told me don't ask for it
What is it?
How do I paint my nails red without smearing the Polish?
When i felt (becoming a woman) run down my legs along went my wonder, childlike
My body was now poetic in the way it wrote verses across the pad
Apr 18, 2019
Apr 18, 2019 at 10:42 AM UTC
317
Just so—Jesus—raps—
He—doesn’t weary—
Last—at the Knocker—
And first—at the Bell.
Then—on divinest tiptoe—standing—
Might He but spy the lady’s soul—
When He—retires—
Chilled—or weary—
It will be ample time for—me—
Patient—upon the steps—until then—
Hears! I am knocking—low at thee.
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