"unclaimed" poems
I almost forgot about you today. A sizable
spill of coffee shot me to my feet, holding
up my mocha-soaked notebook like an
unclaimed child. A dozen eyes found
me at once---a security measure meant
to bring shame to a klutz breaking his
social contract. Attention for **** living.
When the pain receded I stood in place
and imagined you brushing your teeth.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 11:50 AM UTC
Whenever I am not seeing you
Lethal void is my heart
Like the monolithic art
Of a sculptor;
Like the figures of Mona Lisa,
I tried to engrave you
Again and again in my heart
And rehearsed you many times
In my memories.
To reconstitute
Your beautiful image
Inside of my mind
I behold you thousand times,
Yet all loving and languishing
Nothing could be captured
To match your perfection
As you were seen in person
Nor could be remembered
To your many dimensional figure
Of youth unclaimed.
You are just beautiful but demure,
Seductive but unrevealing
A love that slips down
Near your lips were forbidden?
And be never told?
Like two balsam flowers unfold
Opening from their buds,
Your eyelids are open wide.
Like two bees ******* honey
My eyes were seeking yours
To ferret out the secret
Of your true love and desires;
Neither did they come out
Nor did they flutter
And never reached out
My beehive safely.
Seeking out for your true love
In your eyes, in your lips,
Cheeks and chin far and near,
Everywhere all over you,
Looking at you all the time.
You are open to interpretation
Of your true intention
Of your love and desires
Like the secret smiles
Of Mona Lisa.
Until you make confession
Of your true love,
I will behold you thousand times,
You are just beautiful but demure
Looking for you all the time.
You make me dream about you
While in my sleep or I am awake.
My discrete memories
Are overshadowed by time,
I cannot fight with my feelings
Whenever I am not seeing you,
Lethal void is my heart,
Come and meet me in person!
Oct 27, 2018
Oct 27, 2018 at 4:17 PM UTC
The border to me
XUAN CARLOS ESPINOZA-CUELLAR·WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2015
The border to me is a constant anguish,
A big pause button,
Often in dreams I dream of Mexico as my lover
And he waits for me,
And waits.
The border to me is my grandma’s rosary,
She said she’d hold on until I could go back,
Until she couldn’t.
I recently found out that for years she’d scold my cousins for using my table games “he’s coming back, and he’ll ask for them…”
And she’d save t hem in her old, rusty closet.
The border to me is a big pause button,
I often dream of going back,
Who will I be then, when I hit play?
Who will I speak with to recover my grandmother’s prayers,
To collect 12 years of unclaimed hugs,
All the wrinkles and gray hairs I missed on her hair,
And every step I couldn’t walk by her.
But one day I will cross back,
In the middle of songs and candles I will conjure her spirit,
And I will look in the back of that old closet
Where she saved my table games
And there I will find her love
And her songs, her advice, her songs,
And the little pieces she left for me, hidden for me,
When she envisioned the day
That this pause would be over.
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 7:28 PM UTC
For the lonely,
for the loveless,
for the forgotten and overlooked,
for the discarded and trodden on,
for the neglected,
for the ignored and mocked,
for societies weeds,
for circumstantial weeds.
For you outcasts are weeds
the flowers nobody wants,
but
weeds are resilient.
They persevere where others can not.
Often mistaken for weak, but no,
weeds are strong
and tough enough to break through tonnes of concrete
and metal.
Clever enough to find growth in places
others perish in.
Adaptable to every habitat and
brave enough to exist on barren wasteland.
Weeds need only the tiniest of a chance to flourish
For the unwanted,
for the unclaimed.
You are beautiful.
You are equal to every other flower.
You are the Charlock, the Buttercup, the Clover,
the Pinapple-May-Weed and so much more.
Next time you see a **** by the roadside,
or peeking out from a crack in a wall,
or between paving slabs in a busy city,
or overgrown in a garden,
or weaving through rubble and debris,
take heart
lonely ones.
You are not worthless
You are magnificent.
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 6:53 PM UTC
~
Sheltered within her cryochamber, the offspring of Armageddon dreams of play. She swims in an algal bloom that no longer stings like jellyfish. She floats on the surface of content, far removed from the synthetic sea and its plastic isles. She dwells in a bubble, but her mind hangs free as a halo, soaring with clouds. But these are not the skies that sense their own act of vandalism. This is the space and ceiling of a child's mind, in her capacity to absorb disturbance and rest her tiny, fragile hope in pretended, unclaimed worlds.
~
Oct 26, 2021
Oct 26, 2021 at 11:26 AM UTC
Here we are as unclaimed lights fall into the room. Here we are with better names, old letters peeling after the other. Here we are, now made of changing lights and indigo dreams. In the very last month and for the first time, I claim the body of an Egyptian lad and you are the sun god, washing over me like a brand new day. For the first time, December doesn’t feel like choking on poppy blossoms. For the first time, December is freeing as scattered pastel lights.
For the first time, my love, December rests on my skin — and it doesn’t hurt.
Dec 15, 2021
Dec 15, 2021 at 10:48 PM UTC
She wishes she could tell you that she's doing better.
She wanted to express her feelings, and you let her.
Now, acknowledged she does feel,
Her wounds continue to heal.
She knows why you pushed her away,
There's a reason why she couldn't say what she wanted to say,
That day, in the cafe.
She wants you to achieve your crazy idea and let you do whatever it is that you need to do,
She doesn't have what it takes to be angry at you. It is the truth, she'll always love you.
She is sorry that she was rude,
And ruined your mood over the food.
She didn't wish to hurt you with her words so crude,
But that's the way she does brood.
You didn't have to hear her nonsense, dude.
You, she'll never have the strength to claim,
Yet, she lights up each time she hears your name,
She loves you still, she loves you and will always feel the same,
It is not that she'd wait for you, more like she can't move on.
It her fault, you should not get the blame.
Jan 14, 2023
Jan 14, 2023 at 4:41 PM UTC
#
*Not all was lost
to the beast,
nor to the silence
that sheltered it.
For deeper still,
beneath the rubble
of unspoken years,
the child remained.
Bruised, yes..
but not extinguished.
Hidden;
but not erased.
A breath still moved,
a spark unclaimed
by the darkness.
The beast does not feed only
on the wound itself,
but on the hollow it leaves behind.
Gaslighting, scapegoating, silence..
all these are its masons;
carving out a chamber in the soul
where the beast makes its abode.
There, in the aloneness of the child,
it feeds from within,
claiming the silence as its fortress;
the emptiness as its throne.
And the door creaks again..
not always the first door,
but another..
a new figure cashing in
on the void they sense.
Their entry feels like company,
even love,
yet it is only continuance...
a repetition of the first harm.
Worse still when the creak
is painted with a smile,
when exploitation wears
the mask of care--
The abode deepens,
and the beast settles further
into the soul.
Yet the fortress cannot hold forever.
The silence cannot smother forever.
Even the grave-dirt of denial
cannot bury it whole.
For the child endures
where walls collapse,
and the smallest cry
outlives the loudest lie.
The beast devoured much,
but not all.
And in what survives,
the future breathes;
a testimony,
a beginning,
a voice
that will not be hushed.*
#
Sep 2, 2025
Sep 2, 2025 at 3:44 PM UTC
I used to swim across the channel to rattlesnake island when I lived
in Florida . We all knew the sharks loved
the funneling action of the channel to the bay . And we were always aware that there were sharks near by . We saw them every day . Yet the allure of the island just a scant one hundred yards away was to much for a 10 year old to pass up . So I would swim across holding a rod and reel high so it would not soak in sea water . I admit there was apprehension evident in my strokes and kicks but I made it across . On the other side there were no rattlesnakes anywhere .
Just gorgeous unclaimed white beaches and aqua clear water . Needle fish scooted across the surface and schools of mullet jumping were all I could see . I did little or no fishing , just running and jumping into the surf . What an afternoon it was . But the sun slid down and we knew we had to leave soon as the big sharks move in at dusk to feed into the night . So we stepped into the swirling waters of the channel and then plunged in and swam . Sharks have all black eyes . Cold black eyes and an expressionless grin that is all business sporting a mouth full of jagged dagger teeth . They are cautious up to a point but no one knows where that point is . Once that point is reached . . . well you don't want to see that point while your in the water . So about half way across the channel we see a dark shadow swim by in front of us between us and the beach . We know it's a shark , a big one . Perhaps more than fifteen feet long . We can't stay where we are at , but we fear to move on . So taking a deep breath we swim on slow and steady . Finely the beach is at hand , our feet touch sand and we run up on the beach and collapse . Then with heaving chests of fear we look back only to see the shark swim by . Needless to say that was my last visit to rattlesnake island .
Apr 8, 2016
Apr 8, 2016 at 11:55 PM UTC
I tilted my head . I wilted and was dead -
No longer entangled in this snare called life -
none the less remembered, respected
Dejected in my illusion -
Where i wander most often, unclaimed and disillusioned -
Whatever was I hoping for-
longing in which to see -
the distorted , unreported - dismemberment of ME -
Expectations are like curses, drowning and alienating ALL who dare to dream -
The Ideals of a stranger - I am now what I seem
Oct 18, 2012
Oct 18, 2012 at 7:50 PM UTC
Sages and broomsticks
motherless pearls
Witches that threaten
fatherless girls
Curse of the ages
old grudges remain
A coven of stages
to hide from the rain
The markings of Satan
the touch of the Lord
A death plated sunset
and winner forlorn
The trap now a quandary
and you must break free
As with all soiled laundry
to burn once deceived
The truth is not distant
first word never feigned
The peace that you’re seeking
inside you unclaimed
So let go of the dogma
the medals will melt
New songs of arrival
you’ll write most heartfelt
But the moment is now
and the moment is clear
Once the moment is christened
new joy spins from fear
To those who still threaten
with eternity ******
Say:
“Away with your blasphemy,
stop where you stand
These wings have reopened
my eyes looking in
New life has been gifted
—I’m blessed to begin”
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2014)
Oct 21, 2018
Oct 21, 2018 at 5:07 PM UTC
She taught me
how to whistle,
folded a blade of
grass between
her teeth and
scared frogs half to death
in the woods
behind her house,
that chord struck
deep in the crater
she punched through
my heart
Her sandy skin
burned in the memories
of boys, who watched her
run across a field
with hair swinging
like a beacon, those
candied lips quick to laugh
at a passing joke,
they thought that
she belonged to them
But those lavender evenings
of junior high summers,
bikes and scooters lying
like faithful pets against
the hot pavement, chalky
hands with nails painted
resting against her
scabby knees, those knees
were my altars, I prayed there
more than I prayed in any church,
She was an anthem
unclaimed, she was
an American soccer girl
****** into a taste and color world
where she could be worshipped
by boys with football scars
and veins coated thick
with peanut butter & jelly,
she fell so hard that summer
cupped into the hands of
one after another, after I fell asleep
on the leopard carpet
of her bedroom,
I could hear her
whispering, and the
magma in my throat
filled to bursting,
the fireflies I'd cradled
in the bones carved
from her wrist --
I knew I'd never hold them
when the sun rose,
they escaped far too soon
This mosquito-stung life,
we wore our bites like
champions,
brought them home
to our mothers
until they would fade,
facing the plastic leaves
of autumn, I wanted to
stay locked
in her cage.
Apr 27, 2012
Apr 27, 2012 at 1:35 PM UTC
Some days just don't belong to you.
They are foreign. They are alien.
Like an unannounced death sentence,
They wait.
Stalking and wrapping shadows around themselves,
Until at last they spring-
No.
They slide into your life;
Slithering like a silent grinning serpent.
And only after they disappear
Do you realize Paradise was stolen from you.
And you are left there
Confused and naked to the
Harsh winds of change.
And you pray.
And you pray.
And you pray.
But you're still there.
Standing alone.
Damage done and no way to go back.
And when next you feel
The echoes of happiness
Slip over your skin,
It feels like a shell that
You can't see
Has been in place the whole time.
Jun 25, 2010
Jun 25, 2010 at 1:46 PM UTC
Missed chances
failed romances
kisses unclaimed
sweating
shaking
feeling ashamed.
Mar 18, 2012
Mar 18, 2012 at 8:23 AM UTC
How many times
have I read your words
and
found myself crying
wishing openly
to claim them to my heart
to ink my replies
with kisses
to love them not merely like them
how often have others
seen yet unseen
their meaning
and yet I know them
I have felt them
longed to acknowledge them
openly
yet no not now not yet
for this is not the times for tears
as I once more
read again your words.
Dec 31, 2012
Dec 31, 2012 at 11:04 AM UTC
*Sorrow, the black bird on her shoulder,
she cleverly hid, when they first met.*
It was flying around her stiff corpse,
they found in a train coach unclaimed.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 9:07 AM UTC
You’ll find them in all such establishments,
(Be they graceful small-town former Victorian homes,
Or cinderblock edifices mindful of some campus multi-faith center)
Sitting in the basement, cheek-to-jowl
With moldering burial records and banking statements,
Yellowed newspaper clippings, faded prayer cards
Small squared-off boxes hastily tabbed together,
Ostensibly temporary containers which have acquired
An unintended and wholly unwelcome permanence.
The whys and wherefores of their subterranean placement
A mixed bag of foible and outright foolishness:
Unresolvable squabbles concerning possession and burial,
Families that skipped out on the bill, leaving mom behind,
Cases of outright not giving a good-goddamn.
And so they remain, in lieu of repatriation and redemption,
To sit for something akin to perpetuity in some cases
(Members of the profession resolute in their respect
For the dignity of life,
Though their sincerity enjoys less unanimity)
While others wait for mass burial
Once legal niceties have been satisfied,
While still others, in care of firms not so scrupulous
About crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s,
Are flung, albeit somewhat surreptitiously, out the back door,
The remains to take flight if the grass is dry and the wind is brisk,
Otherwise to be left to the vagaries
Of curious birds and creped soles.
Aug 31, 2018
Aug 31, 2018 at 11:28 AM UTC
6/21/2018
The night is alive with possibility
The suspense is killing me
Lightning strikes a pose
And thunder comes to me
deeply
Seeping through atmosphere
Home is here
Home is where a gaze holds you safe and a shoulder keeps you steadfast
Cognitive dissonance
I cannot live with this policy ripping through my arteries, this image won’t stop coming to me
A 9-months old baby
In an orange jumpsuit
In a cage in a city
Unclaimed, unwritten, undocumented, unforgiven for the sins of colonialism
Unforgivable
Where were you when ****** branded the Jews?
Then you are accountable too
Jun 21, 2018
Jun 21, 2018 at 10:39 PM UTC
Walking through the road of bones, on the way to Gulag,
Sleep by the sleepers, till you are just leftovers.
Making way for the ferrous wheels, mean machines,
The Red Tsar is still a reverend, Sukhois fly by.
Witness the northern winds, take a time lapse,
Stare at the Kremlin, wonder what Putin's doing?
Deserts of different shades to the opposites,
Unsaid and unclaimed they rule the north.
The lost Soyuz men in the space, still a mystery,
Few hundreds revolve with little hope and air.
Uncle Sam's contender from time immemorial,
Its a mystic land, Keeps you wondering of it.
Dec 7, 2014
Dec 7, 2014 at 12:21 PM UTC
A price that’s in the men shoes
He’s unclaimed and well schooled
Act his rhymes n’ mimic his friend too
Make him understand our sweeter shoo
Blend to been online with his touchy tools
Then play him around n' bring him to us too
Wherein he'll crave more for our added duties
A pleasure to bend n' subdue his struggling pities
And so you try to get me for all the monies n' fame
Hoping that my heart do cringe to the gains and aims
For in most man’s heart lies some greed n' impurities
But that testimony was short-sighted n’ less accurate
Dunamis and poverty - a borrower, the lender's slave
An experience to fail my rapture; a shameful swing
Which my hands cannot say – an immoral beauty
Whom my lips can not welcome; the school
The teacher - the minister
A princess n’ a bling
A frog as a king
He’s handsome
By gender
She's beautiful
in slander
A prince
An offender
A princess
The slanderer
The princess and a king
A soldier n’ a fling - a queen who’s ashamed
The offer that topped the shelf of supreme
That's us, both upside down and unclaimed
A soldier n’ a queen - a coward, a shame
The prince and a fling
A miss
A glamor
A mister
An amour
Unashamed
With clamor
Unmoved
By hammers
A miss in a glamour
A mister in an amour
The minister and a king
The majestic of single shoes
Who's keen to sense a moral beauty
Who sees the world as an interesting chaff
Dominate n' commoners; a sense of duty that
All must claimed from their individual combat
For in most men heart, here lies love n’ cruelty
To flamed the hearts n’ dance to pains n’ strife
So I sought to seize the life of love and Faith
To pursuit a walk of dreams n’ less blemish
Where little is important than odd duties
Like turn me around and teach me you
Teach me to see another man’s shoot
Make me enjoy that creepiness too
Shade my mind and my drink too
Cause I’m unclaimed n’ uncool
A vice that's in a male shoes
Jan 11, 2019
Jan 11, 2019 at 1:33 PM UTC
Your words are cutting, and the wounds go deep,
you can't talk down on me anymore,
I am losing substance,
I make excuses for your behavior,
and I put it all down to circumstance,
but you don't need excuses,
you need to claim your mistakes
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 11:18 AM UTC
923
How the Waters closed above Him
We shall never know—
How He stretched His Anguish to us
That—is covered too—
Spreads the Pond Her Base of Lilies
Bold above the Boy
Whose unclaimed Hat and Jacket
Sum the History—
1.6k
i like the communism acknowledged by ants
and terminites,
but that brothel bit where
we plagiarise lions
just to get islam?
**** that, let’s try again,
and again,
and again... until
the rhytms of the labrador and
the tricep conincide with a society
worth living in,
the utopia of my grandfather
i wished i lived in only compensated
by achilles and hercules...
imagine! only by achilles and hercules!
only by achilles and hercules!
hell with you!
hell with you for stealing that from me
and giving me the antionette john paul ii...
that gave me a statue and not a job -
endearing as the entering applause,
hell with you, discarded western of the jeans...
i'd go back to ukraine had
i claimed justice in a society that divided me
to make justice unclaimed and literature
for worth of being unclaimed...
had such society existed... the mongols
would have conquered it by simply yawning /
as opposed to mustard stink /
what? west's the best daddy's girl hello
boy dylan **** jim morrison?
you're ahead of yourself in the electra complication
with the decided cold war no.2 originating with the
kalashnikov & katyusha in pseudo-ottoman hands;
hell with you! stay middle class and un-fuckable!
Nov 30, 2015
Nov 30, 2015 at 8:37 PM UTC
She is the one with
Brightest Eyes that shine with promises of brightest future,
Heart that beats on rhythm of unsung melodies of valor,
Her tiny foots getting ready to conquer the unclaimed territories,
Her hands ready to lead world towards purest form of happiness,
Her smile brightening up the dullest day
The world knows her by the name
"Mirha Sakina"
What they don't know is
She is the Golden Princess
Born to rule the world !!
Oct 27, 2020
Oct 27, 2020 at 5:04 PM UTC
mark of cain in my hemoglobin, i'm more open to repast on brains.
to dine on flesh enmeshed in baseball parks and homes restrained
by greed of the same. and the cry of the people takes great pains
to refine the message of a blank stare. a blemish, stark with catacombs
disarranged in harm honey. the ogre of pine. the amber pane
where we bleed. we name nameless, by the by,
to the finish.
but not
alone.
up your petticoat with my blind cleaver. my Occam razor to your stain.
a fine mess express in hateful art and boneless jade
we feed on the frame of our reference. skylarking harmonious curves dismayed
by their own mind. they confess it. at the statefair. replenished, they knish in falderal
disengaged from honesty. the poker blind. where the eye staid.
where we need. we need most ... tell ya why.....
to diminish
but not
atone.
and so it goes. i erode the continent. sneaky pete in the crease of all strange.
itchy feet. maimed in false lies of the ripple. made fake
to real love. unclaimed. a gangly part of broken promises made
we retreat at last. with our last mimes. we undress. with savoir faire. distinguished in our dashery
ill fated. calamity's bark. hard to define. where the mind misbehaved.
we're complete most where the hole resides...
to imprison
but not
hold.
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 10:29 AM UTC