"tousled" poems
"I can’t figure it out.” She said.
“I like cigars,
and pretty dresses and crossing my legs.”
She paused,
then continued,
“And I like smoking cigars in pretty dresses while crossing my legs.”
She uncrossed them,
then crossed them again.
One smooth limb over the other.
Just like that.
“But I never seem to have a lighter on hand.
Could you— sir,
please light my cigar?”
“You see, I have no pockets to hold such things and my purse…
Well,
You’ve confiscated that, haven’t you?”
“Thanks.” She breathed,
and inhaled,
and exhaled;
Sluggish wisps of smoke dissipating into the air.
Just. like .that.
“I didn’t know L'homme was into women who smoke cigars in pretty dresses while crossing their legs", She said.
“I mean, how was I to know?
I only noticed him noticing me.
It was probably the way my hair was tousled like so,
Or how my lipstick shone a deep, dangerous rogue,
Or the way I sipped at my champagne…
That made him walk over.”
“But I never asked him to light my cigar
Or comment on my dress…
Or stroke my legs.
So when I whacked him up top over the head with my glass,
I bet he never expected it to shatter and split his skull like so.
He dropped so sudden, sir. I…”
Another ringlet of smoke, a sigh, an uncrossing and crossing of legs again.
“I had no clue,
what else to do,
But to sit still in my pretty dress, with my legs crossed, smoking my cigar trying to figure out...
Just how I'd committed ******
Nov 12, 2018
Nov 12, 2018 at 5:10 PM UTC
The floor is a mess,
clothes and papers scattered about.
No need to look at the rest,
please do not shout.
She's lost what mattered most,
him, her, them, they.
The shine her tousled hair, lost,
and gray clouds are her vision okay?
So please do not judge her inability to leave bed,
or her waist that's shrinking by the day.
Please just think about what you just read,
and fix her the right way.
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 11:01 PM UTC
I am not who I think I am—
I never said I was
Sometimes I’m
a monster—
swirling, yellowgreen skin,
bristly coils of
hair sticking
out,
strumlike underneath
your fingertips—
sometimes I’m
a normal guy,
angry and hungry
with greasy-tousled
greasy locks—
or a subaverage
woman,
curvy and compassionate,
warm *****
beckoning to all
bereft—
most often, I’m a
translucent ghost,
too little there
yet not enough gone,
genderless,
formless,
obsolete
Dec 9, 2016
Dec 9, 2016 at 3:12 PM UTC
clenched fists
eyes rolled back, tousled mane
face red from Master's slaps
gentle violence
good girl.
Sep 1, 2015
Sep 1, 2015 at 6:56 PM UTC
Hear the gentle summer breeze
Whisking through gulmohar leaves
In the music of wind chimes
Tinkling songs of summer time
Feel her quiet on the skin
Filling hearts imaginings
See her as the blossoms dance
In the cusp of dawn's romance
In saplings that take a bow
In wind blown hair tousled now
Petals touched by her stir
Silken soft in gossamer
Light and dark shadows play
On shrubs of green bunched bouquet
While butterflies and bees sup
Drink nectar from sun's molten cup
Aug 16, 2016
Aug 16, 2016 at 10:08 AM UTC
Underneath the leaves of life,
Green on the prodigious tree,
In a trance of grief
Stand the fallen man and wife:
Far away the single stag
Banished to a lonely crag
Gazes placid out to sea,
And from thickets round about
Breeding animals look in
On Duality,
And the birds fly in and out
Of the world of man.
Down in order from the ridge,
Bayonets glittering in the sun,
Soldiers who will judge
Wind towards the little bridge:
Even politicians speak
Truths of value to the weak,
Necessary acts are done
By the ill and the unjust;
But the Judgment and the Smile,
Though these two-in-one
See creation as they must,
None shall reconcile.
Bordering our middle earth
Kingdoms of the Short and Tall,
Rivals for our faith,
Stir up envy from our birth:
So the giant who storms the sky
In an angry wish to die
Wakes the hero in us all,
While the tiny with their power
To divide and hide and flee,
When our fortunes fall
Tempt to a belief in our
Immortality.
Lovers running each to each
Feel such timid dreams catch fire
Blazing as they touch,
Learn what love alone can teach:
Happy on a tousled bed
Praise Blake's acumen who said:
"One thing only we require
Of each other; we must see
In another's lineaments
Gratified desire";
This is our humanity;
Nothing else contents.
Nowhere else could I have known
Than, beloved, in your eyes
What we have to learn,
That we love ourselves alone:
All our terrors burned away
We can learn at last to say:
"All our knowledge comes to this,
That existence is enough,
That in savage solitude
Or the play of love
Every living creature is
Woman, Man, and Child."
5.9k
You see her tousled and knotted hair falling in her face,
But I focus on the soft melody she hums to herself as she paints the world.
You say that her eyes squint too much when she laughs,
But I find beauty in the way they flicker when gets my jokes.
You say she reads too much and should get outside more,
But I see her brilliant mind twisting around concepts of beauty and truth.
She is flawed in all the right ways.
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 2:25 PM UTC
I woke up next to you,
Watched your balanced breathing,
Chuckled at your tousled hair,
But the only difference was
Where I’d usually trace the words,
I love you on your back,
I typed them into instant message,
Got up,
Yawned,
Stretched,
Rubbed away eye crusties,
And turned off Skype.
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 5:09 PM UTC
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, tell me what suits,
Soft natural highlights, or strong punk roots?
Auburn red or beach blonde hair,
Brunette with greens, or short blunt rare?
Mermaid midnight old balayage blues,
Grey ombré curled with lilac hues?
Lemon yellow paint or neon spice,
Purple color that matches my hazel eyes!
Tousled, textured, twirled and twined,
We could take it to the front, or let it all behind.
Black hair with beautiful mahogany dye,
Fringes looking pretty every day passing by.
Straight hair with an asymmetrical bob,
Lips painted red, formal and hot.
Tie buns and bows with colorful clips,
Grow pink hair long, till they reach my hips.
Fish tail braid like a Boho chic,
All pastel shades spread, across the width.
Blonde and bright, they are in my sight,
Soon to be a celebrity, wearing them uptight.
Burgundy wine perm, crazy long,
Every hair color has a song.
There are chances that they may look all wrong,
But hey! I'm not scared to just play along!
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 9:39 AM UTC
she's gone like the stars in the morning time
a few left to make you smile
never enough to overwhelm.
she's fine like the sweet escape of time
they call her name
she says i'm running away.
she's felt so deep
like a trench where soldiers laid
so awful it was to lay with them.
she's kind as flowers are pink
sometimes they are
and sometimes you have to look inside.
she's rough like jagged stones
beach hair tousled from the breeze
"baby," she says "come back to me."
she's sick of deception
who knows her name
"please get away from me" says she.
she's me.
cant you see?
May 23, 2022
May 23, 2022 at 10:40 AM UTC
The assassins hit in 63
And Camelot was gone,
Inspiration vanished
And the darkness sang it’s song.
*Vietnam escalated
Brezhnev’s Russia loomed,
Africa was eviscerated
And Red China entombed.
*Floating on a long white cloud
The Kiwis were replete
With abundant British markets
For their butter, wool and meat.
*The Europeans went ****
And Britain lost it’s way
When the Beatles and the Rolling Stones
Monopolized their day.
*Man landed on the moon
And raised the Yankee flag
And they shot Mahatma Ghandi
For making good things out of bad.
*The Berlin Wall dividing,
The Cold War tense and spare,
ICBM’s threaten silently
In their silos of despair.
*Bob Menzies ruled Australia
As an amassing of his loot
And his White Australia Policy
Condemned him as a brute.
*Found naked on her tousled bed,
Blonde hair across her face,
Marylin Monroe is dead
The world’s a darker place.
*In the Age of Aquarius
Our children lost their youth,
LSD and smoking ***
And Afro’s were the proof.
*Lots of leg in miniskirts,
High bouffant’s in the hair,
Screaming teeny boppers
Rock with Elvis on “the Air”.
*Giant, Rawhide, Ponderosa,
Martin Luther King,
Kaftans and a cheese fondue,
Abortion is a sin!
It’s a sixties kaleidoscope,
A panoramic skim
Of an era of wonderment
Which you and I lived in.
Marshalg
@the Gate
Mangere Bridge
20th January 2009
Oct 23, 2009
Oct 23, 2009 at 2:25 PM UTC
Your ghost haunts me still.
[Did you send him here to me?]
I see
your tousled blond hair,
those bright blue eyes
your round red lips,
but
It is never really you.
Your lips are the first
I ever thought of touching.
[Did you know how close I came?]
It snowed the day after you left.
I tried desperately
to catch just one
perfect flake
to send to you.
You cannot mail a snowflake!
my mother righteously said.
[Did you remember the frozen day
when I loved you first?]
My heart is frozen now.
And I suppose it didn't matter
since you were gone.
You left me here and I
could not forgive you,
that must be why
your ghost haunts me now.
I am sorry. I am so sorry.
I let you slip
through my fingers
and now
there is nothing left.
Jun 7, 2013
Jun 7, 2013 at 10:14 AM UTC
I once professed my love to the wind...
I had professed that I admired the way
it had caressed my face.
The way it cupped my cheeks
and combed through
my tousled hair.
I once professed my love to the wind...
I had professed that I was infinitely enamoured
with its playful but gentle ways.
The way it would upset
the serenity of my clothes.
The way it would engulf me cool
on a hot sunny day.
I once professed my love to the wind...
I had professed that I get addicted to the way
it would reach into my lungs
and abscond with my breath.
Leaving me asphyxiated for a brief moment
before mischievously
introducing new air;
hale and fresh.
I still profess my love to the wind...
I'd profess my adoration for the way
she fills my sails full
and my heart full of hope.
For I am a lone sailor
in a crowded ocean.
Sailing in a vessel bound for nowhere...
Traversing time and space
with my love, my breeze...
my air.
.
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 11:28 AM UTC
Guns,
Long, steel guns,
Pointed from the war ships
In the name of the war god.
Straight, shining, polished guns,
Clambered over with jackies in white blouses,
Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth,
Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses,
Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties.
Shovels,
Broad, iron shovels,
Scooping out oblong vaults,
Loosening turf and leveling sod.
I ask you
To witness--
The shovel is brother to the gun.
3.1k
For, a four legged companion,
A solitary
Gravel smoked voice clips instructions,
Harsh sharp whistles echo cross the valley floor,
Emitted by crag worn features.
Piercing eyes, sun bleached.
Skin hewn by dry stone walls.
Hands created by granite.
Coarse tousled hair guards against howling winds.
The hardworking man at peace with his surrounds.
© Nick Strong 2014
Jan 25, 2014
Jan 25, 2014 at 3:06 PM UTC
One day, you’ll fall deeply and irrevocably in love
with the nape of the neck and the lobe of the ear
you’ll want to nibble just above the edge of the jaw
and run your fingers through the tousled spirally hair,
but the slight quiver of curved lips will halt you in thoughts
as the darting pupils furtively flutter behind closed eyelids
searching for a break of dawn in the shadows of a room
where dust hangs heavily then settles in unsuspecting lungs
making the rise and fall of the chest raspy and laborious,
making nostrils flare up to make room for something less heavy
something more familiar, more light and less lugubrious,
something like a touch on the curve of the neck just below
the edge of the jaw and a whisper of something gentle
that nibbles on the ear as erring fingers run through spirally hair,
sending waves of shivers that make curved lips quiver and
darting pupils flutter enough to one day break open closed eyelids
where you’ll fall deeply and irrevocably in love.
Sep 3, 2018
Sep 3, 2018 at 2:26 PM UTC
See that little match-stick,
see that candle there?
See that hard-worn photograph
taken for a year?
Take them punches, boxer-girl!
Much to your chagrin,
it comes back in equal part -
hard and deep within.
Consider bonds between us heat.
And fuel, the time we spent
sleeping close in tousled sheets -
a sky towards us, bent:
gray and cloudless, quick and fleet.
Candle-flame is meant.
to take those memories, and to eat
the message that you sent.
Photo attachment 1: You, him - bottle of Cointreau. Bite marks on your thigh like only I should have left! Grass (both types), a camera. Wrestling. ****** ***
Photo attachment 2: You, him: carousels, cloven-footed balloon-man (whistling high and wee). Hot dogs. Ocean. Wrestling. ****** ***
Photo attachment 3: There was something about a penguin… and there was cake involved. Polarbears - must have been a zoo. Causing me to mope at the keyboard: wrestling, ****** ***
Photo attachment 4: It’s really just *** now.
Photo attachment 5: Please stop.
Shouldn’t be so callous:
that password is personal.
I shouldn’t really have it,
Well, this is what I get for exploring the caverns of iniquity
(that’s slang for your hard-drive),
***** little …
I can’t … cuss you out.
All photographs marked 10/18/07 for devastation.
Now, this thing has ended:
sad, though brief and gleeful.
We were consumed by happiness, never sorrowful
and nothing meaningful;
everything beautiful, nothing painful.
Princess, that work was masterful -
breaking that, making great things hurtful.
But worse still?
I can’t hate you.
Mar 5, 2010
Mar 5, 2010 at 11:29 AM UTC
*
*
One can never see nor hold the same
the same flake twice, but that cannot
be said for the Queen whose skin
is as white as a star and just as cold.
A plum blossom who thrives off
the winters and blizzards.
Her silver locks tousled in her wind,
her eyes were icebergs of the deepest
blue and yet they burn with kindness
Her thin lips form a smile when a
flake falls in her palm, her open
hand becomes a fist.
But then unfurls like a flower
in spring to reveal a plum blossom
petal that glides away to the song of
zephyrs.
Winters may be cold but it brings
warmth -
lovers grow close,
families bond
children laugh
Memories form...
The Fae swirl leaving trails of shimmering
blue as she looks to the distance.
Her white robe billows, so cloud-soft.
'The Summer's sun has become Winter's,'
she closes her eyes and exhales.
'I feel your warmth and pride, Sister Summer.'
'My dears?' the Fae flutter by her head
in waiting. 'Be sure to have apricity embrace
them all. In hour of the Summer's Queen.'
*
*
Sep 5, 2018
Sep 5, 2018 at 3:24 PM UTC
Boys are weird!
Us girls will never understand them.
They scuff their knees up and walk out the house with tousled hair,
Can they ever think before they do?
They swing, climb, run, and jump on everything!
Just stay still.
Boys will be boys,
With dirt on their faces and cuts on their fingers.
They stick gum in girl's hair,
Carry slimy frogs in their pockets.
Their appetite is atrocious,
Are they gentlemen deep down?
Boy's language is all washed up,
They'll call you hot instead of beautiful.
They're full of burps and hung up on videogames,
Wrestling in the house every second.
Do they have a nice side?
Dads will keep a good eye on them,
Making sure they're good for their daughters.
Boys never stay like this,
They grow up to eventually become a man.
Feb 17, 2014
Feb 17, 2014 at 4:43 PM UTC
Sings a small boy whose hair is tousled by the wind,
As too the folds of his mother’s peplos and the robes of clouds,
When Greece gathers in silence like the stillness for a deposed crown,
And all Athens around, the song of eiresione for firstfruits of Autumn,
Singing boys with the olive branches of colored wool and garlanded gourds,
A fall-bird to wander the Ionic sky, foretelling of new sunrise.
How that joyful ancient voice still haunts the songbird of sunset.
Apr 2, 2023
Apr 2, 2023 at 11:21 PM UTC
Get me on my stomach and rub your stubble-like brambles against my cheek
breathe your humid heated desires on the backs of my ears
and into my coal
entangle your feet in mine
verbalize but don’t make much more than senseless noise, drag it out
sloooow
Grind that ribcage into me
As you make sweet, sweet silent passion into me
Dont get too comfortable so long as you're entwined just as me
Reel me a little further
Pull me back
don’t play too hard
you should know well
it's who we are
I'm more useful when I'm not besot by the torment
of not getting to feel the things that make me fall
Tangibles of your love, the winnings
of our games
I want to be enslaved by your grip
touched by your eyes
With tenderness to my viability
and my liability
I want to be the object of your affection
never the only one
That makes your sensible mind up and slip
Legs and bones tousled
Our heat displaced in-between
warm flesh slipping in and out
we move like one majestic animal
I'll make you move like a victim in my web
of endless sensualities
yowl like a hidden cat
in the dark
if you pounce my softness with your depths and integrity
to the moment
to what we besot
with our foolish tendencies
I'll be like talons
in your shoulders as I kiss your collar, gingerly
open me up, open me up wide
much like you, cringing by your side
let your inhibitions fall,
and your heart, next to me
your vulnerability is my sentimental call
let your head spiral
down my silhouette, hungrily
lay bare your tenderness
so I can sip, you can maul
untilll we fall
to primitive tendency
lap my primordial waters with your lulled tongue
lolling up in the cosmos
like our heroic sun
we know that we’re one
braid your fingers up into me
as we
as we
as we
loose ourselves in faceless time
loose ourselves, lovingly
I won’t own you, I don’t dare possess you outside of this bed
just give me this,
this one meaningful thing
to me in it’s stead
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 7:10 AM UTC
In the 2nd grade
a puppy love
crush on the
teacher steeped
deep in me
to my delight
her clear eyes
recognized the
promise of a
chubby boy
in all of his
quaint simplicity
her gentle
voice, friendly
and firm, filled
with caring instruction
the giddy class
attuned to her fresh
brunette bouffant, bunned
and perfectly coiffed,
speaking style and
youthful whimsy,
not a strand of hair
out of place
her svelte figure
flowed through
classroom isles
filling the space
with scented graces
of prescient carnations
that afternoon she
was abruptly called
from the class
when she returned
our beautiful princess
was sobbing
she concealed her face
then turned her back
on the class, crying
in a corner to dismayed
blushing blackboards
regaining composure
she turned
exposing her tear
stained cheeks
and dissheveled hair
to an unsettled class
“the President
hurt his back” she
announced. “He’s
in the hospital.”
Whoa… I thought,
the President hurt
his back. That's
terrible I surmised.
our beloved teacher
dismissed us
and resumed her
tearful grief
when I arrived home
my mother was
sitting on the bed
weeping. “President
Kennedy is dead”
she blared.
my mother’s rumpled
housecoat and
tousled hair flattered
her flowing tears and
anguished sobs.
the tears of women
marked the end
of many puppy loves that day
Bob Marley & The Wailers
No Woman No Cry
Oakland
10/15/13
jbm
Oct 16, 2013
Oct 16, 2013 at 1:13 AM UTC