"totems" poems
there’s a barnacle scar
deeply ingrained
on the basalt stack
at mark thirty two
whispering summer winds
scented oil
cotton and roe
drift
as waves brush
and shape
the sandstone shore
the briny air
and lost erratic
set a tone to this
pollyanna portrait
it's andrews undulations
and gifted benches
its concessions
and traces of the barry burn
its sculpted driftwood
and sanko lines
make this picture
almost perfect
children play
as venom spews
from the caterwaul pair
those odd looking mates
casting smiles
with arrested despair
settling shots
swiping bugs
dipping and darting
as photo men
and muscles
and long neck seabirds
make their turn
the hunched hoody
and his sorted sidekick
get their fill
(of moss and rubble ~ chubby and kelp)
nice to meet your acquaintance
the pho man would say
an odd drop
and ironic turn
from those horrific corners
of timeless desperation
down by cannon bridge
harbor seals
and carriage horse
are fronted by
raven shade
jolly tides pause
in quiet bays
(with curious looters
and *** pickers)
sand merchants
and field totems
all streamed by the light
cirrus strands
blanket the
outer edge
hovering craft
and shimmering willows
bolt the evening frame
blood orange
and tethered
with a filtered glare
bottle-nose dolphins
and seabirds
(and shifting tides)
are all settling in
for the long night stay
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 11:21 PM UTC
The belated summer sky is alive
with a D r a g o n f l y ballet
Beneath,.. the rain parched sod
lay sullied, cracked open
by an unsated thirstiness
awaiting the painted autumn days
and the cleansing rain's renewal
A lace-winged hatch rises skyward
— meandering airborne —
drifting upwards like a burst of dust
dissipating in an invisible cloud
of eventide's silent breath
Darting shadows hover
above a seeker's curiosity
just this side the
softening sunset backdrop
A synthesis of fluid motion
– darting kinesis –
swift agile fliers
steal away over the thirsty pond;
their mesmerizing beauty enchants
as the dimming dusk falls silent —-
embellishing the unrelenting ending
another summer's
imminent curtain call;
reminding how inexorable-time
is only a contrived human notion,
a recurring extrapolation
of passing seasons
Heightening awareness:
how we too are only
passing through these
unholdable moments
coming to know
we cannot stop
how life unfolds
The raindrops will quench
the pond's aching thirst
again one fall someday...
— hereafter —
there will be another
beauty of dragonflies
some other eyes will see
preying on another burgeoning
gossamer-winged hatch
and
another beckoning autumn
when the dragonflies hover
below the gazing totems
in the treetops
Jesse Stillwater ... September 2018 .
Sep 19, 2018
Sep 19, 2018 at 12:52 PM UTC
Winters can be tedious.
Sun dips into early dusk.
A dead fire refuses to ignite.
There's a quick repetition
of opening and closing blinds
over a barred window.
In need of reflection
I search a familiar face
in an unfamiliar landscape.
I have her in my grasp,
half illusion, half real,
a symbolic mask denies
her true face,
her glittering crown
divides us by its radiance.
Groping in darkness,
I stumble over objects
of wood and stone,
my unsteady tread tripping
over their contours.
I light a candle.
Bathed in amber light,
our shadows merge.
A new door opens,
stretching the perspective.
No formal borders here,
they wouldn't survive
the present climate.
In their place,
intricately carved
figureheads and totems-
a vision of the past.
My eye is a camera,
retinas branded with imagery
for the photographer's delight-
coloured pebbles, carved wooden animals,
tin cans, bones.....
....A Glass Sentinel
(though she isn't visible)
I can see right through her-
a vision of smokescreens
and subterfuge.
Past stumps of driftwood,
past the uncut grass,
a few flowers...
...to the fabricated backdrop
of a burning house, black smoke
rising
in
a
thin
stream.
At the open door -
The Guardian,
(I know her inside out)
unmoved,
(she didn't bat an eye)
defiant in a new skin,
a softer version-
The Mother protecting her children,
arms splayed, prepared
for fight or flight.
A russet flame
Licking her spine exhales
'Get out of my way!'
but she wasn't listening.
Smile fixed,
eyes of a phoenix,
a lion,
a raptor,
protector.
We all need feeding,
but not this way!
Throw me a cloth,
a napkin,
a man-size tissue
a lifeline!
She wanted this,
no, wished it-
this symbolism,
this burning of ironic portraits,
to clear the deck,
make way for new.
It shook the house,
its fate sealed behind closed doors.
I compose myself,
pull her back from the perilous edge,
gather her in my arms.
Fragments of shattered words
flutter in the ether.
What is real?
What is fiction?
A carbon copy of thousands?
A charred corner?
A forgotten candle?
WARNING:
'Eating fire' is a risky business
but can attract a large audience.
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 11:29 AM UTC
Perhaps there are 100,000 forms of darkness,
100,000 forms
of what they call depression.
I know one
or two of them.
There is no suffering scale, no way to compare
the suffering of one
human being,
or one illness
to another.
So we hold candlelight vigils
build totems to gather the universe and pull
back clarity around one another’s edges
But I can't burn sage inside me.
It may attract the bad you hide from. Or
is it the good that scares you?
The world beyond the bond
of hearts is a town
without pity.
A dull inhumanity of systems failing the people
we don’t look at.
In this way the brittle tethers of association are tested.
Hand in hand greeting the blackening sky, bearing
down like the face of a missing child’s parents,
staring at one another
knuckles clasp tight.
Your smile the remaining mirror at the end of the world.
If you were here, or I there
I’d be home right now. On the inside
we’re both waiting for one
another still.
Because I’m the same,
but not.
I am ruthlessly forgetful.
Names, birthdays, work schedules.
But I know the way your hair looks in motion.
The way your face looks
refracted through a cigarette ember.
How when your mood shifts,
the church in your eyes
becomes torn, battered, and bare.
If we could just give
another go-round.
It would be different,
Remember,
your best.
Where you are, might
be, may go.
When it used to feel so good.
Apr 27, 2018
Apr 27, 2018 at 11:58 PM UTC
Lush cow parsnip lined the disappearing path
rain came, with cooling mists kissing lupine flowers
A sacred land the path's end - ruins of Haida totems
born of ocean, emerging man
of shells and sand
earth and air
clan of the
raven
Apr 1, 2013
Apr 1, 2013 at 9:00 PM UTC
Lost my air from a parting glance, a split second that haunts my
memories
The crunch of gravel beneath our bare feet, tired arms
around my neck
Dancing drunk in the morning, waiting for the dandelions to unfold dying
arms
Feta cheese and Greek olives, hummus on flat bread, a sip of
merlot
A kiss with dim eyes under live oak branches, a parting breath,
exhaled into open skies
I turn under the disc of the sun, chased by moon and clouds,
the clear quiet of night
I surrender my thoughts to the dead leaves, broken branches,
my holy totems
I lay my voice on wild grasses; let it float down, drip into
running water
I write my words on ***** walls, tomorrow scratched to illegible
nothings
Outlines of small hands on colored paper, hard to believe we were all
children, once
Mar 22, 2012
Mar 22, 2012 at 9:17 AM UTC
White lightning strikes us--
we're connected...
-vividly-
our energies
envelope...
visualization of our desire
sprouts forth
like an emerald tree
in the ethereal consciousness--
providing primeval symbols
taught to our isotopes
and totems.
Jan 4, 2012
Jan 4, 2012 at 12:49 PM UTC
You’re waiting for a train
A train that takes you far away
But then you remember
You already played this game
Inception is what they mean
For they who can’t dream
Forever is what you get
As long as you have left
Buildings fall ocean rising
Forever might seem surprising
Untouchable it seems
But promises are to keep
You think you are awake
While you are actually asleep
Wanting to wake up
You have to die
Totems are the key
To see what is reality
Gravity rules
For they who are awake
And alive
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 5:08 PM UTC
After, a long drawn out burning kiss
that opened a never healing wound
she leaves for the secret rendezvous
in a verdant oasis in a distant desert.
He didn't hear about her even after
light years, remembrance of that
kept on haunting him, for reasons
he wanted to find, he burned and burned.
On a full moon night after million years,
searching in the desert, long hours
sweating and tired like a haunted animal
he found a magnificent Spinx,felt connected
fell for that feminine allure, curved hips
hypnotic eyes of a hermaphrodite,swell of *******
that illogically prompted him to caress,
towering high at the end of an oasis,
wasn't it a construct of desire?
he stood, feverishly desiring those pouting lips,
the moment next, missed the one inflicted wound,
in a pit inside forbidden longings erupt
when speaking language of desire, poisoned fruits too
taste dark poetry, nature flows to symmetry
"No man or woman, loved me like that"
a whisper, then a hiss, in passion proclaims
there she was his one time lover, cheat, deserter
of his spirit's mating call, still he isn't free from delusions,
she abandoned him for another, in that too wasn't sure
yet another of her misadventure, does she repent?
"I didn't want to miss you like this" she says
"you mistook that I was in love with her, him or whatever"
entanglements, there were from the word go,
her eyes , he observed were sapphires,
her bleached white bones, were irresistible, totems
he wanted to preserve it in the museum in Cairo
her being grew in to him like an oasis
in a desert, a weary, insane, traveler reaches
just in time for the final peaceful hour before all resolve.
"Are you insane, what makes you do this again" a voice asked,
another million years would pass without any solace,
the sphinx, so magnificent then would be just a sand dune !
They hand in hand, would be walking over it,
that sweet oblivion would remain, birth after birth.
Aug 7, 2014
Aug 7, 2014 at 7:30 AM UTC
We tremble when our favorite team loses,
Or cheer when we see them win.
But its our lucky charms and their uses,
That keep the goosebumps possible on our skin.
Warriors with their totems, chants, and prayers,
Found hope in small possessions.
It pushes them forwards because its theirs,
The luck gives them joyful expressions.
Now for me, I don't find comfort in the moon,
Nor do the stars in the sky grant me glorious power.
Only now have I found my favorite tune,
And it turns out to be a small, little flower.
"Luck isn't real, and never will be",
I'd tell myself, when others had success.
But now, I know the truth and would have to agree,
My lucky charm is you, and I wouldn't have ever guessed.
You turn me around when I go the wrong direction,
Treat me more honestly than anyone would.
I'm overwhelmed when I wake up to hear your affection,
Making me feel honored, as if a man in knighthood.
Four paragraphs doesn't do you justice, but it's better to stop,
And save more for later, since we're both horrid at goodbyes.
Hope you had a good sleep, and don't need one more cough drop.
I love illustrations and imagery, so here's one for the sunrise.
You're the prize at the bottom of a cereal box,
As rare as an alien from outer space.
Independent, beautiful, and as graceful as a fox,
And to my deck of cards, you' are the ace.
Dec 30, 2017
Dec 30, 2017 at 3:06 AM UTC
A cold, dark desert begins
When a faint peach light saunters over the horizon
& climbs the sky,
Leaving darkness to shadows and graves.
The chaffed branches of bushels,
Barely lingering along the threshold of life,
Find solace in crawling growth
As the glow reaches dusty twigs,
Making them as networks of smoker bronchi.
Faded green cacti hold posture sharp,
As totems of harsh-landed culture,
Serving as solemn landmarks
In a flatland of mixed dust and rock,
They stand tall
All for a breath of young desert air.
While quiet hue spreads,
Passing each towering rock & mountain,
Even quivering lizards,
Waiting to be sunbaked,
Change to pink-yellow glow
& scarcely move
As the sun soars above
sizzling rigid scales,
Until the glowing horizon becomes a burning, lit land
Under a radiating Arizona sun.
Jun 21, 2013
Jun 21, 2013 at 12:13 AM UTC
as you trod upon your floral dream-world
pierots on pillows gaze.
watching you with
intent.
peonies are being pulled back beneath,
the false divider, between
earth and fire.
barriers.
are simply states of your soul stuck watching,
divine totems decapitate themselves
instead of succumbing to
slumber.
the blades on which you rest end abruptly.
leaving only an ancient path within.
lost somewhere between dying
dynasties.
there is a hole in the dirt where gravity sings,
to cobblestone satellites scanning
the skies.
for more than a sign that knowledge need not be,
a colossal misconception...
transcending
even the most distant star cluster.
Sep 11, 2011
Sep 11, 2011 at 8:30 PM UTC
A box junction,dysfunctional miscommunication,down by the station in one more of its type,a shattered crack pipe and a broken down motormouth man,spanning the distance between here,over there,swiping the air,pissing his pants,ranting at rainbows,begging from strangers,
he's just another of the night time ghost rangers,a shadow that falls off imagination and walled off behind solidified dried up and **** out hot dreams that appeared to be real,in the stealing of childhood in the big world bad wild hood,where the good don't die young but are used as the fate bait for just wait and see state, you get in,when you stick the pins in your veins,bleed drain fluid cleaner, how keen are you now?
How the mighty have risen to be crushed,cast aside on the mad ride to stardom in the Kingdoms of blinged up and blind men,
dazzle me, quick me,me brain's oh so sick me,
and sometimes I wonder
and sometimes I don't.
I won't make apologies to pygmy type minds who only find it within them to carp,criticise,and as I prise up the mountains to catch moles for my dinner,I ask of my god,just who is this winner that's wrote of on totems?
Poles apart
we start in the middle,fiddle the figures which figures not in the outcome and I come out fighting,
delightful in madness where the sad can't attack me,where the strait jacketed banality of life is finally flushed,where I'm not rushed in decisions,make insightful incisions with obscure ramifications and cut anyway,cut everything away and cast off.
A bit like knitting
but not with wool.
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 7:27 PM UTC
Write me a letter
Sing me a song
Paint me a picture
Place me, I belong
Play me your music
Allow me this chance
Make me your pick
Incite me to dance
Save me my cry
Wipe me my tears
Try me, I'll try
Lend me your ears
Grant me your patience
Teach me my words
Say to me your sentence
Free us, we're birds
Build us a boat
See me a star
Rid me this moat
Have me where you are
Write us, we're poems
Turn us into song
Paint us as totems
Love us, we belong
Jul 25, 2014
Jul 25, 2014 at 11:30 PM UTC
In the ruins of memories shall I scavenge for relics,
I seek totems of our union and idols of our departure,
For in the battlefield we shared I sit to relish the agony of separation we now bare,
To the crimson kisses staining our surrender,
A salute to fractured promises.
Jun 4, 2021
Jun 4, 2021 at 12:34 PM UTC
I remember when I was lost in depression and self-loathing,
how alone I felt.
Even when I was surrounded by people, who I loved and loved me, I felt disconnected and numb.
This poem is a small message to all of you who felt and feel this way that you are not alone.
No suggestions or advice. Often the friends and strangers that helped me the most when I was really lost in myself were the ones who drew near and were just with me.
A silent loving presence means a lot when you feel numb to life. A simple tender touch might not break through the walls of depression in the moment, but I remember those warm touches in hind sight.
Loving presence were subtle lamp posts that guided me out of the darkness of depression, resentments, self-pity, and hate.
All I have are these words as totems of a loving presence given to me by others that reminded me that I am not alone. A gentle touch, a silent smile, or just hearing the breath of a loved one sitting quietly next to you.
Jul 13, 2014
Jul 13, 2014 at 8:34 AM UTC
We’ve totaled all our totems just to glower under towers;
Handed in our scrotums; douched away our feminine powers.
We’ve traded in our lifetimes in exchange for prescribed hours.
We once basked beneath the heavens; awed by meteor showers,
But now we’re fed our heavens via signals from the towers…
We’re the antennae squatting upon the set,
So the gods in the TV can tell us what to fret,
But do you ever stop to regret
What they’ve forced us to forget?
We paid for this, but what a debt…
We felt infected by a plague known as freedom,
But the antidote… my god, what have we done?
Totaled all our totems…
Traded in our lifetimes…
Ignore meteor showers,
Just to stare at radio towers.
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 7:39 PM UTC
Monks whose ears have heard
The sage advice of Buddha
Walk shoeless, smiling
Temples adorn sky
Like regal glimmering gems
On Earth’s diadem
They are exquisite
Sanctuaries for roaming souls
In need of counsel
Cherry blossom drifts
Afloat on gentle zephyr
Sweet breath of summer
Babies with big eyes
Peer up to the mountains
Sensitive spirits
Here the animals
Are totems of other worlds
Made accessible
Through deep reflection
Which surrenders the soul to
Deep primal chaos
The forgotten ways
Lie dormant like volcanoes
I await the first
Fluid eruption
Of lucid lava, making
Me awake, conscious
Grand mythology
Dwells in these magic islands
Centuries of tale
In Harajuku
The market awash with style
Romance in neon
****** dresses
And lace umbrellas, dainty
Adorn boys and girls
Wild self-expression
That dandy philosophy
Embodied in style
Land of monks and youth
Japan a portal, doorway
To past and future
Where temples mingle
With technics and skyscrapers
Strange modernity
Nov 23, 2016
Nov 23, 2016 at 7:06 PM UTC
In Klawock stands seven totems
and a madman, chanting under ebon skies
he is embedded in the cedar wood, he is connecting worlds
a master carver, of language without words
of the raven clan, he is tracing ancestry in the wood
seeking the old ways of eagle, wolf and bear
born of water, amid the realms of earth and air
his spirit runs with salmon.
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 10:12 AM UTC
This is where it almost blew us away.
Where stunned silence gave way to
chainsaws and sirens,
where a whole community rolled up
its chequered sleeves in solidarity,
brought tractors and barrows,
ladders and axes and enough rope
to pull it all together.
(we've seen it all on screen)
It split bare trees.
Some lay paralysed,
varicosed roots flung skywards.
Others, headless, fixed like totems
gave a new slant of light to the polished cobbles.
Some were touched, others not.
Some cursed God's reasoning,
others sure of scientific fact.
The abyss did not divide them.
Peace coincided with the setting sun.
The wailing of sirens and chainsaws gave way
to the sound of unadulterated joy.
(Earth allows these moments-
they are her children.)
In a battle of strength, small hands
locked in solidarity, made way for life.
Straining against an opposing force,
tugging on a rope
where the trick is to stay grounded,
to hold on and not let go.
copyright © Caroline Grace 2014
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 12:17 PM UTC
human,
not quite human.
like us,
they are forever frozen in eliptical orbit
of the sphere where hell hath risen.
look up,
they view tiny totems of prospective intelligences.
hoping to death that the intelligent aren’t indifferent.
look down,
green vegetation overwhelms otherwise barren land,
which they possess no desire to cover with modern monoliths.
look within,
technicolour images are held amid each and every not quite mortal brain.
for on gliese 581 it is customary to accept marbles as eyes and the sun as a soul.
the only thing they ****
is the darkness that defines the earthling psyche.
“does this make them human?”
what is human?
Aug 3, 2011
Aug 3, 2011 at 3:56 PM UTC
Underneath pale spring skies
to everyone's surprise
'The Wanderers' returned telling tales of omnipotence
and the relevance of a divinity
I heard nothing
I was deafened by the noise from the laughter of the girls and boys so filled with glee
that 'The Wanderers' had seen fit to see
to find their way and come home to be
with them and you and me.
I don't know where they went or how they spent those,
lonely days when I would gaze with fear set solid in my heart
and wonder how it is that being apart
is so painful.
Fearful now
I keep my eye on those that take it in their mind to fly away.
But what is day without the night
and night without the dawn?
Storms may come and go but this is what I know
'The Wanderers'
will always be the hope and the guardians set by the gate
of those who wait
for liberty.
May 25, 2013
May 25, 2013 at 4:11 AM UTC
And when I lay dying on floorboards
Totems planked like Tetris
I, liver, gut, blood
Cried my psyche spare me
We all glow like embers
When we start to burn from the inside
And when I lay dying on floorboards
What did we talk about?
Lazarus, you black angel
Why do you linger so
Painful on the edge
Of death and the veil?
Talk to me
It’s just me, it’s just me
It’s just me, it’s just me
And all the awful things you say
It’s just me
It’s just me
It’s just me
It's just me
Feb 28, 2017
Feb 28, 2017 at 2:31 AM UTC
there are still bits of
her about
a dress in the closet,
an apron in the kitchen,
notes she wrote me
posted on my desk,
a jar of letters,
a karma sutra book,
and not to mention
all the memories
can I exorcise that?
I can throw out the papers
and give back the clothes
but after living here for
so long:
can this place exist
without her?
I sit alone,
unsure of what to do
with these totems,
these idols to a false
god
thunder crackles outside
as it begins to rain
May 21, 2012
May 21, 2012 at 12:16 AM UTC