"understudy" poems
Disillusionment encompasses the night.
Your warm breath tickles my ear,
Firm hands caress my skin
leaving no part of my body untouched.
All other distractions, extraneous characters,
everything else is irrelevant.
It is just you, with your smooth dark skin,
comforting embrace,
and those entrancing brown eyes,
and me, with my silky pale skin,
soft curves,
and sad but hopeful eyes.
It is just us and our apprehension in this room,
isolated from reality.
You indulge in my coquettish laugh,
and I take solace in the warmth of your touch.
The contours of my body complement yours
as we both try to savor this feeling of ecstasy.
But the hourglass runs out,
and this moment is fleeting.
The illusion is shattered
when the protagonist reappears,
and I am demoted to understudy.
I am left to replay this scene
in my disillusioned mind
hoping to one day again feel
the softness of your lips
pressed against my bare skin,
but until then, I will replay these events,
ignoring this void in my soul
and embracing the momentary nirvana.
Oct 31, 2010
Oct 31, 2010 at 7:07 PM UTC
.
*Light hits my retina
through the prism of a tear,
distorted faces pass
with images fragmented
inside out
and the smell of tallow
as a candle splutters,
falters and winks out
for the wick collapses cruel
like a hamstrung dancer.
The tear exits stage left
and rolls down the wings
of a thoughtless cheek,
teeters on the brink of catastrophe
and falls upon a blank page,
reviewing its brief life
as a lazy metaphor,
so I look at the remaining solitary candle
and grieve for the lost tear,
as an understudy takes its place.*
© Pagan Paul (28/05/19)
May 28, 2019
May 28, 2019 at 7:34 AM UTC
It has every right to bare
this clenched fist of a grudge
embittered by techno-Jovian
whims and base transformations
Once delicately formed— two
tips pressed en pointe, three
others elegantly tucked— it
danced with a golden shaft
pulling indigo pirouettes
across a swept ivory stage
Then came the re-pose: a claw’s
arched looming. Unhappiness
fell as five wilted stems,
beggar mouths forced to fumble
toward those impoverished
humps of white-on-black glyph
The other hand is left
complimentary, richly gripped
by understudy glee, being
Sep 23, 2010
Sep 23, 2010 at 9:43 AM UTC
Soulful Migration
Dedicated to all whose names are only spoken from headstones and now flowers is the only representation of their sweet presence that use to be aromatic and change our moods and thoughts with precious regularity now we are left to recall their words from memories grand in a much sadder land
A stream of faces and lives collect in a desert pool man’s measure stands in the stature of those he
Knows life’s heat he assuages from this spring shadowed and cool the best medicine man knows is
Family and friends formidable are the mountains the arid land belongs to no man although Georgia O
Keefe revealed its hidden Burnished glory time is the relentless stalker youth falls before its will surly
The bugler stands at life’s sunset to play taps so life is ran this one thing I know he will play reveille at the
Eastern gate the hair has turned snowy white soon the soul will know freedom we who are left will
Celebrate and speak the truth of your nobility you placed in our soul’s steel and granite enough to defend
A kingdom the majesty of God declared your lives must be or all would be vain life can best be described
As grand theater the elderly are the stars and we are the understudy the divine architect designed the
Physical stage in perfect ascetic severity the symmetry is flawless no angles are hidden from view the
Cost to play on this stage is everything you have or ever hope to have the consequence is eternal the
Low and frivolous are denied any central part
Good by Uncle Floyd aunt Kate
Jan 29, 2012
Jan 29, 2012 at 10:23 PM UTC
We clocked in
(Punched in the older guys said)
And sat in a circle of orange plastic chairs
Hubbed by a thin morose
Befuddlement of a team lead
“An hour, just what is an hour?” he asked to begin the weekly meeting
I wanted to say, “A unit of temporal measurement that comprises -- or is that composes? -- sixty minutes,”
But held back
Knowing the obviousness of the query had to be a set-up
The befuddlement sighed in frustration
An understudy to my English III instructor
(the one who gave me an F- on the Emily Dickinson test)
Then said, “Okay, just what can be done in an hour?”
Then the youngest kid who always kept quiet
But who had enough scars -- had to toss in a lurid touch didn’t I --
To imply that he might have more experience than the oldest said,
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay, then just what is that contraption on the other side of the bay?”
“An assembly line.”
“And what does it do?”
“It makes a 30centaurpower indivertible that runs on Gila monster spit.”
He nodded.
He considered.
“Okay, then, let’s punch out and come back tomorrow. Maybe then we’ll really have something to do.”
(And - oh yeah -- putting on my hat as a frustrated teleplay writer:
Those scars showed that he could handle himself.)
Sep 23, 2012
Sep 23, 2012 at 6:34 PM UTC
There Is Something Impossibly Impulsive About The Body We Wore.
Like A Costume On Stage, Every Change Felt Like A Quick One.
We Were Ripping Layers Of Cotton and Silk, Away.
Never Naked, Just Feeling Like Maybe You Might Of Left With A Little Less Than What You Came With.
We Stood Back-lit, Like Stage Props.
Held Frozen By Spot Lights, Unable To Reach Out And Touch Each Other.
Afraid.
Like We Might Break One Another.
The Ridged Lines, Hard Pallor Skeleton, Like Road maps, Through Broadway, And The Whites Of Our Eyes.
We Were A Balcony Away, Dusty Velvet And Aged Satin.
Palms Prints, Like Sheer Silk Gloves, Elbow Deep In Our Own Self Obsession, A Hallway Of Mirrors, One Thousand Watt Bulbs.
A Cast And Crew of Only You.
We’d Turn Down The House Lights, Dim The Emptiness Behind Our Eyelids, A Box Office Value, Of The Number Of Souls You Couldn't Keep Captive.
Always Realizing You Were Alone, An Underage Tragedy, Ad Libbing Our Way Through The Only Auditions That Mattered, The Ones We Needed To Make Something More Of The Masks We Wore.
There’d Be A Black Out, Long Enough For You To Get Your Bearings.
Realize This All Didn't Have To Be An Act.
There Would Always Be Red Glowing Exit Signs, Easy Outs.
But We’d Learn That You Can’t Be The Understudy In Your Own Life.
There Would Be The Curtain, A Dozen Gold Tassels, To Raise.
Break The Fourth Wall, And Divide Your Insides Apart.
Draw A Line, A Call For Places, A Dress Rehearsal, A Last Chance To Get This Right.
You’d Come To The Sound Stage Reaction.
You’re More Than A Performance.
A No Longer Tried And True Type Cast.
Please Take A Bow, Darling.
Make This Stage Worthy, Standing Ovation,
Say It.
Over rehearsed,
Side Scripted Lines,
Welcome To The Masquerade.
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 4:56 PM UTC
*i find the crow more eloquent,
more treacherously abiding
a fulfilment of aesthetic investigations
when walking, the crow
more beautiful than in flight,
unlike the sparrows' comic grounding,
with its epileptic quick-step twitchy
caoutchouc trot... poetically drawn
as: huh?! huh?! chirp. huh?! huh?! chirp;
really quickly.*
the only way to transition back into
the humanities from learning science,
******** p... chemistry and physics,
from these two into the humanities:
because you wrote a high standard
sociology essay plagiarising trying to
beat the anti-plagiarism logarithm
imposed... and that camus' l'étranger
also written to a 1st in the degree hierarchy...
the only transition from the sciences
to humanities is with philosophy,
which is a qausi-humanism...
mind you... edinburgh is the last gothic city,
and scotland the only place
where university can be like high school,
diverse, equipping you with many choices,
you can major chemistry, but understudy
computing, french, history, sociology, etc.
so in the background you have my favourite
theorisation: friedel-craft's alkylation & acylation /
effects of substitution on the beneze ring properties:
ortho (β) / para (ν) directing goups...
meta (π) directing groups... ipso (α) directed
at dislodging the algebraic x already attached...
i was never going to write cute poetry...
lessons in inductive effects of σ-bonds orientation
controlled by resonate (of) π-bonds...
the faustian myth continues without cute goethe rhyme.
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 12:51 PM UTC
I think she lost a part of herself,
picking up the pieces. And that's
okay; the universe works because
something is given for
something to be gained.
Her parents were red-blooded
Americans; they drank confirmation-
bias and the minimization of minorities.
They would make her problems as small
as the countries, they couldn't find on a map,
but could find in their hearts to demonize.
Oh yes, the demons: what used to
afflict her and corrupt her pure heart.
To them, she wasn't a teenager --
a child -- stressed from carrying a
family, featuring a mother with
a brain tumor; guest starring
'I-stunt-your-growth-with-Jesus'
as the understudy for mental
health awareness.
No, she wasn't a child; she was
a burden because she cut herself,
because her legs grew too thin;
as thin as the crucifixes around
the proud, turning necks, holding
dismissive heads of 'Why-would-
you-want-to-be-dead' Christians
and 'I-don't-understand-what-isn't-
in-the-Bible' fat, white relatives.
To make things short as her
life could have been: she dipped
in and out of drugs, featuring
****** and pills that would
dip in and out of her body,
like a fool's gold life jacket,
soaking in the waves of her
pale, transitioning to adulthood,
twenty year-old waters.
She saved herself, and
they thanked God and the
boy and mostly everyone
else but her. And the little
brother sat, sinking in a seat
softer than his deep-seated
hateful beliefs. But, the
truth is that she saved not
only herself, but also the
handsome, white, tall,
smart, talented image of
'Holy-shit-what-a-tall-
drink-of-privilege.' A
tall drink who cared for
her more than the country
cared about being right; who
loved her more than the parents
of the degenerates living in some
unknown collection of poems about the
disenfranchised and American angst.
She was a protest, very wondrous;
a halting of the longest dark,
a breath of fog floating towards
a lonely, very deep pond.
And she was only beginning.
And it was all very exciting.
May 11, 2017
May 11, 2017 at 9:56 PM UTC
there are men in my life would find it **** to look in on a woman bathing a puppy. they are good men, and wrong. I met your husband in the waiting room of an abortion clinic 101 miles from where you live and 73 from where you work. I know some intimate things- you were driving, your son was playing the flute. I know the damage a flute can do- it does a number on the lips. I was moving my hands in my lap imagining film trays of broken water as if I might guess with my knees the weight of a newborn. your husband has a wobbly right knuckle. with that face he could be a mime. he could be armless. I tried to think of my belly as a balloon with a manageable amount of candy on the end of its string. the night last to this morning I put a pillow under my back and tried to fall asleep but I have one eye insists to understudy the moon. pregnancy as idée fixe- moon and balloon. your **** daughter wants a puppy but where would we put it.
Jul 13, 2012
Jul 13, 2012 at 11:26 AM UTC
For my brother, it meant everything
to stretch out and press
his face against the pane
of candy stretched crystalline.
To take the path away from father
for me one step away from
step-mother,
baking our dreams into
crumbs we left on the floor.
We’ll trace them back
to the place between
lost and found,
once we’ve fulfilled
our parts,
he’d always tell me.
But he doesn’t understand,
and honestly when does he,
that we’ve been doomed
from the start.
There is no Gretel,
to stoke the logs,
close the grate and latch
no heroine to fit the story’s need
there's only me
So when the witch comes back
she’ll ask
has Hansel truly grown fat?
a little pinch of the skin
an inadvertent test to see
which one of us should win?
It’s always an offering
always a suffering
always a surrender
of what makes me, she
and Hansel truly him
But I don’t mind
filling this role
I know it’s what I was made for
half baked like the crumbs
in a crummy oven
the real Gretel’s long gone
so her understudy will do.
If Mother could bake one daughter
why not try to bake two?
The witch will say it’s time
and ask me to reach back far
to find a warmth she can't see
it’s really not that odd
to hear the words escape me:
"why don't you try,
it's utterly exhausting
always having to hide"
and besides
I always desperately wanted
someone to show me
And I’ll even smile
as the crackle burns for just awhile
Hansel holding my hand
my pigtails askew.
The crumbs, our true
parents,
eaten in the leaves.
Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 6:06 PM UTC
In the meantime, I'll smile, as if waking up was "waking up" to the relaxing music played by an ocean's waves.
I'll smile, like Bob Marley was playing on the radio reminding me "everything is gonna be alright".
I'll smile, as if though that falling star actually made my wish came true.
I'll smile! Like the pain isn't about to claw its way out of my chest, like the anger isn't at my throat- begging to get out! Like the constant disappointments aren't wandering in my mind like an explorer with a broken compass.
I'll smile! Like the hate in my stomach hasn't risen beyond my control, as if my heart hasn't metamorphosed itself into a magnet attracting the insults thrown my way.
I'll smile! Like my attitude wasn't forcefully entered in to the Ultimate Fight Club- with absolutely no fighting experience.
I'll smile! As if my soul wasn't playing tug-of-war with Lucifer, and I don't want to "lose it for" I would become his understudy.
I'll smile! Like I haven't been driving for miles on a gallon of confidence with "patience" as my source of alternative energy- but that too has ran out because of the countless wrong turns I've made.
That glorious crescent between my lips has been turning down for a while, but am about to take a selfie for instagram.
So in the meantime, I'll smile.
I'll walk tall, head straight, steady strides, as if my insecurities weren't f@%king up my spine.
But in the meantime, I'll.... I'll talk to you as if every single word that I've said, I repeated, " 4...5...6 times" in my head, before relaying that message to you.
In the meantime, I'll use indecipherable vernacular and unfamiliar metaphors, so I am sure to say "how I feel" and be equally sure that "you don't understand" and if you dare tell me that you don't...
I'll SMILE
-Steve Flores Jr.
Dec 12, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 1:16 PM UTC
I love the smell of my flesh in the morning
So soothing, like the ghost of the woman you're mourning
Conforming to a bitterness, you swore to me
That you wouldn't do what you did, but what's more to me
Is that your stain rests upon every thing that I enjoy
My heart is a consultant, don't insult it by calling it unemployed.
I put too much time into your eyes on my mind, in my rhyme
Undermined, badly timed, so let's get to other subject lines
Starlight baking cloudy, shaking
Hourglass breaking, howling naked
On a street corner, "Happy Birthday!" (belated)
Just say it. If it's in a reactor, it's decaying
A single rooftop smothered by snowflakes, earthquakes
Heartbreaks, salt shakers, risk-takers, green bakers
Understudy, crush me honey, lose my number, don't go under
Keep me waiting and debating, my hand shaking, the phone breaking
My face is a reflection of the sunlight's rays
Keeping a constant rumbling from underground at bay
And everyone complains that they're smothered in their own way
But when I rationalize the rainbows, their records won't play
I simply need the orchards to escape this lonely torture
A place to sit and paint in front of a tree and make a fortune
Soothing ears to rest and putting minds at ease
My music, a viral infection, a depressive disease
Constantly starving myself of the rain
I bring the trees to their roots and stimulate the brain
With a conflagration of color, instantly insane
Yet civilized, melody harmonized, urbane
The strings will vibrate and body rejuvenate
Conceptual mind-rape a rising heart-rate
The starlight glowing outwards, the falling of the towers
To signify to flip to side B in a mere matter of hours
Feb 17, 2011
Feb 17, 2011 at 7:14 PM UTC
On Life's superhighway,
I'm parked on the shoulder.
If all the world's a stage,
I'm an understudy
In the wings.
If one's reach
Should excede one's grasp,
I'm arthritic.
If the world is your oyster,
I'm the irritating
Grain of sand.
If a man's stature
Isn't measured by his height,
Call me a Hobbit.
If actions speak louder than words,
I'm mute, and probably dumb.
If a penny saved is a penny earned,
I'm bankrupt.
If good things comes
To those who wait,
Save my place in line.
If beauty is in
The eye of the beholder,
I'm myopic.
If absence makes
The heart grow fonder,
Why did you buy
A one-way ticket?
If a bird in the hand
Is worth two in the bush,
I hunt Ostrich.
A mind is a terrible thing
To waste...
A mime... eh!
If brains are better
Then brawn,
Tell the big, dumb bully.
A drowning man may
Clutch at straws,
But where he's going
There's no milkshake.
If actions
Speak louder than words,
I'm mute and stationary.
If Hope springs eternal,
Then Spring is eternal Hope.
Feb 21, 2015
Feb 21, 2015 at 11:58 AM UTC
You Can’t Get Me To Lick Your Bones If You’re Never Going To Eat My Phone
I don’t need for the reading of your head
sideways. There’s no book of your gazes in
drugs I fluff myself in front of mirrors to the heavens and become elated, transfixed; I never become ‘indisposed’
you may shift your skin in those clothes I
would never spell nor the words I would never wear across the neck
I will never throw your prose across this
lubricious pottery wheel that governs the
awesome succubus’ coffin of Publisher
Clearing House dactylic feet, I have
a licentious groove and yet I never am
wont for those syllabic toes you push into
the mouth of me. Slippery soot-covered balms of the dancers jocular knot, so I say:
See Spot Run
away from that face of your clock
the beats of your Machiavellian speech
I am understudy to none
In cahoots with only the **** of my soup
kitchen, my idyllic sous chef he takes paradise and irrumates these
suture-battered stars covered in
elementary window wish dust
to poke your fingers with kisses
and undo your shoelaces even
while you you’re weary of becoming
the flat-footed ballerina. There it is
I’ve said it. Beware beware beware beware
when taunting me in your under wares
For I eat lines rare
Petite writhings of flair
Jan 15, 2018
Jan 15, 2018 at 6:32 AM UTC
Silver Medal
Runner Up
Understudy
2 I C
Other woman
(just in case)
one number off
second place.
Not quite out
Almost not in
Deputy and Vice
11th out of ten.
Pepsi, Burger King
Futurama, Wings
All some of our
second favourite things.
Lazenby's Bond
Troughton's Who
Samsung, google+
Buzz Aldrin too
Just missing out,
'they made me choose'
Always coming second..
the first one to lose.
May 6, 2013
May 6, 2013 at 10:00 PM UTC
You have said
As a Phenomenal Woman
That
Still I Rise,
and so you must to travel
The Road Not Taken.
But
If You Forget Me
In your
Dreams,
Dearest Annabel Lee,
I will sing like the
Caged Bird.
If,
When Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening,
You should find yourself in
A Dream Within a Dream,
Then deny, for
I Don't Love You Because I Love You;
I love you more
As I Grow Older.
I will pass through this life,
Do Not Stand by My Grave and Weep,
You are not
Alone.
You too
Will Not Go Gently Into That Good Night;
For I
Don't Go Far Off.
This is the promise:
Hope is the Thing With Feathers,
or it can be
A Poison Tree,
Casting venom on
Daffodils,
Making
All the World a Stage,
And I,
An understudy in the wings.
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 10:50 AM UTC
Time keeps her moonlight
dripping, day after day
breaking, we reach toward
something beyond us:
We consider the lilies, the birds,
The trees budding promises into the air,
The breeze tasting of rainwater,
The chalkdust collecting in our open palms
like childhood dreams, in our hearts.
Pulled forward from the shadows,
Fast, by the spotlight of spring.
We are understudy actors:
finally on the stage, but surprised
by the drama of split tea,
rainkissed pauses, and almost burn
down the apartment.
All the while, the moon smiles thinly:
time-light in the sky, in our eyes.
We've a long distance yet to travel.
Our footsteps press into mud and freeze
toward the West, where we learned to be happy.
I gaze East into the unknown,
not quite deciding to be brave.
While you search heaven for a piece of your soul:
The skylark, ascending.
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 9:02 PM UTC
You're the understudy,
waiting to be the star
who'd shine brightly
like the original main character.
You wait at the backstage,
Chanting the lines with her,
As she performs in the theater
Where she's being adored.
But one day, if you keep
on dreaming,
The spotlight would be yours,
Just keep on believing
The spotlight would be yours.
Feb 2, 2012
Feb 2, 2012 at 7:07 AM UTC
Night after Night,
Day after Day,
He declaimed the words
he'd been given to say.
His costumes selected,
Each cue prearranged,
Little freedom of movement
Just a pawn in the game.
Each move blocked and taped.
The audience roared
at the droll repartee
he had heard oft before.
His understudy waits,
like all of his kind.
For the day he would falter
and be left behind
Beatrice and Benedict
time after time
No chance in a million
of forgetting his lines.
Aug 15, 2012
Aug 15, 2012 at 10:21 PM UTC
As my soul calms for another day
Refreshing a new juncture
While the sun rises from the icy hills
I continue to study
Controlling a mental afterthought
Why is she following so distantly?
As her appearance comes to mind
Thoughts long ago
Trying to study under unlimitless lights
With manuscripts in hand
Strolling downstairs
As icicles beat against the icy glass
Awaken by the reverberation
As my vocals slumber to sleep
Laughter throughout the hours
Of darkness
I seated before adjourning
Meeting citizens for the first time
Which I never been
From a journey in which
I someday will return
Dec 2, 2009
Dec 2, 2009 at 6:58 AM UTC
I have learned that
Some people will never
Own up to their actions
They live in their own world
In which they believe they played the part perfectly
You can’t play the role if you don’t show up to the set
You’ve been written out of my life and yet you keep trying to cast yourself the same role
Over and over again
And it makes me wonder if you know
How a no-call-no-show really affects the director
And are you really that good at acting?
Or do you really not know how your actions impacted the story?
This wasn’t a normal play and you didn’t have an understudy
So I was left trying to find people to fill your role
Now the story has moved on without you
And you pretend as if you’ve been a part this whole time
The cast has changed a lot throughout the years
And now you want to jump right back in
Without even knowing how the story has developed in your absence
So why
Should I write you back in?
If you won’t own up
To the part you played in the character development that happened
As a result of your absence
You had one of the only roles that I had no choice in casting
But you had a choice, and you clearly didn’t want the part
Now you get to pretend
That you won an Oscar, you should get a standing ovation
But you haven’t played that part in years
If I replayed the last few acts of the story you would not be even a minor character, but I think you said a couple lines in the beginning.
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 3:42 AM UTC
Our scene began one softly chilling day
There were lies in your head, but that’s ok
‘Cause girl, we’re all actors of comedy
Played the understudy a time or two
But real-life heroes are too far and few
Honest men only lead in tragedies
We can smile and dance and play games all night
We’d lose our parts if we saw wrong from right
We’d all lose our minds to reality
I’ll always be the beat you should have skipped
But, dear, you’ll never stray far from the script
And so my ****** caring eyes betray me
Just too in love with truth to learn the role
And too in love with you to claim control
I’m living between fraud and honesty
And no, you never asked my forgiveness
But hey, we’re all young and we’ll outlive this
Time ever frees you of morality
Yes, time will free us all of ev’rything
The stage will fade beyond all reckoning
Neither applause nor encore will there be
Feb 22, 2013
Feb 22, 2013 at 4:08 PM UTC
Colour coded wonder drugs
For the replacement
Of Love and it's joyous thugs
Out of the woodwork comes my moral obligations
Black and white
Never more than an understudy
'Watching time go by
I hope you see the end of this song
Gradients so plainly tight
Miscast by mothers
The theory of the other
Watching, time goes by
Drinking and praying
Black and white
Shades and gradients
Of things I tried
Nov 28, 2016
Nov 28, 2016 at 6:02 PM UTC