"unburied" poems
“Moby **** Herman Melville
<•>
~for the lost at sea~
after a year of saltwater absence and abstinence,
return to the island caught between two land forks
surrounded by river-heading flows
bound for the ocean great joining
the Atlantic welcomes the fresh water fools,
bringing with them hopefully, but hopeless gifts of obeisances,
peace-offerings endeavoring to keep their infinite souls
sea accepts them then drowns the
warm newcomers in the unaccustomed
deep cold salinity, which
sometimes erodes
sometimes preserving
their former freshwater cold originality
I’m called to depart my beach shoreline unarmed,
no kayak, sunfish or glass bottomed boat needed,
walk on water and my toes, ten eyes to see the bottom,
no depth perception limitation,
reading the floor’s topography,
millions of minion’s stories infinite,
many Munch screaming
god’s foot, heavy upon my shoulders,
a daytime travel guide, hired for me,
not a friendly travel companion, nope,
God a pusher showing off a drug called deep water salvation,
designated for the masses, can handle large parties
my in-camera brain eyes,
record everything for playback -
the lost and unburied, bone crossword puzzles
walk shore to ship, on soles to souls,
is this my new-summer nature welcome back greeting?
puzzled at the awesomeness of vastness,
conclude this clarification for me of the occluded-deep,
is a stern reminder of my insignificant existence,
my requirement to walk humbly, spare my sin of vanity, and
forgive my trespasses upon the lives of others
perhaps then the infinite of my soul perchance restored,
older visions clarified and future poems
will write themselves
and sea to it my predecessors
be better remembered
Memorial Day 2018
May 28, 2018
May 28, 2018 at 11:53 AM UTC
Time is fleeting
as the spring river runoff
that gushes out to sea
A heart trickles out
a moment,
minute by minute,
in a timeless ink drop;
unmeasurable expanse
immured in spilled ink ―
manifest in the lexicon of poetry
For only purged words
cannot quench this thirst
that is loneliness;
it's a hunger that gnaws
like an unsatisfiable ache ―
a starving emptiness
all hearts
do one day taste
Left in the sight
of doubt
and eyes that fail
to believe what they see
lain fallow in the silent
indifference
Lost in a lingering void
unburied all around,
bespoken out loud
alone in plain sight
a feigned understanding;
reticent letters shape
reluctant words
to hold forth
enunciated breathe
The only words
that still echo unstilted ―
uttered words
indelibly felt
from lips once sweet
as daybreak dew
upon musing tongue ―
tasting the only
voiceless truth
that ever broke my heart
a vanishing wave
that moved an ocean
deeply ...
Jesse Stillwater ... 06 6 2018
Jun 6, 2018
Jun 6, 2018 at 2:38 PM UTC
Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o’er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole
The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole,
To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm,
And (when gay tombs are robb’d) sustain no harm;
But keep the wolf far thence, that ’s foe to men,
For with his nails he’ll dig them up again.
5.1k
It’s like some beast
whose roar startles
drowsy landscapes
from a mechanical planet
where veins leak oil
where organs deoxidize
where bones lay scattered
unburied like discarded rods
homes are garages
churches are factories
cemeteries are junkyards
where all organisms operate
toward a singular optimum imperative:
EFFICIENCY
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 7:42 PM UTC
pale sickness
you're white as a sheet
draining illness
your clammy white skin
rots
deathly light
the diseased white sun will bleach your bones
after the doves pick them clean
sickly white
your cracked teeth clatter out of your skull
dominos in a dead white jar
trembling hands the color of spoiling milk
carefully cradle an almost translucent infant
mother and child
both far too weak to feed
the only thing that grows here is decay
white mold thrives on your hoarded white bread
while outside the safety of the white picket fence
there is not a single soul who does not
recognize the white of an unburied skeleton
under a full moon
Jan 29, 2022
Jan 29, 2022 at 6:44 PM UTC
i'd like to live in my mind
of fantasy lands
and overgrown worlds
bustling and shaking with life
in all forms
of giant snakes that zoom through the air
of witches and wizards in constant war
of golden knights and fair-headed dames
princesses wielding swords off to battle
and magic coursing through my veins
my blood is liquid dreams
and my heart beats to the melody of a lullabye
oh how i wish to live in my head
untouched by the grime of time
unburdened by the weight of my reality
unbroken
unburied.
Jan 28, 2021
Jan 28, 2021 at 7:18 AM UTC
The lizards sip tea on saturday afternoons
and discuss the bourgeoisie
and the effects of the French Revolution on their political stability.
Rabbits sniff their butts and eat their ****
because the sake of science calls for it,
they know that better than humanity.
The monkey's choice to live without clothing
was conscious and
involved their understanding of their roles in the delicate ecosystem.
Ants live without emotional attachment
Because before they evolved
Too many died from broken hearts
and they realized it wasnt worth it.
Trees dream every night of the places that birds whisper about in their branches
and cry at the corpses that go unburied at their feet.
As humans go,
they live lives climbing not to the sky
But social ladders leading only to unhappiness
and unfulfilled lives full of ignorance
and baths of political corruption and suicide.
Yet they say they are the superior species...
Jul 7, 2013
Jul 7, 2013 at 2:47 PM UTC
Asthmatic heart attack fits
in a powdered-sugar
hurricane blitz
swept the fertile landscape’s
curves & twists
before the mud of disgust
was caked hard as rust
on the buildings hoisted
out of soil’s distrust.
Tear them down echoed
the canyon walls
whose layers of prayers
crept the ivy higher
reaching toward the sun
where the liar can envy
what’s honestly done.
In a stream it was spoken
to rush upon ears with
the good grace to listen
like whales of our years
unburied, and twice re-lived;
under seas of reproach
for having nothin’ to give.
Nov 2, 2010
Nov 2, 2010 at 6:52 PM UTC
Love;
It's one of those things where if you have it
You know it for sure
And if you're not sure, you don't
A while ago I gave up on love
Because every time I got it, and thought I had it
Some one very close to me came and took it away
And I am left without it
At first I was doing well
I would not fall for it
I would see a nice guy, but would not buy it
Or, a boy would like me, but I'd avoid it
But now I've fallen in to it, the well of love
Oh, how deep is this well, with walls so wet I can't climb up
At last I splash in a pool of water
A pool of love
And in this pool I'm drowning
Now I am floating, flowing down a river
I am spit out at an oasis, a beautiful oasis
But now I'm breathing, even under the water
And now I am swimming, I am in control
I now see the way out, but I dare not go near it
For it is a desert out there, dry and lifeless
A desert with no water, no love
This love, I feel it
I know not if he knows it but I feel it
It's warmth, it's life
I want to surround myself in it
I dare not lose it
Too many times I have lost it
It is mine! I will hold on to it
No one will take it from me, lest they die!
Now I believe in love
And it's all thanks to him
He unburied my love
Now I love him
#11_11/28/2011
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 10:35 AM UTC
She labors to smile,
irony draws lines
on her embittered face,
thick dark iron bars,
temporarily cage pain;
yet the risk
the two run is toxic.
soon they 'd have to face it,
unmistakable indications reveal,
her velvet voice over the phone,
conjured up an image,
drastically different,
a sadness now faintly asks
his permission to spread quickly,
confused he postpones, buying time.
guilt, a shaggy, smelly, hound
suspicion, its dominant trait,
lurks sniffing around,
the table they mutely sit,
like prisoners of unburied past
convoluting the plot,
by playing ***** tricks.
the air thickens
chocking both,
the haunt leers, licks its paws in glee
what is its intention?
"You look more or less
like him, my former lover-
I try to erase from memory
by every which way possible,
sorry about that, but i can't help it,
he traded in pain of many kinds
ingeniously, nothing else he did"
she shoots from the hip.
memory of an evil genius
was quickly resurrected by him
from the assortment of stereotypes,
vision of caravans transporting
gun powder kegs of bad memories, flashed
he had a match stick handy.
soon, everything exploded to culminate;
darkness devoured all, breaking limits.
caravans slog towards horizon, one after other still.
Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 9:26 AM UTC
Unburied
tomorrow
from Christian metanarratives
the mid-winter solstice.
December 21;
the shortest day
over the longest night.
Two lovers
are by the Channel
divided
to different beds
to tongue tastes
to timed beats
to unfamiliar scents
as Yuletide days
burn twelfths to gray ash;
their bodies
are sea
cleaved.
Come!
cross the water
and release
with lively touch
tresses thick
and winter's dew,
unctuous upon the crag,
the timely solar orb
to stir the frozen ground
on our rocky shelves
and chopped bowels.
On 25th,
Christ's star is risen:
the king's light dispersed
in lengthening days
in opened flesh
in loosening chords untied
in sinews gnawed through
in desire's wanting hotly flayed!
60 seconds were daily added,
to when
in the 100 Year Gallery,
love to know,
would in solstice
ultimately lay.
For now as then,
our emboldened play
in days delayed
has been
love's lacerating torment!
Jan 1, 2019
Jan 1, 2019 at 12:05 AM UTC
frozen fallout shelter housing dried goods and tinder
black bean and rice prepper bent on the end of days
looking first to the sky and then to the government
absorbing radiation and propaganda
faster than organic apple juice can flush the system
triple berry blast yogurt smoothie shakes violently
in hands coated with Lyme and the scent of the non-believers
bodies unburied lead only to disease and discomfort
stench filled landscape harboring mutated mankind
arms outstretched seeking normalcy and edible grains
contaminated meat from damaged cans sits unprotected
thin and frail lithosphere no longer preventing dermal cancer
only encouraging drought and famine while burning retinas and emaciating newborns
procreation as a plan of self-destruction and child-abuse
distant smokestacks, cracked, create a forlorn skyline
instilling visuals from days gone by
of easy life and happy youngsters
before the nuclear discovery
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 3:54 PM UTC
I saw a very old woman out in the cold
There was rain
There was a hyena
Eager to take a piece of her
And she cried out feebly for help
And she was answered
Or rather she now had company
A red-eyed and horned monster
It trampled on the only hope she had:
The feeble voice
Muted like a zombie
And the beast
Coughed out a fire of destruction
Breathed immobility in her
To eager but not quite able
To lick away her life as well.
Helpless, rejected and dejected too
Talk of desolation and poverty
Never again back to her land
Her only inheritance; and heritage too
The woman dies of hunger and disease
The monster wags its tail in joy
Then turns back and leaves her
Unburied, unattended, unmourned
Left her for the hyena to do the rest.
Jun 23, 2012
Jun 23, 2012 at 5:31 AM UTC
I can go back years in my mind
and still
that changes nothing for today
I am such as I have never been before
and still
she is not enough
For to me all things
even dreams and death
are tangible
And such that I could touch
life and love alike
but the world spins in it's own way
I retrograde in my emotions
and there is no center
to loss and losing
My only comfort is this, you
and still I cling
knuckles white and bleeding
There is none and nothing to surround me
Still my body chokes
On air fouled with memories
And dreams
oh nightmares
that they would leave their scars and go
But the world and whims of life
are not as such
and such I should have known
Fools live and die
and I am still afraid
of life and death at once
The coffin of my mind is unburied
and such these memories renew
a soul tired in its journeying
This is now still
a day to remember
though many I still forget
For time passes like water
through this life
and on into the next
These scars I carry
though the weight not the same
still I feel its presence
Let me pass
just as I am
in the shadows of the overgrown
Into that which calls me
by my own name
in the dying light of the stars
This day is still only a rising
that will set into the past
and I will let you go
As I have done so many before
such is the way of the world
still she spins, in fields of flowers
Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 12:05 AM UTC
Back again like a farewell tour I saw once again
Like a vision from GOD there she laid all the more peaceful
Freshly washed strands of silver hairs of wisdom now full and wavy like a child
All the closer I felt this time, all the more feelings as if I know before
Remembering your face as I saw you across the room
Like a face on the cover of a music magazine
Pulling a ritual out of my pocket I asked with my eyes
Got the response I was looking for in his node
No disrespect is intended just my way of coping
Everyone needs a way to deal, doesn’t matter what side of the tracks you’re from
High school dropout or on the A list in an Ivy League were all the same in the end
You might not see but others will through the procession that follows you
Stopping traffic, being able to run through red lights it’s all ok, doesn’t matter
It’s your day; Warhol says fifteen is all you get not on this day it’s all yours!
Seeing vapors again around the outer edge, shadows are dancing as well
Buds are pounding drums deep with bass
Saw you open up your arms after pushing you as if a child on a sled then pulled like in a wagon
Releasing nitrogen then pulling back the skin on the one closest to your heart off them came
How you must have felt flaunting your two rings of Saturn
And how you must feel now knowing there in the hand of another
I had no say in the matter it comes with the education so in return
I played for you a sweet soft song and prayed by your side all alone.
(CARSr. 5-14-12)
Jun 1, 2012
Jun 1, 2012 at 5:06 PM UTC
A thousand hands of absence
crawl my spine at night,
reminding me
the grave is never sealed.
Sep 7, 2025
Sep 7, 2025 at 5:23 AM UTC
how comfortable it is to sit here knowing what to say,
as if this lump in my throat had a voice of its own,
or was engraved with symbols, maudlin as my eyes,
and i could read them clearly.
this artifact was found by accident
in some ancient village of self-images
--used for chipping off pieces of self.
do i interpret my own primitivity well?
fragments glint unburied
under heavy breathing firelight.
loud, blinding,
it makes the night an iridescent one.
i rave some, dance-invent discovery, then quiet in the fade.
there is a core of me, to this accumulation ventured..
i'm afraid i only guess though,
like groping in the night.
nails in hair, the boney trail i leave behind
may cure the barrenness
i'm feeling differently now, having explored darkness
sharpness in the dirt.
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 1:07 PM UTC
*A lost cause that doesn't want to be found
hunter in the wild tracking without a hound
tethered to slavery,toiling in vain for a pound
I'm the loudest noise of a world without a sound
I'm a dedicated preacher without a bible
a hopeless soul still fighting for survival
a journey man desperate and far from arrival
a ready fighter in a ring and life's my rival
I'm a wounded bird soaring with broken wings
the first light of dawn and the chorus it brings
a trampled bud which struggles as it springs
I'm those dumped sad engagement rings
I'm the lonely path that was never taken
the chocking inspiring words never spoken
the many charming promises that were broken
I'm the dead unburied hearts,the ghosts awoken
I'm those thirsty flowers struggling to grow
the wandering souls unsure of where to go
the deadbeat and shattered,those feeling low
the tired refugee expectant mothers escaping war
I'm the hunted nemesis, bullets seek my blood
the homeless who lost their home to the flood
the internally displaced and raggedly clad
everything grieving, dead and living betrayed by the world
I'm the bitter truth that will never be told
the beautiful country and its people cheaply sold
the wrinkled malnourished children trapped in cold
I'm everyone, silent or spoken, black or white,young or old*
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 6:28 AM UTC
Your ashes
unburied
dispersed in the sea
dissolved in salt water
mixed with sand
find a quicker way
to nature's recycling.
You are not gone
simply absent from life
and I cannot pull you back.
I can only wait
helpless as you are.
Jun 28, 2021
Jun 28, 2021 at 9:16 AM UTC
what is a goddess; primordial time
turning; unburied alive & pregnant,
fiction; looking French & speaking
Spanish; what does a goddess look
like before she's looked at; there is
ur keyhole mystery, u the Venusian,
a homosexual; Etruscan priestesses;
Theravada Buddhism defines arhat
as one who has gained insight into
the true nature of existence & has
achieved nirvana; in Buddhism &
Jainism someone who has attained
the goal of the religious life; from
the Sanskrit, literally ‘meritorious’
Sep 5, 2018
Sep 5, 2018 at 7:06 PM UTC
a father at a table
looking at
two blocks.
his hash
mark
mind
suspended above
his image
as it flickers
between
adult supervision
and acts
of resuscitation.
his child
breathing
for blanket.
doctor’s orders
my special hat
is a dark
cloud.
spacing issues
have disappeared.
thin air is a black sheep born without a black kitten’s heart.
tell him
belief
is twice
the distance
abandonment
leaves.
that for baby longhand
a father easily
beautifies
the unburied deep.
Mar 29, 2014
Mar 29, 2014 at 9:46 PM UTC
As a woman, I am buried
I survive but I am buried
I can thrive but still buried
Now I the cut cord and become unburied
Nov 3, 2018
Nov 3, 2018 at 8:01 AM UTC
Propagated footfalls build a steady rhythm.
The path filed down
The grass and dirt are beaten
No one treads lightly.
In defense, Stones emerge
unburied – revealed,
emerged, appeared,
Rising into shoes.
The rubber always stomps the trail out.
The end
Off in the distance can
Shut out the world but don’t
Let the journey be overshadowed
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 2:29 AM UTC