"uncurled" poems
The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior,
Standing at attention, it built
A small helmet
Under its scales
It remained
Unshakeable,
By its side
The crazy vegetables
Uncurled
Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,
Throbbing bulbs,
In the sub-soil
The carrot
With its red mustaches
Was sleeping,
The grapevine
Hung out to dry its branches
Through which the wine will rise,
The cabbage
Dedicated itself
To trying on skirts,
The oregano
To perfuming the world,
And the sweet
Artichoke
There in the garden,
Dressed like a warrior,
Burnished
Like a proud
Pomegrante.
And one day
Side by side
In big wicker baskets
Walking through the market
To realize their dream
The artichoke army
In formation.
Never was it so military
Like on parade.
The men
In their white shirts
Among the vegetables
Were
The Marshals
Of the artichokes
Lines in close order
Command voices,
And the bang
Of a falling box.
But
Then
Maria
Comes
With her basket
She chooses
An artichoke,
She's not afraid of it.
She examines it, she observes it
Up against the light like it was an egg,
She buys it,
She mixes it up
In her handbag
With a pair of shoes
With a cabbage head and a
Bottle
Of vinegar
Until
She enters the kitchen
And submerges it in a ***
Thus ends
In peace
This career
Of the armed vegetable
Which is called an artichoke,
Then
Scale by scale,
We strip off
The delicacy
And eat
The peaceful mush
Of its green heart.
7.2k
"Oh whence do you come, my dear friend, to me,
With your golden hair all fallen below your knee,
And your face as white as snowdrops on the lea,
And your voice as hollow as the hollow sea?"
"From the other world I come back to you,
My locks are uncurled with dripping drenching dew.
You know the old, whilst I know the new:
But tomorrow you shall know this too."
"Oh not tomorrow into the dark, I pray;
Oh not tomorrow, too soon to go away:
Here I feel warm and well-content and gay:
Give me another year, another day."
"Am I so changed in a day and a night
That mine own only love shrinks from me with fright,
Is fain to turn away to left or right
And cover up his eyes from the sight?"
"Indeed I loved you, my chosen friend,
I loved you for life, but life has an end;
Thro' sickness I was ready to tend:
But death mars all, which we cannot mend.
"Indeed I loved you; I love you yet
If you will stay where your bed is set,
Where I have planted a violet
Which the wind waves, which the dew makes wet."
"Life is gone, then love too is gone,
It was a reed that I leant upon:
Never doubt I will leave you alone
And not wake you rattling bone with bone.
"I go home alone to my bed,
Dug deep at the foot and deep at the head,
Roofed in with a load of lead,
Warm enough for the forgotten dead.
"But why did your tears soak thro' the clay,
And why did your sobs wake me where I lay?
I was away, far enough away:
Let me sleep now till the Judgment Day."
2.1k
I am living in the 1920s
I am missing the shaking tassel dresses, the whispering red lips and the springing curls
I live through the deep emptiness of an uncurled smile from a boy who has a shine in his eye
A shine from a coin filled with the greed for the nothingness of wealth
His gaping presence has replaced wickedly free men
What remains are toying boys craving meaning
Behind the shade of the thinly golden pattern
Of whiskey blurred nights
Of shivering embraces
Barely touching in numbness
I love you meaning I do not acknowledge your depth or care to know mine
What meaning?
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 12:58 PM UTC
Some days I feel it's better to remain alone
Because I can grow more in my imagination
Than I can in this world.
All of reality stripped to the bone
Creating my own metaphysical reformation
Where my illusions become uncurled.
Finally grasping at the unknown
As I create the perfect salvation
My cosmos becomes impearled.
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 5:05 AM UTC
Rose petals thick and heavy
Just ready to wrinkle
Strong, firm, delicate
Simple
Feigning delicacy.
Tighter and tighter to their middle
Lips curling back
Pouting open
All eventually revealing the
Veins!
Veins
Veins
Veins on the roses
From the underside spread upward,
Uncurled,
Veins.
Some so proud and broad
Some coy and curtseying
Some wide open, greeting you.
——
Some angling to the light
——
Some fading their color at the tip
——
Some!
Some doubling inward. Two twists inside!
Why? Overcrowding.
Petals wide,
petals too ready, petals broad
And she made herself a lover
——
Some older, wiser
By quicker death wisdom grows
The peaked face within
Afraid
Afraid of what is coming faster for her.
Something her beauty could not slow
An aging ballerina, refusing to retire her slippers
——
Some wider
More careless
Hippies
——
Some like a dance
Such a vulnerable entrance
Opening up her lips, her arms, her legs,
Spouting out her tiny tongue
Aroused
——
Some so full
Hiding herself in her layers
More of her.
Ancient.
Just a blip.
Trimmed from their bush. Here to die in a vase by my bed.
Dec 2, 2018
Dec 2, 2018 at 11:08 PM UTC
I'm an island, in a lake in a big
city. The water around me is deep
and foggy, the hills I carry, steep
but soft, even sinkier, dig
your own way out.
Or in,
making the mill spin,
caught a swimming trout.
With bare hands I touched
With bare hands I clutched
I was told to bend
not break.
I want to spend
more time to make
this work.
Inhabit my world,
enjoy my fruits and trees and nature
enjoy me, live me,
hair, uncurled, major
mistakes, set straight, be,
dare to be,
loved.
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 5:43 PM UTC
it appears as though
there was a coup,
in kookaburra land,
this morning.
much fuss,
and cacophony.
as the brown and blue kingfisher clan, reassembled,
their royal court.
the big old king,
uncurled his talons,
unfurled his wings,
gave one last,
manical chuckle....
and fell from his perch.
to lie still,
upon the dusty,
brown earth.
shocked, silence for some seconds, and then...
the eucalypts erupted into, (what would appear to the outsider);
cold calculating mirth.
as the young jacko princes, all began the joking joust
for the top place berth.
in a melee of swooping, chuckling grace,
a contest no less,
set to test....
mettle, worth and cackle call.
each young bird,
takes to the wing and flies into the maddening...and how close,
how loud,
how startling,
they can be.
is made known,
by those,
whose years,
have flown.
when all, is said and done. tourney overflown,
feathers are preened.
then the winner
is presented,
with opportunity, bold....
to nest the queen.
as to the rest,
they take their place,
in the chaotic, cackling, cacophonous,
kookabuurra clan nests.
to bide their time,
until, the next coup,
comes calling...
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 6:11 PM UTC
I unfurled it, uncurled its edges,
like the first time a boy
who is the first time a man
shakes, and takes, to break open,
with the trepidation of martyrs
the word of God.
And he on ceremony says:
"PASSED BY THE LEGISLATURE
AND ORDERED REFERRED BY PETITION
REFERENDUM MEASURE NO. 74
...concerning marriage...
...allow same-sex couples...
...to marry..."
Voter:
"Approved...
...Rejected"
But all the words were wrong.
Like so many other scriptures,
the words did not encapsulate,
not yet begun to navigate
or in legal language validate
my quintessential being of
a fascinating, adulating, activating
Love.
Oct 19, 2012
Oct 19, 2012 at 7:00 PM UTC
He spent most of his time driving around. It was aimless really, but he figured that’s what life was, and driving was better than sitting.
“Where have you been?” his parents would ask.
“Nowhere.” was always his response.
This angered them tremendously. But what was the proper answer? He truly was going nowhere, too apathetic to do anything but follow the same empty streets for endless hours.
“Where am I supposed to go?” he countered one night. Silence fell with the weight of a train. They had no answers. “No, really,” he began to rant, “where the **** am I supposed to go? The church? The bar? The playground?” He didn’t realize he had started yelling, angrily mocking the small town, population: 2,036.
“Son,” his dad chimed in, “I know there’s not much for you around here-” the boy cut him off by turning around and calmly walking towards the door, stopping the fighting as soon as it had started. It wasn’t worth it.
He stepped out into the dark, the warm air was inviting. In the ignition the keys turned smoothly and the engine purred as he reversed onto the dimly lit street. His destination: nowhere, population: him.
Two hours later he found himself staggering on the edge of a cliff. He recalled a random collection of winding dirt roads, but had no idea how he ended up at this particular spot, in fact he had no idea where he was. Toes curled and uncurled, indecisive about the 50 foot fall into a black, choppy lake. The moon’s reflection peered up at him, calling fall into me, I am safe.
What does it matter anyway? This thought wasn’t shocking. Truthfully, it didn’t matter; there was nowhere else to go.
He released the tension in all of his muscles and fell, limp, towards the reflection of the moon.
There was a note, fluttering, under the windshield wipers of his car, parked only feet from the cliff.
I’m going somewhere.
Jan 23, 2013
Jan 23, 2013 at 12:00 AM UTC
I guess all good things come to an end
Writing poetry helps my heart to mend
Poetfreak is my home and always will be
Don't know what to do guess we'll wait and see
It tears me up to hear the bad news
It drives me deep down into the blues
I have met so many good friends indeed
There's always someone to confide when in need
I never talked to anyone from halfway around the world
Until I came here and the flowers in my heart uncurled
I don't want this to be goodbye I wanna be forever friends
And to walk in the light of life and love that never ends
But there is still a long way to go
And I will continue to let the poetry flow
I know there are other places but this is home to me
But I guess when it is finally over I'll have to let it be
Apr 4, 2016
Apr 4, 2016 at 10:18 PM UTC
Lazarus
The night blew darkness into me
But you, you whispered my name,
Splintered apart these eyelids
Let the syllables wrap themselves
Around me, carried me back to you.
Awaken you said, and so I did and you
Let the words Come forth drip down
Into my ear drums, and so I did.
I came back to you, uncurled my body
To the sunlight peering itself
From behind you and I knelt,
Knelt for your touch, knelt for your words
To awaken more than just this,
This limp body, give me reason for being,
And so you did, you took this skin
And struck life through it,
Taught me to roll my tongue, to own
Your language, and you pressed
Your forefinger to my forehead and said
I will take you home.
Oct 8, 2011
Oct 8, 2011 at 11:03 PM UTC
Not a banana, my life is like the leaf.
My youth uncurled straight and tall
like the opening of a translucent banner.
Sensual curves waving to
the florescent lizard to guard a hunting place.
The warm breezes ruffled my maturing skirt
as I grew in fiber strength.
The warm night rains weighed me down
heavy with diamonds sparkeling in the sunlight.
Unseasonable winds whipped me
into a double fringe.
In my golden year
my fiber strengthening a base for the uncurling of youth.
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 11:08 AM UTC
I humbly pray and come to thee
Again my Lord in memory
Of the gift you've given me
A sacrifice that set all free
The love for your Father up above
Is true as His Spirit like a dove
Descended on you proving the love
Your Father has and you know of
Remembering his sacrifice as each week
We meet and find that which we seek
Recalling the Father's Lamb so meek
A promise in reverence that we speak
This is my body which I break
And allow to die, for your sake
Of which I ask you to partake
Eat it now as a keepsake
Drink this cup my blood it is
For you spilt as payment 'tis
For remission of sin I give you this
So you may enter a state bliss
Do this I ask as you recall
One who gave to you his all
Suffering much, for you I fall
The gates of Hell I will forestall
The Enemy's grasp I take away
From you by the price I pay
My Father's will, I won't delay
And always with you I will stay
His Father's will he did perform
Giving his flesh and blood to form
A covenant to which we conform
Keeping us safe from every storm
Heaven's gates he did unlock
Guiding us in, his precious flock
He is our refuge and our rock
To which our souls we may dock
He takes away the sins of the world
From which, all men, were impereld
And into darkness they were hurled
But the tangle of sin our Lord uncurled
Nov 16, 2012
Nov 16, 2012 at 8:35 PM UTC
She was every captain's secret,
Five hundred fathoms deep.
She haunted and charmed the waters so,
And chased the dreams from your sleep.
Her ghost was known to plague our nets,
To dance across the ocean waves.
The bloodied corpses of her children fled
To the beaches where they would be safe.
That night her body, titanium clad,
Punctured the wall between our worlds.
Her arms, a strange bewildered dance
As startled, she uncurled.
The gaul of those men who found her!
Breaking into her home!
She had run from every advance they sent
But legends never die alone.
So few of our men indulge in mystery.
So few embrace the unknown.
Most seek to banish the fear and wonder
And so legends never die alone.
They are prisoners chained to mortal bodies
And drawn from the depths of the sea.
Her eyes, I swear, had pearls of tears
As I watched the Giant Squid flee.
Apr 3, 2013
Apr 3, 2013 at 12:05 AM UTC
her it
the soporific
very dreaming
split of
easy night
falls so lovely
brushed of balmy
hair short
in tender heap
of girlness heat
it the deftness
of a wrist
hangs
softly loose
uncurled
lightly the fingers
in
her such steeply wonderful brain
a song is me
by love's lips it
i
the earth the
night
echo primly
kissing
and
couth
so a fancy
is all the world
to her in lovely slumber's keep
such as i would like to enter
and of its beauty reap
a flower on who would rise
all youth in me to crown
and lay my middle finger
in crimson parting's drown
Jun 29, 2013
Jun 29, 2013 at 3:13 AM UTC
Once upon a time,
there was a rose,
that grew,
on the moon.
One morning,
it was dawn break,
and it was in bloom.
The petals had uncurled,
an aromatic scent lingered out,
and for some reason,
one curious little mind,
woke up much too early,
to find this scent,
in their nose.
Only to find the moon,
in the sky,
bright and full,
and a rose scent,
all around.
Cocking their head,
they just knew,
that this didn’t make sense!
It was morning,
not night,
and why,
oh why,
would the moon,
smell of a bouquet,
of roses,
and not a handful,
of stardust?
This mystery,
must be solved,
they pondered,
but how?
A ladder maybe?
One really, really tall?
Made of twigs,
and branches,
tied together,
hastily?
No,
that’s silly,
it’s just the,
moon.
There can’t be,
a rose,
on there,
but they smell it.
Maybe if they wait,
and stay up,
just a little bit,
too late.
Do you think,
the moon,
might be in,
a lake?
Get a boat,
a couple of paddles,
and you’ll get a whiff of it,
I promise.
Dec 5, 2023
Dec 5, 2023 at 12:13 PM UTC
Soon you'll be sitting on top of the world,
That’s what the fortune cookie said,
I went to his house with my hair uncurled,
Worried what he wanted was to get me in bed.
Jan 22, 2010
Jan 22, 2010 at 2:53 PM UTC
As a child
I held a smile on my face
I knew nothing about
the dangers I'd face
by just being alive,
trying to survive
have to bust my ***
to work nine to five
so that when I came
home
I could be all alone
And take a hit of
what they told me was
bad for me
But they lied
So I learned I was
overshadowed by
a system
That could make people
believe them
And what a powerful tool
that is
On the day they came to
take my brother away
For an incident 1 year prior
They told us they constructed
the whole **** thing
And as a prison bird my
brother now would sing
Mom paid the bail
With special money saved away
Which was more than
1 month of pay
And they put him in jail
for 3 months
5 years parole
And I learned that this system
Could also make you caged
they'd set you up
and send you away
So in my adolescence
I lost all hope for
the world
And the place they told
me was free
my rage and sadness
uncurled
like a blossoming
flower
It stung like a thorn
but it showed me
it's power
Change can be possible
Just use the right tools
Be cool, secretly
break all their rules
And maybe one day
I can do what I please
Without them making
and "example" out of me.
Aug 30, 2010
Aug 30, 2010 at 11:34 AM UTC
Searching
blindly in the dark
Feeling for your softness
and the embrace of your heart
Your eyes open like light
giving shape to my world
filling it with beauty
like spring petals uncurled
Murmurs of sweetness
drip from your lips
Pressing mine to your face
lingering...as the time slips
slowly into a sultry sunrise.
062415~7.18a
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 10:20 AM UTC
flowy, fancy and frolicky vibe
I'm on top of the world!
confidence furled
full support, no hint of a gibe
a certain move through your thick brain, imbibe
my cocoon I've uncurled
heritage whorled
natural elation, no Prozac prescribed
Yet, twirls come to a halt
my smile fades as you drone on
It's all my fault
learning forgone
emotional assault
I'm done, you won
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 7:15 PM UTC
Tangent debacles I inherit from your stream;
Your face is otherworldly, inside of my dreams.
Shimmering infinity of warp and woof;
Tapestries uncurled by creation's hook.
Recorded epiphanies and pertinent facts,
Of life and death, proceeding on track.
Truth and reality's mortal refrains,
Embodied in man, so we'll know them again
Jun 28, 2010
Jun 28, 2010 at 4:17 PM UTC
Curious clusters of uncurled tendrils
traverse the trellis, touched to feel their way.
Dec 27, 2015
Dec 27, 2015 at 10:04 AM UTC
stickysummer i remember fingers in you
were (golden brown too warm almost
slick with shade and trees where
curling youths (uncurled) pulled
out smelling like the ocean when the
tide has gone way out and) your grip
went around my wrist to your mouth
and without a thinking
drank from them
blood
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 4:42 AM UTC
He saw
Her wings lay torn upon the ground
Her screams muffled; cries scorching her throat
As they tore at her skin
Shattering the stars in her youthful eyes
As she watched; dulled and empty
He knew
As her hand fell flat; uncurled
Her mouth, a stretched echo of her suffering
Marred colours of reds and blues charring her soul and body
With a single tear leaping from her ghosting eyes
He rose
With the final gasp shifting dust above her cracked lips
The thud of her limp body thrown against rotting carcases
And the darkening sky shedding tears in anguish
He cradled her to his chest; numbing and warm
A finger pulled down the lids of her unsee in eyes
Whispering you're safe now Zainab
I've come to take you home
Jan 13, 2018
Jan 13, 2018 at 4:23 AM UTC
Within the stomach of the world
The country stretches its branches, uncurled
Who is the horror of Napoleon Bonaparte?
Who darkens and fools the heart?
Often when man is shaken to the core
Other worlds sneak peeks in his door
And even in the junction of cattle
Metaphysical and mystical truths dazzle
Touched by the sea, a vision came
The pearls of the earth in flames
A jackdaw perches itself on pistons
Radiating heat from all of its mission
His mystic sense stayed tight beneath eyelids
Yet lit the flame in all said and undid
Like a voice in the wilderness
Or even a prophet of old, who might deliver us.
Jul 22, 2019
Jul 22, 2019 at 11:56 PM UTC