"uncurl" poems
One day people will touch and talk perhaps
easily,
And loving be natural as breathing and warm as
sunlight,
And people will untie themselves, as string is unknotted,
Unfold and yawn and stretch and spread their fingers,
Unfurl, uncurl like seaweed returned to the sea,
And work will be simple and swift
as a seagull flying,
And play will be casual and quiet
as a seagull settling,
And the clocks will stop, and no one will wonder
or care or notice,
And people will smile without reason,
Even in winter, even in the rain.
3.2k
I waterfall my fingers down my throat
and wriggle them like they’re alive,
like I’m nineteen years old again,
trying to prove that I’m the cool girl
with no gag reflex.
The shower runs on boiling hot
and if I stand, I might fall,
so I’m taking the hair-infested plughole
as my date to the dance,
once I’m done with the black hole left in its absence.
My fingers are uncomfortably water-warm
and if I close my eyes, it feels so good,
like the first time I realised there was a clenched fist
inside my stomach that I could begin
to uncurl.
When I think about it, it’s like ************
It’s something I wouldn’t talk about in Church
and it’s something I should only do behind closed doors.
A lot of things are like ************ in that way,
like being gay, and cutting my own hair, and whatever this is.
It’s a distraction.
It’s something to do when the list of things to be done
is the same every day, when the doors are perpetually
shut and the clenched fist will always be clenched
once rigor mortis has set in.
Jul 17, 2021
Jul 17, 2021 at 8:47 PM UTC
“Unbind
Unclasp
Uncover
Uncurl
Unfurl
Undo
Unfasten
Unfold
Unhinge
Unhook
Unleash
Unlink
Unmask
Unroll
Unveil
Unclip
Unlace
Unzip
Untie
Unbutton
Unlock”
“Undress.”
“Understood.”
Unravel
Mar 1, 2021
Mar 1, 2021 at 5:39 AM UTC
Cocoon suspended ‘neath a branch,
Out of harmer’s range;
Churning in tight quarters then,
Awaiting for the change.
A cast she’d spun with great detail,
To blend into the scene;
Remain innocuous, choosing plain,
To spend such days serene.
This sanctuary has terms of time;
Yet flippant so, of sight;
Blinded by the darkness kept,
May only dream of flight.
There, outside this nurturing crypt,
Lies futures yet untold;
Exploring freedom, airless hours,
As wings will then unfold.
Alterations to her inner form
Complete in all detail;
While oblivious to worlds unknown--
Mem’ries without a trail.
As perforations tear a fold,
In which she will embark,
To crystal, glowing cast of moon
Within this evening, dark;
She wrestles to uncurl her girth
And wingspan so anew;
That seems so awkward, foreign and
Has converted different hue.
Now perched upon her drying bed,
She fans while instincts try
To capture sens’ry explosions
That lay to foundling’s eyes.
Beyond the glen, a spot she sees;
A single glowing blur.
Just then each tree bends toward one side,
As breaths sweep under her.
Weightless, floating, movement new,
She tests her longer arms,
That reach, manipulating wind,
Should quivers strike alarm.
The lure of the eerie glow,
Possess investigation,
As closer toward the light she flies,
Embraced with consternation.
Near collision with the beacon,
She’s halted in mid-air;
Translucent strings of sticky form,
She didn’t see, were there.
She wrestles, tries to free herself,
While a shadow looming near
Smiles with contentment of
His cunning craft of snare.
Slowly he approaches while
She looks to see his eyes,
So vacant of emotive flush,
With fear she starts to cry.
The octo-legged creature then,
Inserts his poisoned quill,
As venom circulates her life,
He waits until she’s still.
Then coils her in silky thread,
While dancing ‘bout his room.
Tho’ this is of his own design,
She returns, inside cocoon.
As thoughts of life, such brevity,
Released of any pain.
She closes youthful eyes at last,
And dreams of flight again.
Jul 4, 2010
Jul 4, 2010 at 6:23 AM UTC
My lungs are beating like they have swallowed my heart whole.
Divided on who she loved more, they choke my breath so I taste sour gummy bears as I curl over wounded,
a victim of one of loves ****** battles.
As I have fallen in love with every girl I have seen since I was 10.
I saw her in the playground with hair to her waist and we picked daisies like I picked her.
Seeing something beautiful and killing it for the sake of beauty alone.
I stopped falling in love when I chose the scent of musky sweat over the scent of rose blossoms.
It left a stench on my pillow so pungent and powerful I slept by the toilet which I shared my dinner with unwillingly.
Curled over out of no love I spat into the mix of **** and princess shapes and went back to the man who thought my interest in women was a turn on, so I pushed his button to turn him off.
It was that night I left.
It was that night I put down my fork and threw out my two meat and veg into the recycling to go into the arms of another woman's cutlery.
It was that night I stopped dispensing my body like candy from a machine and instead knocked on the door of myself and welcomed her in. Fall in love she said, but with me.
After putting the kettle on I fell in love with the curve between her thighs and the scars upon her arms. I fell in love with her inability to eat spaghetti elegantly and her obsession with trees.
Ever since then I have started living in my body as a home rather than a hotel I can change every week, I have begun to uncurl my spine and untwist my mind.
I now love a girl who smiles at the sky and shares food with her lover rather than an appliance.
But love spreads faster than fire and if you're not careful it can swallow you whole.
I say swallow me whole. Swallow me completely. Rip out my lungs and replace them with trumpets as I refuse to do anything but love, love, love.
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 8:53 AM UTC
I bet you didn't know that i have to molt,
I shed my shell as i grow,
This is when I'm most vulnerable,
I have to slip, slide and hide beneath the coral bed.
When i sense an attack i stop my gentle stroll,
I curl and uncurl my abdomen,
I swim backwards,
Keeping one beady, devilish eye upon the threatening team.
I have blue blood, a fact i bet you didn't know,
But still you drag me from my home,
And i feel the heat of the boiling water,
I crack, crumble and croak - on to some ***** plate I'm thrown.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 6:10 AM UTC
uncurl from your ball child
wipe away those soot laden tears
welcome to the new world
where all is here to fear
sons of the apocalypse she wailed
bow down to your fears
welcome to the new world she wailed
welcome to the fear
welcome to the chaos that i have brought so near
uncurl from your ***** you men
bastars filled with shame
bring forth your sins,
and i shall give them names
Crawl out of your festering holes,
and bring out the young
for a man will say anything,
when he stares down the barrel of a gun
so we came in great swavs
and brought forwards all our rot
and smiled as she told us
that the world would forget us not
Jul 11, 2015
Jul 11, 2015 at 3:47 AM UTC
i appear with boots and a saucy smile on
in the doorway while she's cooking the women
gossip over the sizzling pan of hot butter
under her heaving chest on the stove
i'm wearing a magic cape mimicking a windmill
with my bright pink ***** standing *****
big as a barn in the morning sun
lusting after dominance
fat and wrapped like a chorizo sausage
she sends a half-wave into my
direction of space and says--on the counter
i'm ******* an older latina lady with a chiquita banana
deep in my mother's kitchen with
the sticker on the tip of my **** for reference
as the sun dances and rises just
before pancake breakfast
her dank breath smells like
pollo broth and fiesta cigarettes
but her **** is wild soft and new
like a banana being peeled and sliced lengthwise
warm ***** hanging on either side
fat enough to be chewed on
psychedelic salsa blares
on the radio all morning
and i'm holding her skirt up to
reveal beautiful hips and thigh muscles so
i can **** her harder and faster
at her request
hands fly and the big bowl of
seeds spray downward in gravitational collapse
she's singing mexican gypsy secrets
with a cigarette lit and just hanging lopsided
off her lipsticked marshmallow lips
she's holding a yellow crayon in one hand
like she'll be scribbling notes shorthand
and dribbling cane syrup over my naked body
with the other as the floor begins shaking and
the walls shed plaster the cupboard doors creak
on their hinges and mom walks in the room looking at me
like i'm the crazy one
but the cataclysmic miracle is done
senorita is kneeling and wiping my ****
with an authentic mexican flag handkerchief
her sweat and my *** cooling on her thighs
working holes in her new blue kneesocks
and i'm re-zipping her dress over the
glistening expanse of her brown back
she stands trying to fix her freshly ****** hair and
we both light a cigarette try to forget the whole thing happened laughing at our secret as her cherry toes finally uncurl like an ember drifting in campfire smoke she just juts a hip out licks her lips again and smiles
"bueno."
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 2:52 PM UTC
Along a winding meadow way
Circuitous and pebble strewn
Towards a brook and down a slope
As morning sun outshines the moon
An expectation clogs the air
And all about the flowers turn
To face a wave of tidal light
To catch ablaze but not to burn
A dusky fragrance lingers still
And gathers calm as mercury
In solemn spots beneath the boughs
It lies in perpetuity
The weaving breeze is powerless
And banished by the canopy
Abiding there a myriad
Of all of natures panoply
Drift along now deeper still
A clearing basks amid the shade
An isolated paradise
A lonely little woodland glade
Where early spring regains the lead
And ferns uncurl a welcome hand
The nettles bare their jagged teeth
And offer up a reprimand
A dragonfly takes up my path
And leads me into humid heat
She weaves amid the reaching grass
And safely guides my straying feet
Between the rocks and rabbit holes
That litter my vicinity
The creatures in my path retreat
All sensing my proximity
A fallen trunk now blocks my course
Like driftwood on the shoreline, beached
Its peeling bark is spiraling
And pale in the sunlight, bleached
Enfolded in its limbs I am
As if they shaped themselves to me
As though a plan of ages hatched
And formed a place for me to be
**
Dec 21, 2013
Dec 21, 2013 at 9:02 PM UTC
The winding whispers of a newborn leaf
Uncurl its muted rhymes
And weave the Lord’s eternal song
Among the trails of time
God’s risen Son reclaims our souls
To rouse a slumbering earth
And spins a fragrant melody
That mirrors our rebirth
Mingling shadows shake the stillness
Ringing through the trees
In hushed remembrance of the ancient cross
That held salvation’s key.
Faded murmurs of the Savior’s voice
Engulf the rambling sky
To wrap her soul in solitude
Where untouched dreams reside
The rosy frailty of a budding branch
Dethrones its broken past
Hung with the breath of dormant hopes
Resurrected at long last
My wild wanderings lead me back
Where the wide-eyed crocus stirs
A transient token of abiding grace
As long as faith endures
From Christ’s surrender arose new life
Where the light of redemption springs
His footsteps call my spirit home
Borne on eternity’s wings.
Jan 15, 2013
Jan 15, 2013 at 7:18 PM UTC
I recite your scent to my every acquaintance
as if I have spent a lifetime living in fields of it, canopies of
you atop a jungle. Truly, it has only been a mass of airplane rides –
maybe two or three or four or five with one stop – that I
have sifted you through my candy-and-smoke air
and that makes my stomach turn over like soil and earth.
There is no distance and stretch in time that’ll give
me a stuffy nose: we have had bike-baskets filled to the brim with
tropical rainstorm waters, and we have never caught a cold.
Nothing’s bitten me hard enough
to uncurl my toes, swinging above you on monkey bars.
I smell your scalp although it is not visible, I have your shampoo
memorized by ingredient and chemical property
to play scientist when the park closes.
All I need are cinnamon roots long as asparagus. The
morning dew climbs the tree I am in, this is a room I can never
escape. This is you materialized – buds still in growth.
Jun 9, 2013
Jun 9, 2013 at 6:03 PM UTC
clutching at pebbles
thrown hard into sky as birds
bitter yolk of unceasing raindrop
ideals personified, then scattered in leaf
a coarse blending of the soul and what is
scream of forgotten swing alone in sunshine
a fear internalized, an unquenched song of watery despair and silence
pacing, pacing, toward and away from a melody that is
as intangible as balloons whispering to decaying stars
fading into nothingness, brief respite, void of sound, emptiness most
profoundly pierced with kaleidoscopic shards of senses and memory;
with music of blueberries, gleefully dropped
into tinny pails overflowing from wistfulness
with touch of unblossomed rosebuds admired,
unyielding like crabapples moist in calloused palms
with smell of tree, unrepentant and unchanging,
yet gnarled and longing, indistinct, uncertain
with taste of wind, speckled purity of truth elusive,
of realization categorized, of wispy but unrelenting passion
with the image of a hope
etched, recessed, scorned, repressed, grasped, suspended in song
the maybe’s and the why’s
the can’t’s and the shouldn’t’s
the have-to’s and the why’s
then slowly fingers defiantly uncurl from stone, in motion unrefined
and quietly, fervently; quietly, fervently, I begin to sing...
a mottled snapshot of my mind.
Jun 4, 2010
Jun 4, 2010 at 8:40 PM UTC
In the Dead Sea I met you
sinking in the mud, I waded
between this pool of fish
I was ***** and unkind
quick sand, swift drought
laughing with a closed mouth
like noon spilling into a water cup
my eyes dried
whispering my secrets into a
country with no name
in the Dead Sea I met you
caught in a caravan
caught in your headlights
49 reasons to uncurl your fist
and lay something breathing there
like my thoughts dehydrated
but this is about you
in the Dead Sea I kissed you
lazy eyed, drooling over sunken ship
like sunken lovers, like
sunken friends
nothing grows
except the skin around the
exit wounds
around the tattered lungs
the ravaged cartilage
but you know that
but you know that
in the Dead Sea I loved you
Jul 11, 2016
Jul 11, 2016 at 12:20 AM UTC
Imagine, I'm laying in your bed. Beneath your covers.
On your pillow.
In your arms.
Imagine, you press your thumb to
my lower lip, and you can hear my heart
beating like a hammer.
You remake my ribcage with your fingertips, and
you teach me a new language with your mouth.
You touch me with intention.
Imagine, I let you. I uncurl.
Moonlight filters in through the window and pours over us. That silky-white illumination is reflected in your eyes and it touches
you so softly, I could scream.
And the exquisite truth of it all is,
that if you ever did get to touch me,
I think I would die.
Feb 24, 2021
Feb 24, 2021 at 12:03 AM UTC
I'm really just daydreaming in my own world
i let my thoughts stir
let them uncurl
let them whirl around the room
and let the room twirl
i lose my mind sometimes
i get lost in my thoughts
and think of all the times
that I've been through
that I've done
and who I've become
and i let my mind fly
wild in the sky
soar around the stars at night
daydreaming in the light
oh what a sight
what a show i have going on in this brain of mine
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 10:26 PM UTC
Be of good spirit, child, and carry light
upon this wondrous, worn and weary world.
Seek wisdom, search for what is true and right.
For those around you may not have the sight
to see this precious gift of life unfurled;
be of good spirit, child, and carry light.
You will encounter thoughts divine and trite;
philosophies to set your mind a-whirl.
Seek wisdom; search for what is true and right.
The days will come that seem like endless night
with sharpened consequence unfairly hurled.
Be of good spirit, child, and carry light.
A man who lived in darkness, fear and fright
in foetal crouch took ages to uncurl,
seek wisdom, search for what is true and right.
I may not be around to see the height
you'll reach as you climb past me, darling girl.
Be of good spirit, child, and carry light;
seek wisdom, search for what is true and right.
Feb 16, 2011
Feb 16, 2011 at 4:40 PM UTC
an open book on your lap,
hair a black jumble as you cross your legs.
i can hear the skin sliding over skin and the pursing of your lips,
like the sea chumming it up with the salt or some ships.
and of your tongue like a red oval sun
fighting against mine in the dark,
i lilt and drown in the dime of flesh above the ankle strap of your left shoe.
you uncross your legs and look at me, then dip your head toward the ground,
draw your hair out with your fingers, past your face, and let it fall
between your thighs.
skin brown as sand and as hot inside the living room,
beneath seventy watt bulb and lampshade.
you sit up, one mile into my mouth,
and cross your legs again, begin,
*“do you like the way that sounds, joshua?"
when my thighs brush against one another?”*
the moon gets caught
somewhere in a net as birds shut up
and cats uncurl.
unbuckle an ankle strap,
slip one foot barely out of your shoe. *“listen to that,
joshua, you can hear my foot
arching, my legs smearing into one another.”* sand glistens
with sweat
and trembles. uncross legs and gather your hair behind your neck,
slip off your other shoe and claim that you are “naked”.
i believe you
and blame my imagination on the book covered in the folds
of your dress.
***for my shortie
Mar 30, 2013
Mar 30, 2013 at 9:02 PM UTC
The scents
the smokes
the spices that singe to perfection
I see my reflexion
A tossing ocean of blues and greens
the glidings of an embassy
unbeknownst to the bright world
the sea. I see my ocean
the sands approach and
island girl climbs
from shimmering lights
bright as sun reflexions
off the water.
Long tresses with thistle
and grasses
she passes the palms
Bare ankles soft pedals
Of padded feet on sand and stone
Roam
Just enough and not too much
time and quiet and space and the roar of surrounding
Survive the fruits of
strength and the climb
the herbs
the healing
scents
smokes.
the spices.
Island
companions
and treetop
roofrock
sounds
of night
healing leaves
grasses
and herbs.
Sweet drips
of fruits
that uncurl
in prying
palms.
Seeded beauties
with beads
of sunset
pearls.
Shells of milky
rainbow and
clashing
slate
and the
kick back
fire sky
night side
beats.
The beats
of
roaming clouds.
En-route to
the buttermilk
moon.
Purple
Arabia of
the Horizon.
Mar 12, 2012
Mar 12, 2012 at 8:48 PM UTC
This night’s task is surely daunting:
To cure myself and stop the haunting.
Reach arm,
Where is my nightcap?
(A single drink will do no harm)
Twist hand,
Turn down my bed flap.
(No chill shall cause myself alarm)
Look eyes,
Seek that light switch.
(I cannot bear my visage longer)
Be still fingers,
Cease to shake and twitch.
(Of their agency I’m not the author)
Move legs,
Plunge into covers,
(Lest you carry me from this rest)
Deaden ears,
Your hearing smother.
(Let no sound disturb my final quest)
Drink throat,
Imbibe the potion.
(Solutions will come at last)
Halt mind,
Not one more notion.
(Devilish memories long past)
Quite heart,
Take respite from beating.
(All the world begins to swirl)
Escape life,
I’ve finished breathing.
(Past Pain’s deep bonds at last uncurl)
I thought joining my love would be better,
Now we two haunt this place together.
Aug 30, 2010
Aug 30, 2010 at 4:27 PM UTC
They say I could be like sand near the seaside
And you the push and pull of the ocean
So you build and break me like the tide
Move sand away from my hands in motion
While I'm left to wait for the moment we collide.
They say I will cause your waves to break
Then how come you slither and never uncurl
With every squishing move forward I create?
Then how come even when caught, you whirl?
Even when in possession your storms culminate?
If I could only see into your whirlpools so deep
Be mesmerized by your blue, like being asleep
To fish for pearls of knowledge about you to keep
For though you gobble up any nautic attempt,
Though you defend with sloshed foam and current,
They say I am the shore and you are my ocean
And after all there is one true notion:
Your currents kiss my sandcastles every day
And willingly, my sand grains float your way.
Apr 3, 2016
Apr 3, 2016 at 8:47 AM UTC
How long have I been laying here?
And...
Since when did my left arm fall asleep?
I look up to the darkened clouds
I can see both the sun and moon
My body now lays in the shade
I look to my sleeping limb
down to my chilled fingers
And I notice
A thin green vine
curled around my pinky finger
How long has it taken you to grow on me,
Little vine?
I smile, as I naturally love nature's ways
Carefully, I uncurl the vine and stand
It hasn't taken me long at all to grow on you,
Little vine.
Jul 25, 2011
Jul 25, 2011 at 6:50 PM UTC
Visiting my parents I learned
that I am being played, a game
in which I am board and piece and ****** weapon.
When a picture of me sulky toddler evokes “You always hated me”
roots uncurl hibernated spores stored
through my salad days and youthful spring.
Broach the soil as I **** ankles grabbed,
leg-locked planted firm reaching.
What do you think grows down there? Digging has
turned up rotted fibers, matted hairs and husks.
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 8:00 AM UTC
A moment
Infinitude
While waiting for one's lover
That moment
Barely there
While dreading the kiss goodbye
A minute
Eternity
While alone on listless night
That minute
Flashing past
While fingers of sleep uncurl
An hour
Unending
While informed of prognosis
That hour
Fast fleeting
While cocooned in last embrace
A day
Relentless
While baking wedding cake
That day
Spins away
While vows are set in stone
Time is in the eye of the beholder.
Hold it before it's gone.
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 2:00 AM UTC