"uneaten" poems
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back
from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere
except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle
of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This
I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn
flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting
from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.
47.6k
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I stare down at the plate of toast and beans
wondering why this was never part of my dreams.
Looking for the future with an illusional pretence,
hoping good apples will fall on my side of the fence.
And as the fork dances slow
around the legumes in spirals,
the tedium of a wasting life
bears the burden and scars
of missed opportunities in paralysis
and the colour of once bright lights
glow black,
shining a shadow into the void
covering the bruises
that were once achievements of worth,
now tender patches
of failure.
I drop the fork ...
… pushing away the plate and leaving food uneaten,
my desire for its nutrition fought and beaten,
Looking at the apple tree with sombre regret
maybe its fruit will fall and save me yet.
And disappointment
is worse than anger,
it begins with the stench of loss
the nasal whiff of
what if …
And what if the little apple tree
drops all its fruit down to me?
Would I recognise fortune on my side
or fear the illusions and run to hide?
© Pagan Paul (17/02/18)
May 14, 2019
May 14, 2019 at 5:09 PM UTC
Swept in on the sixth of the first
Icy winds sluiced on dripping fleecy snow showers
I saw a raging storm coming with vile foreboding nursed
Staple in peace in love in goodwill laid a fitting banquet for all hours
Rewards for toil and strive in minds attuned and goodness versed
I knelt supplicant before my Lord
Laid my just heart bare and without fear or dread
laid a ringing vow as in warmth or bellowing thundering cold
I rest in the forethought I am girded to sail sun's flames un thread
For no blooded being can justly state I harmed or injured in my fold
I will walk this vale of tears
Meet with demons and the ****** of the outer worlds
Face the volcanoes in hell and shame blazing red lava ingots
I will not cower before deadly serpents or baulk at icy frozen walls
If I fall I will stand again an again till God's time uneaten by maggots
I implored my Faithful Lord
Take me down grind and cast me asunder and bereft
If this be ordained that an innocent soul pays an unjust price
The darkest storm has raged wild and furious a depraved joy theft
My God upholds me and holds that truths and honesty never a vice
[email protected].
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 5:34 PM UTC
It may be time to go away
Too many cookies are uneaten
And a few are only nibbled
I baked all night for many days
And used up all my spices
But few customers appeared
I laid them on my very best tray
And priced them as a bargain
Now most of them are growing stale
I think it’s time to close up shop
The other’s cakes were obviously better
Their customers waited in long lines
It will be hard for me to stop
My hands are white with flour
And my apron’s tied so tightly
Still, no farmer wants to plant a crop
That never will be eaten -
Are cookie bakers not the same
Perhaps my wafers were too plain
And lacking decoration
I thought that flavor was enough
But recognition brings me pain
I felt my recipes were special
But everyone had better ones
It seems that I cannot sustain
The dream of being Mrs. Fields
When It comes to writing cookies
ljm
Jan 29, 2017
Jan 29, 2017 at 4:46 PM UTC
Cleaning up my thoughts with some sleep,
itemized & organized thanks to my dreams.
Cleaning up my thoughts with a mornin' bath,
last night's scents just never last.
Cleaning up my thoughts from the fridge,
uneaten words will be my nourishment.
Cleaning up my thoughts from the trash,
odious memories from the past.
Cleaning up my thoughts in wash 'n dryer,
to maintain color & getting brighter.
Cleaning up my thoughts with some smoke,
a lazy sunday daydream makes room for more.
Cleaning up my thoughts when I take a walk ,
jogging with my brain so one day I can grokk.
Cleaning up my thoughts with exercise,
working out the muscles & the third eye.
Cleaning up my thoughts through meditation,
sending stress away & on a vacation.
Sep 16, 2012
Sep 16, 2012 at 11:13 PM UTC
Evenings were sandwich time
brought in by big Ted
sandwiches cut in triangles
in white and brown
and he laid the plates down
on the center table
and the patients
bored out
of their fragile brains
pounced upon them
and ate ravishingly
as if time
was running out
to eat
but
Yiska nibbled hers
took small bites
her finger tips
holding the brown bread
her white teeth
nibbling gently
Naaman watched her
his sandwich held
but uneaten
smelt
viewed
but held away
from lips
he took in
Yiska's nibbling
the way her fingers
held as if a holy host
not fish paste
and her lips
parted just so
her tongue seen
the white teeth
and her eyes
unfocused
her nightgown
buttoned at the breast
with a missing button
and he wanted
to be that sandwich
in her fingers
wanted her lips
to feel him
her teeth to nibble him
but then
the foreign woman
distracted him
by taking
her sandwich apart
opening it
between fingers
sniffing the contents
******** up her nose
muttering something
in her foreign tongue
throwing it on the plate
and picking up another
don't waste them
a nurse said
ask if you don't see
what you want
the foreign woman
chewed on the sandwich
she'd picked
the nurse removed
the torn open sandwich
Naaman ate
a small portion
viewing Yiska meanwhile
licking her fingers
******* the ends
in and out
and he wished
it he she was doing thus
he looked away
the evening sky
was darkening
through the locked
ward windows
the bright electric lights
above their heads
made mirrors
of the windows
and Naaman saw himself
in his blue dressing gown
sans belt in case
he tried to string
himself again
and he gazed at Yiska
once more nibbling
another sandwich
the same *********
technique
the similar lipping
routine
and the missing button
on her nightgown
revealed a small portion
of flesh viewed
her small *******
pressing the cotton cloth
of the nightgown
and he ate unceremoniously
the last of his bread
watching her fingers
licked again
while outside the window
the sound of fresh rain.
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 3:40 AM UTC
cracked porcelain cups, spilt forgotten tea,
stale uneaten biscuits and the freckles of crumbs
on a matching hand-painted plate.
Feb 23, 2015
Feb 23, 2015 at 12:12 PM UTC
White girls can get stuck too,
the same way that no money
sandwiches you between two
slices of dreams you cannot bite
into, because we cannot pay for that
school—stuck like peanut butter.
I want things, but mostly
I want to be able to stay at the
university and learn so, someday,
I can teach others too.
Teach them to love good and
truth and not care that they are
not the businessman or engineer
with a steady job.
All they—all we—have to do
is be willing to clean the bathrooms or
flip the greasy burgers if we have to.
Hands that are working and honest
are always good hands, no matter
what they do.
When I tell people I love English
and writing, the man or woman instructs me
to pick something more practical—be a
technical writer, a reporter, an advertiser.
But I love my poetry, and no one can
ask me to sell my happiness
and design for a nice house and a
maid who cleans because hubris
has rusted my joints.
I am not a hero or a martyr
for words, but I am a woman
who would humbly scrub toilets to
feed her children, write poems at
night, and be happy.
Feb 22, 2012
Feb 22, 2012 at 4:32 AM UTC
full moon, nervous edge, sweat beads,
my lungs are bruised and beaten,
and my heart is made of bone.
why, pomegranates bleed,
sigh and remain uneaten,
calcify or rot alone.
i saw persephone cry
and all the angels alight,
stark and sad in burning flame.
a soft weeping right nearby,
holy fires of the night,
and i swear i heard my name.
possession requires a host,
but i couldn't catch my breath
stumbling through the graveyard.
i don't believe in ghosts,
but the awesome fear of death
caught me lonely and off guard.
i will try to describe it:
in the face of this feeling,
your guts are on the table,
your insides exposed, moonlit,
mine were cold and revealing,
dead, skeletal, and mangled.
Jul 21, 2021
Jul 21, 2021 at 1:45 AM UTC
You surprised me
Roman Holiday, my favorite
We watched
Talked
Felt your lips pressed on mine
Messy tongues
Each movement gliding with ease
Fingertips flutter and slide
And across my cheeks
Eskimo kisses make me blush a lot
Tugging your shirt for fear of letting you go
Are we moving too fast?
Never.
Please don't leave yet.
I felt bad for the lonely, uneaten popcorn.
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 10:54 PM UTC
The Muted Commoner
You don't see them,
......Just past them......
Speak but unheard,
perforce, thus, muted,
against their will
blogs bread unread uneaten,
poem orphans better than us,
vine ripened unto death
Truly dare you say I/you the better?
Shamed heat, you spit,
outed, no penance offered,
non granted,
the forgivers are muted too
**so this be your charge,
so this be your salvation:**
free the mutes from the trance -
exhume, exhort find them
in the back pages, then
acknowledge that we are all
Muted Commoners.
find the poem unread,
revive it with a read, a heart,
and then you can speak your
Peace.
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 9:41 AM UTC
I came home to find that the
Oven had been left on
And only the burnt crust of the brownies
Had been left uneaten and
Poor Jose had gone to bed drunk
Before nine
I opened Jose's bottle of red wine
Because it was owed to me
And I saved all our lives by turning off
The oven and I sat at my computer watching videos
And thought of how Charles Bukowski's voice
Reminded me of the Disney version of the Jungle Book
Low and soothing and liquid
That you couldn't ever grab hold of
But lived in your memory
And the wine made memory sweet
Poor Jose drinks and his memory
Hits him like a stingray
Sliding just beneath the wet sand
His life is twisting and turning upwards
Towards some horrible nesting spot
And It's just like how sometimes
The cat's mewing seems deafening and
The more pleasant someone is the more you
Wanna pull out their eyelashes
And the cream colored paint on the walls
Is moments away from driving you mad
And with all that **** dully hurricaning around
Who's got time to turn off the oven?
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 1:01 AM UTC
I tried kale once I suppose it is like medicine if it tastes bad it must be good for you I am not swayed by that logic.
I don't know much about kale
could they make of it an ale?
I'd consider drinking that
crushed into liquid inside a big vat.
I'd give it a shot, maybe two
if I didn't puke when I was through
can it be any worse than hair tonic?
wouldn't that be a bit ironic?
Other veggies I love to hate
seldom make it to my plate
I taste them with a finger
then let them alone to linger.
Like chock boy and collard greens
I leave them to my putrid dreams
untouched unloved uneaten
even when they may be sweeten.
That's my take on kale
I'm still hardy and I'm still hale
take it i you must
but the others I don't trust.
Nov 7, 2021
Nov 7, 2021 at 12:26 AM UTC
This is a poem for all the lost things.
The lost socks and pocket books,
The lost remote that was never found.
All the lost lines inside your head,
All the words left unsaid.
The lost hopes,
The unreachable dreams,
This is a poem for these.
This is a poem for all the forgotten.
The forgotten sweaters that can't shed a tear,
The meals that go uneaten.
This is a poem for all the forgotten friends,
Memories,
And lingering touch of a lover.
This is a poem for all the lost souls.
This is a poem for the forever forgotten.
Jul 17, 2011
Jul 17, 2011 at 8:10 PM UTC
toasted snippets of crispy information
lie on white plates rapidly cooling
while lips dry into deserts
of steel-toe apathy
stale bread waits, uneaten
growing fuzzy colonies of mold
that scream in delight at your
dipper-dapper disinterest
breadcrumbs blaze new trails through
forests of great-grandfather clocks,
looming ominously as they sing
tick-tock with woodpeckers where
a manic imp bakes loaves for
several forevers in an attempt
to escape its inevitable
decomposition
grasping at salvation and
fumbling for words that slip
from buttered fingertips
better luck next time
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 10:26 PM UTC
the only jeans with holes,
the polo shirt with "passionate peach" paint
from the kitchen remodel she wanted, the yard work shoes
these were the raiments he chose for his final drive, the one in "park"
in the garage, with the engine idling, its humming a monotonous lullaby
sung by compliant pistons
he wandered through the house
like a sated forager, looking at everything, for nothing,
old pictures on the walls--children, parents, one of himself,
the Yale mortar board tilting on a face who could
have been a stranger, and was, that last afternoon
books on shelves, mostly read, their stories now forgotten
even Moby **** his favorite--eight silent vertical letters
replacing a white whale he relentlessly pursued with Ahab
a sink with one small plate and the disposal's shining ring,
the burial ground for his last, uneaten meal
those were the visions he chose
before writing his notorious note,
"BYE, ALL MY PAPERS ARE IN THE ROLL TOP"
taking the keys from the peg, and taking his final steps
into the cluttered gray garage, to his 2011 Volvo
when some hand turned the key,
igniting a welcoming flame, a few intrusive notes
of a Beatles song came through the six speaking speakers
yanking something in his gut, pulling his hand
to the handle to open the door, to return to the house,
the pictures, the stories on the walls, but the other,
the right hand, ejected the CD, rejecting the beguiling voices
that would have him stay, for another dull, deaf day
he folded his hands in his lap,
allowed his chin to rest on his chest
where his eyes could see the holes in his threadbare denim
taking solace in the fact that he had chosen the right clothes
so those still in the house, yet in the blur called life
would have only whole and clean reminders of him
to fold neatly, and leave on the porch
for the Salvation Army
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 2:11 PM UTC
A vase of daisies
And a few
Lying on the table
A wooden bowl
Of peaches uneaten
A glass of iced-tea
With lemons floating
In it
A single daisy
Lay next to the
Glass of iced-tea
And everything
Possess an air of
Freedom
And tranquility
In an old-fashioned
Way
A sheer ivory
Scarf lies next to the vase
Of daisies
~Marian~
May 16, 2013
May 16, 2013 at 3:43 PM UTC
Well…
Life is or was a box of chocolates
Right?
And me and you
We took it on
It was perfect
I hated milk chocolate
And you loved it
And you hated those coconut ones
But I really liked them
And it all worked so well
Not a chocolate left uneaten or unsavored
Until one day we found a coconut filled milk chocolate
Feb 24, 2013
Feb 24, 2013 at 4:02 PM UTC
I went with a numbness, and sense of doubt
Dropped at the doors of strangers
But pleased to have been asked.
We all gave our presents to the birthday child
Watching the discarded paper fall and the pile
Fill out the large cushioned arm chair.
Not coming from wealth my present simple style
But always liked, it appeared, much as any other;
Coats taken and placed upstairs.
A quick glance at the other children’s party attire
Mine often a cream jumper and tartan pleated skirt,
Brown leather Clark’s sandels, sensible.
The chocolate game was my favourite
Eating with knife and fork,
As many pieces as able, real fooling about.
Then there was musical chairs that
Put me in despair, as some one always out
And lots of standing about along the wall.
Not very good at general knowledge so forfeits
Left me in tears.
But Oh! for pass the parcel
Always fun had here.
Then to the tea table we went
With eyes bigger than tummies.
All that blamange and strawberry jelly
Sparkly fairy cakes with silver *****
Discarded plates of uneaten sandwiches
Crusts scattering the floor, dropped,
Lastly, milk chocolate fingers galore
And a tiny decorated craker to take home.
The End
Love Mary
Aug 17, 2018
Aug 17, 2018 at 6:18 PM UTC
Black tidal waves encompassed by the wall of lipstick,
releasing steam becoming inhaled from the mouth that sleeps.
Black curvatures sped along the ghostly lines to ease the tick,
relapsing legs touching to the web that weeps.
No winged-beast, no unpredictable mind,
to lullaby the creator of both the invisible and the translucent.
Slowly suffocated to the echo of the riled up rhyme,
slowly spitting out the guts of red paint.
Freedom flown, fists formed,
molding white pieces into scattered clouds.
Head hung, heart hummed,
wailing teary notes into ripped wedding gowns.
Cycle of the eaten, and the uneaten,
all must gallantly fall; however births ripples.
Sanctions of the needed, and the unneeded,
all must dauntingly call; however pictures simple.
Jun 21, 2013
Jun 21, 2013 at 3:19 AM UTC
Fruit uneaten to the seed,
A glance at the heavens
Halting inescapable rot,
Here it lays brown and withered.
A chronic flicker of a lamp
In the corner of the room
A temperament that festers
Frustrated at the change of endeavours,
Waning moons missing pieces,
Resentful, longing for the sun
Indescribable hunger for a glimmer
over torrential nights,
Yearning like a fire
Begs to be fed
Reaching out to darkness
The bed, now half slept.
Restlessness crawls within bones
A tormenting
Unrelenting
Wind in the cold,
A soft low hum within the safety of four
Walls,
An unrecognisable sound
Without an ear, joyful to be here at all.
Fruit will soon bitter with frosty mornings,
Unnurtured,
I plant myself in grounds
Sullen with the season.
Sep 13, 2025
Sep 13, 2025 at 4:51 PM UTC
They walk—no, more likely, they saunter,
Embassy functionaries, associate profs at G-Dub,
A smorgasbord of polka dots and vitae,
Leopard-print and Linkedin pages,
Sufficent and necessary in their presents and futures.
I occupy a bench in my own shambling manner,
Denim-clad most days,
Perhaps affecting a less humble khaki
If I am feeling particularly grandiloquent,
Redeployed here from more rough-and-tumble of more avenues,
Among the bar-and-concrete hosteled llamas and coyotes
(Probably closer kin, if one is being honest)
Simply an ornamental thing, overgrown garden gnome
Or bowdlerized lawn jockey, unobtrusive and unnoticed
By those who would coo at the macaos and mandarin ducks
Or shudder at the offal left uneaten by black bears and maned wolves.
And so such days proceed, from my convenience-store coffee arrival
To such time that something approximating dinner
Must be conjured or cadged from somewhere,
My thoughts tend to stray not to the lionesses
Nor sleek Catwoman-esque jaguars,
But to the unpretentious turkey vultures of the fields of my youth,
Circling warily, inexorably in threes and fours above
And I know there is neither ennobling nor annihilation to find here,
No outcome but to simply await.
Feb 24, 2017
Feb 24, 2017 at 9:36 AM UTC
if it’s true, Adam must’ve been at an age strong enough to hold the baby Eve and she must’ve had some early teeth. openings are like this when mother has been talking to delicate men. in another, Adam has something the size of his palm in his stomach and no mouth to speak of. in this one, mother mourns the loss of the uneaten fruit. mourns the childless. in the phrase wasted on the phrase pointless violence
I don’t know like you don’t know
we’re exiled. in belly, a baby turns informer. her loneliness
a first person
shooter.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 11:17 AM UTC
Sitting round a camp-fire in the middle of a wood
I spied a dozen vampires eating treacle pud
Upon their bloodless heads they shrugged a ***** cowl
While pacing werewolves at their backs let forth an eerie howl
The setting moon was empty as was their heinous bellies
Before them lay uneaten heaps of pies and sweets and jellies
‘It is no good’, said one, ‘I am sick of this malaise.
What this pudding needs is a spot of Crème anglaise.’
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 6:21 AM UTC
you are the lump
preventing my swallow.
& nausea,
now a familiar friend,
feebly attempts to collapse your solidity
in the back of my throat,
as do the lies I tell myself aloud
in order to forget.
I wonder if you remember,
or does your new sun shine so bright
that she blinds you from your own past?
perhaps she's more of a
supernova, like you said
& so I'd like to think;
something temporary.
still, she came amidst fire & light
while I came with a
removable bow on top;
received pain on a similar platter
as that of my uneaten dinner;
I understand.
my final question is if that sort of
amaurosis makes you dizzy;
tell me,
what effect does she
have on your
stomach?
Nov 23, 2015
Nov 23, 2015 at 10:36 AM UTC