"unevenly" poems
An orange sun shimmering with heat
Blankets its cloud all over our heads
Your eyes fill with wonder and stars
Gazing at the trees unevenly spread
We talk of fantasies and breathless sighs
And romance we have never known
While all the butterflies vibrate with ecstasy
And the sky, into our heads, is sewn
Little crystals melt on our tongues
Honey dripped bees infect our sights
Faintly, on the other side of the desert
Our threat awaits, patient as night
Orange sun begins to paint the world
As leaves fall like words murmured
Buzzing hummingbirds cry out in alarm
And the edge of our vision is blurred
Oct 31, 2018
Oct 31, 2018 at 1:54 AM UTC
*Sunrise towards my mental reflection;
Contemplating where my journey is directed.
Lying in the sweat of broken slumber;
The days are short and unevenly numbered.
Living in the darkness; dying in the light.
Silenced in the morning; tormented in the night.
Tested by devils and beaten by saints;
Waiting for the promise of mercy and grace.*
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 2:34 PM UTC
This is me apologizing. This is me finally coming up for air and coughing up apologizes instead of swallowing them down with gulps of water. This is me looking at your face and seeing the bags under your eyes because you stayed up all night trying to call me and apologizing. Looking at your nails and seeing the skin around them ****** and scabbed and the beds unevenly bitten down to nothing and apologizing. Looking at your eyes and seeing the way you bought colored contacts to cover the fact you spent days unmoving from a mirror trying to love yourself and apologizing. This is me seeing the needle points on your lips from where you injected your own blood to attempt to regain that color I claimed to be in love with and apologizing. As I'm looking at your arms and seeing where you scrubbed your skin with chemicals trying to erase the essence of me and when you smile I can see that you chugged a bottle of bleach to try and whiten your teeth bright enough so that you could be accepted by God himself into the pearly gates all I can do is apologize. I'm sorry that you spent hours carving my name into his back with your fingernails and biting your own tongue so hard it bled when he told you he loved you. When his flesh connected with yours causing the world to stop for a second and listen to your shrieking I know it was me you were screaming for and I'm sorry. As I'm standing here staring at you and watching them put brush stroke after brush stroke of blush onto your lovely pale cheeks trying to restore the life you lost so many years ago I'm finally realizing it's too late to apologize yet all I can think about is how this isn't even close to the eulogy you deserved. I should be talking about the way you danced and how your voice made my own falter momentarily and how you were more alive when you were dying than I ever will be when I'm living rather than apologizing but all I can seem to rationalize is how I spent years dry swallowing your love and spitting up knives to use to carve my initials into your thigh so you would always remember me and how I never even had the common decency to count to three before destroying you and I'm sorry. I'm afraid to look up now that I've finished apologizing because I know your empty eyes filled with nothingness will be staring back so horribly confused because I doubt you ever continued listening after I used the world eulogy and I'm sure you're going to wonder why I'm talking as if I'm sitting at your funeral rather than on the end of your bed but I don't know how else to make you grasp the concept of what you're doing to yourself by loving me in a better way than this and I'm sorry. C.a.l
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 7:21 PM UTC
I rejoice in feeling ungraceful,
for grace is such a silly thing to bear.
I do not still the waded waters of my stay:
I lay unevenly and sing loud.
And try to leave reminders everywhere.
I step closer to the edge out where I play
and peer longingly into the raging seas.
When I die, listen to the voice of morning.
And you will hear me blowing ungracefully
as wind through the trees.
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 8:53 PM UTC
1. I hate my acne,
How it blemishes my cheeks,
Leaving scars for you to trace in the dark
as you kiss away my skin
2. I hate my weight.
The rolls of fat unevenly proportioned around my middle
so that my jeans will never
fit "just right"
and my broad shoulders reminding me every time
I pull on a shirt that I'm not built like a woman
3. I hate my appetite.
My stomach's never satisfied with a salad or a soup.
No,
I need the whole **** steak.
4. I hate my laugh,
how it crescendos through deep rolling hills
starting in my belly and ending in my soul.
It's infectious, because
once I start
you can't stop
5. I hate that I'm beautiful,
because I know that I'm not,
but **** when you look at me like that,
I outshine the stars.
6. I hate my honesty,
"No, I'm fine," why the hell can't I just say that,
but no,
I have to go bare my whole soul to you in hopes that
you don't bare it right back
7. Man, I hate that I'm faithful.
I hate that I'm never gonna throw in the towel
when things get tough,
and that every time you leave, I'll stay
8. I hate that I believe,
believe all the lies that you feed me,
hoping, maybe, by God's grace.
It's different this time and you'll stay
9. I hate myself.
I'm too good for you,
and not good enough for you,
and I'll never
ever be what you need,
but I keep trying and changing to become
bad enough for you,
and good enough for you,
and to somehow attempt to be what you need.
I hate myself because I have lost myself.
But 10.
Mostly, I just hate that I give a ****
I hate that I care about myself,
my weight,
my height,
my face,
my attitude
I hate that I'm not happy being me.
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 12:20 AM UTC
It was, as the New York Times all but sniffed
(Even then, a haughty mix of bluenose and black ink)
Further proof the poor, misguided Upstate rubes
Were no more than ample fodder
For any tinhorn, two-bit confidence man to take for a ride.
Fair enough—it was, to the careful eye and unheated psyche
Clear as the azure blue sky that,
Despite the best efforts of acid wash and a year underground,
So obviously a statue as to be absolutely laughable,
And yet the vox populi came in waves,
Not only one-gallus farmers from the fields nearby,
But from the great cities near and far
(Chicago, Philadelphia, and, yes, even New York itself
To throw Hannum a quarter to view his gargantuan grotesquery
Just as described in Genesis itself, he noted solemnly
So many, indeed, that Barnum himself was divinely inspired
Not only to purloin the giant, but its prior owner’s epigram
As to the frequency of the manufacture
Of his too-credible customer base.
While there was (briefly, at least) some mystery surrounding
The origins of the brobdingnagian mass of stone,
It remained (to some, anyway) equally unfathomable
Why scores of folks would careen in unsteady coaches
The full length of the Catskill Turnpike,
With its questionable lodging and uneven roadworthiness,
Or patiently suffer the mosquito-laden flatboats of Clinton’s Ditch
All to spend the cash equivalent of two trips to the county fair
To see a perfectly good hootchie-kootchie show
Simply to gawk at an unevenly carved rock of questionable authenticity,
But that explained quite simply,
As the public always gets what the public wants.
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 4:03 PM UTC
Shlomit (whom most
of the boys disliked)
stood in the playground
holding one end of the
skipping rope while another
girl held the other end as
another skipped. Her wire
rimmed spectacles stayed
in place as she moved, her
holey cardigan had seen
better days, her grey dress
had been handed down so
often that it shone like steel.
Naaman stood and watched
her from the steps leading
down to the playground. She
sometimes smelt of dampness
as if she’d been left out in the
rain and brought in to dry over
a dull fire. He looked at her dark
hair held in place with hairgrips,
the hair band of a dark blue
remained unmoved by her motions.
Some girl pushed her away from
the end of the skipping rope and
she walked to the wall and stared.
That seemed unfair, Naaman said,
you were doing your bit ok. Shlomit
looked at him with her nervous eyes.
They always do that, she said; never
let me play for long. He stood beside
her; he could smell dampness mixed
with peppermint. Maybe you’re too
good for them, he said. She smiled and
pushed the hair band with her fingers.
Her nails had been chewed unevenly,
he noted, her fingers were ink stained.
Would you like a wine gum? he asked.
He held out a bag of wine gum sweets.
She put her fingers into the bag and
took one and put it in her mouth.
Thank you, she mouthed, her finger
pushing the sweet further in. Naaman
walked with her up the steps that led
up from the small playground and stood
on the bombed ground and looked down.
There used to be a house where the
playground is now, he said, it got
bombed out. The playground was
once the cellar. Oh, she said, I didn’t
realise that. The bombs missed the
school, shame, he said, smiling. Daddy
said I ought not talk with boys, she said,
looking at Naaman then quickly around
her. Why’s that? he asked. She looked
at her fingers, the thumbs moving over
each other. He said boys were rude and
mischievous, she said. I guess some are,
Naaman said. She looked at him. You
seem all right, she said. But you are still
a boy and he might find out I talked to you
and then there would be trouble. How
would he find out here in the playground?
Naaman asked. Someone might tell from
here that saw me, she said anxiously.
Last time someone told him he beat me,
she added quietly. She pushed her hands
into her cardigan pockets. Best go, she said.
I like you, Naaman said, you remind me of a
picture I saw of a girl standing beside Jesus
in that Bible in the school library. Do I? she
said, did she have wire-rimmed glasses?
No, Naaman said, but she had a pretty face
like yours. She laughed and took her hands
from her pockets. He saw two reflections of
himself in the glass of her spectacles behind
which her own eyes gazed out. Maybe it was
me, she said playfully. Oh, yes, he said, taking
her thin ink stained fingers in his, no doubt.
Jul 5, 2013
Jul 5, 2013 at 3:13 AM UTC
We converge like a flock of birds
Emerging from doorways and from behind trees
I can hear each of our feet shuffling among the golden red leaves
And smiles reaching our faces
As out various eyes meet
We crow eachothers names
Hugs are unevenly distributed between us
We set our things down and breathe sighs of relief
Days like these, we need one another
We are like a herd of animals, a family
It hurts to be apart for this long
We stretch out among the sunset colored leaves
Reading books and singing and laughing together
Sharing jackets and gloves,
Protection from the south Seattle winds
Our backpacks and instrument cases
Serve as seats, backs against the prison grey walls
We talk of the future, of the trips we'll take together
Of the old stories a few cobbled people know
We exchange usernames, phone numbers and passwords
We let eachother in
Our hearts become bare and we share
Until our stomachs are full
And the bell chimes 5 times automatically
We crow goodbyes and promises of other meetings
Walking off in groups of two or three
I walk in a group of 7, laughing and pushing eachother around
I have never had better friends, I think
Nov 18, 2012
Nov 18, 2012 at 3:21 PM UTC
We order a mushroom-cheese omelet
Now see you’re the kind of guy who eats jam on toast
And I’m the kind of girl who doesn’t eat toast as all
So when the plate comes, I give you both pieces of toast
And you spread the strawberry jam on it
While I’m busy cutting the omelet in half
But before taking a bite of anything
We both pick up a hashbrown simultaneously
As if somehow we’d planned the entire thing
And we both take a bite of it and
We love it
It’s cooked to perfection and potatoes are my weakness
Back to the omlet though,
So I’m not that great at cutting
And the omelet cut unevenly in half
So you take the smaller piece
Even though you’re bigger than me
And I steal the bigger piece
Even though I’m smaller than you
And you eat your half in three bites
While I’m struggling with mine
And the string cheese is caught somewhere between
My fingers, my mouth and the plate
And it takes me a while to eat
About twenty bites in, there’s no way I can eat more
So I ask you to eat what’s leftover
I guess I should have given you the bigger half to begin with
But I guess that’s just how we work
Where you’ll always take the smaller portion
But end up eating most of the food
Because I’ll always take the bigger portion
And leave most of it untouched
You eat my leftovers in two bites
And the coffee arrives
I almost knock over your espresso
While reaching for the complimentary cookie
I eat my cookie
And then I eat half of yours too
And by this time I’m pretty full
But I see a sign for a free cookie
And I want it
You don’t really care for it but you laugh
Because you haven’t seen me want anything as bad
As the cookie (it's free!)
And so you get me the free cookie
And I’m too full to eat it
So I put it in my bag
Very proudly; it’s my success for the day
I finish my Americano faster than you finish your single shot espresso
So you give me a sip of yours
But you drop a few drops on me
And now my pants look like they have blood stains
And I smell of espresso
And you’re trying to clean it with a tissue
But the waiter thinks we’re doing something naughty
So I tell you to stop
And even if we were doing something naughty
Who’s the waiter to say anything anyways
Anyways
So we finish out coffee and we call for an uber
And my pants are stained
And I’m carrying my cookie
And I don’t think I’ve ever been happier
While we wait for the uber
You steal my glasses
And you try them on
They look funny on you
I like them on you
I think I like you
And you can’t see anything
And I can’t see anything either
Except for your outline
That’s enough for me
So the uber comes
And he calls us
And we’re leaving
At the counter you pay
And I see a Nutella cookie in the window
I want it
But you just paid for breakfast
So I’ll keep quiet
We sit in the car
And I put on pomegranate lipbalm
And I give you some too
Your lips look nice and soft now
And I think today has been a really great day
And I think you fit me well
Because you love toast and I leave toast
And it works out
(except for that baked tomato no one ate)
But look the point is
Is that we work
Well.
And we squish in the back of an uber
And guess what?
The seat was made for two.
We ordered a mushroom-cheese omelet
It was a good day
Jan 26, 2017
Jan 26, 2017 at 10:35 AM UTC
Words are made of thoughts.
I wish they'd intrude. I am lonely,
unemployed with a nine to seven routine
of various activities.
A malignant trend courses through the head.
Broadcasting it outside in the realm of trust
where I am blank but set to go, it would have
the appearance of a finely ambient glass of chocolate milk.
Sometimes I'm asked why the relevance hinges on me.
If I had to say, it's because I keep getting vignettes, like something
out of a beggar's bowl, a wooden saltiness
that becomes increasingly less involved. And, like, everytime
I think about it, it's something similar to trying to walk
on John Carter's Mars; and all of this trivial, like, asinine
things can never match up to the draw, the pull of
whatever has been dropped, whatever has been shorn
unevenly like a badly eaten candy-bar. Or something.
I don't know why it has to be about me.
I don't, pull my weight, and recently I feel cold in the summer;
I have slept under a bedsheet since June.
That's not what this is about, or what I, want to project.
This isn't a prerogative, a jarring hiss of due-dates
incoming inevitably. I just **** Which is not a surprise,
like organic web shooters is a surprise, or, thinking up
something like a dead polemic of a sewer draining
the sordid leftovers of a consciousness.
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 2:00 PM UTC
Cell phone shield in hand,
the mirror-me peers
into a shoddy, cracked up
dream reflector-slash-protector
as I make amends with
my agitated mitochondria and
attempt to drill miniscule holes into
paper dolls without ripping them.
So screams the wall hanging!
Banshees dance, falling
into cyclical romances as
cream colored microphones peek
out around one-way windows wondering
whether or not the smiles will hold.
Eyes still,
eyes wrinkles crinkling,
spit spray sprinkling.
Connect to the dreamers.
Push your plug into
my cracking wall sockets,
pull me apart at the seams.
So cries the doorstopper!
Knees bleed from
street corner séances
and eyes green grass
that's afraid to ask
where its clover went
but heavens, it's bent for hell.
Pray tell me, burping chickadee,
when did your teeth glass over
with a film of cerulean and
your bones start sailing
through tepid reminders that
you may end this life a failure,
swallowing Uncle Ben's rice packet trash
at the dark black bottom of the Pacific?
So sighs the statue!
Broken walkie talkies
feed red back to nothing
and knick knack hoarders note
the familiar festering of deadly bacteria
in the lungs and on the
tippy top of the tongue.
Space cadets rocket
through concrete jungles containing
apartment after
apartment after
apartment filled with
mannequins filled with
sand filled with
unevenly severed hands.
So speaks the ornament!
So declares the dashboard decal!
Sensual scholarly seekers
seem so totally hip
and read feminist poetry
to dispel the myths
and spit on the irony.
I won't dare to flatter you
with the focused attention of stone
or allow the personable picture frame
to make the secrets of
the microscopic universe known.
So suggests the ship siren!
So recites the repository!
Empty yourself into me,
adopt a new philosophy,
abandon in within two weeks
so I can see and you can seep,
your fluttering robin heart to keep
and glaciers to arrive upon
a salty brown eternal sleep.
Deliver me to the melting shopping mall!
The centennial fire alarm goes off
at the tip of the cliff,
at the end of the hall.
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 3:28 PM UTC
I'd rather watch the unevenly tall grass sway in an awkwardly flimsy wind
Than watch Jerry Orbach monotonously crawl his manicured tongue to an acting Deputy
"There goes my beauty sleep."
Or watch Ricky and Bubbles scribble words in the air over **** jugs and cement a post-modern cynicism of the world as a great big piece of trailer trash.
I'd rather watch the moisture accumulate on the synthetic brown border between wall and roof in an overcast runny-nose rain
So I guess what I'm saying is
Television took my vision
So I took my vision back.
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 5:57 PM UTC
I stand,
tender and wild
at the water's edge.
I'm told,
as waves punch my knees,
that it's a great day
for a viking funeral.
Water's at my waist,
salt-wind pulling at me,
the soft veil covers me,
my face, hair
and extremities so cold and unevenly tanned.
I'm told,
that I look as if I'm waiting
for some fisherman husband to come home from see.
Maybe I am.
And then my mouth is full of saltwater,
as are my eyes,
my face,
hair,
grains of sand carried by the atlantic
travel the lifelines of both my palms
when I lift my chin above the wave,
I'll have wrinkles,
and a mortgage.
I'll be on the street.
clothed in a trench coat, trousers and my propriety,
when i'll be told
that I look as if I'm waiting.
Maybe I am.
Dec 15, 2010
Dec 15, 2010 at 7:48 PM UTC
The smell of wood polish;
sprayed unevenly on the counter top,
brought you back to life.
Back down from heaven and earth into my mind,
where you had evaded me for the longest time.
An aroma of you.
My Great Grandma.
The Greatest Grandma,
I smelt that wood polish and your memory came alive again.
For one final time.
I closed my eyes,
I was a child,
and it was almost like
you came back to life.
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 11:02 AM UTC
unlucky are the days; these
keys no longer open doors.
Pennies exchanged for emotions
on the sleeves.
loyalty poured unevenly;
sitting here forever
bewildered by the simplicity.
questions on the faces;
wind-chapped lips silenced
the song, lyrics removed
to unfamiliar places.
stains on the rug from
the colored wax, indiscreet;
lost imaginations beneath
these feet.
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 7:57 AM UTC
the scent of towels impregnated
with chlorine, mixes with petrichor
from the brief but violent storm
the mugginess still sits heavy in
the evening air as fruit bats
fly overhead, not one or two,
but tens and twenties, setting off
a mad barking frenzy among
the neighborhood dogs
twilight beckons to the darker night
and the smell of wet wood and sausages
cooking over takes the night
some one plays the guitar and the
notes drift unevenly on the breeze
houses become shadows, as the moon rises
the frogs begin to chorus and cats gossip
on the next door neighbor's garage
specteral shapes in silhouette
the sweet smell of jasmine
and honeysuckle wafts by
as we sit in the dark
awaiting the temperatures drop
anytime now.....anytime
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 7:37 AM UTC
I’m unevenly placed, skewed,
Strewn as if across a battlefield of green arching upwards
Into a firmament no kinder than the dirt below.
Glory; glory, triumph, and victory
Gallop through the head of the sweat-glossed, sandal-clad
With the fervor of an enjoined nation
Working
As
One.
What can be defined as the perfect cause?
What can be defined as just too much loss?
Nothing, no one, withstands the majesty
Of a waving, battle-torn flag, resting upon
The crest of a hill with grace gracing
Every
Single
Rip.
I can glaze over the different shades of red
That permeate the legacy we will all
Come to know as legend, as the workings of but
A tale, in some lands. Yet I know the secret, the wish
Hidden behind the untouched folds, the proud wishes
Between each enjoined thread, the ideals of a
Solitary people who with me, wish for a better
World
For
All.
One can only hope
We will be remembered.
Jan 13, 2017
Jan 13, 2017 at 8:58 AM UTC
They say we have two halves of a whole brain.
Two sections that govern our actions
Like tyrants that ride horses with reigns made
Of nerves and weald weapons that shoot out sparks
Of neurons across our synapses
The lands of our minds that dips and rises like the Andes mountains
Amoung cerebellum fields
Where nervous horses hoofs trample
Nervous systems flowers and bend their stem
Into an L shaped pendulum that swings
Unevenly over corpus callosum oceans
That separate left and right.
Art and reason.
Two separate sets of war torn warriors fighting,
One with methodically measured maps
Marked with red flags between concurred lands of logic
And one with holistic metal armor that clinks and clanks
Around soldiers making music for them to march to
They fight over proper ways of reason
And creative formulations
Of treasons that ought not be crossed
Their trenches the rivens in our brains
That wet rot their feet with slimy blood and
Membrane juices
The left speaking in tongues
That right cannot hear when not
Set on staff lines
Or painted onto animal skin canvas
That once covered similar brain battles
Between right and left
Only to be cut and sectioned off
In improper fractions that yearn to be whole.
If only the sides would sign treaties of peace
With pens that pinch fibers together and bind
Halves into wholes.
Apr 21, 2013
Apr 21, 2013 at 6:44 PM UTC
when I stop
and
just let the
silence
be. . .
everything
is ok:
the tattered
tarp partially
buried in
the
hillside is
ok
the broken
bough used
as a toy
by the
poor
children is
ok
the
jaggedly
chopped
tree stump
by the
parked
car is
ok
the
unevenly
placed
stairs
that force
you to
change
your gait
are
ok
the
distant
tower
with the
blinking
light
is
ok
the
solitude
among
other
mortals
is
ok
the
whelming
sense of
being
lost is
ok
the
neat
glass of
scotch
from the
isle of
skye is
ok
the
divorced
lesbian
with two
kids at
the end
of her
rope
is
ok
the
minuscule
fly that
landed
on my
forehead
in the
bathroom
this
morning
is
ok
everything
is
ok
even the
things
that
aren't
they're
ok too
Mar 14, 2021
Mar 14, 2021 at 3:26 PM UTC
The epitome of inequality.
Frosting is distributed unevenly;
caked gloriously on some,
depressingly absent on others.
Anger and frustration mount
each time a claw raises
uncoated multi-grains to my mouth.
But each time my grasp
manages to find
a sterling white mini-wheat,
I remember why
I put up with all the ****
But the question beckons,
whether or not
the absence of imperfections
would lessen the resonance
of the frosty treats
to my oral senses.
Aug 11, 2011
Aug 11, 2011 at 3:58 PM UTC
some fools talk of giving
one perfect rose
what utter nonsense and stupidity
if the rose were perfect
would it open, then wither, then die
as the feelings we shared bloomed only to wilt?
would the thorns draw the blood from my hand
as my love for you draws the blood from my heart?
would each rose be different and unevenly shaded
as the days we have spent together
each one varied and precious in its own way?
the perfect rose exists only in imagination
perfumed with chemicals
so the smell is the same day after day
if roses were perfect they would mean
nothing at all
Feb 6, 2010
Feb 6, 2010 at 11:44 PM UTC
Sweet eminence;
Your weeping in quiet hours,
Mute and solitary,
Has suspended you
To the indifferent mercy
Of fresh winter;
Thorns, dulled and smooth,
Lend no armor or salvation;
No blossom to whisper tribulations
Toward chaste suitors.
So unkind
As to entomb you
In your own crystalline tears.
Captive and preserved,
A hand-blown ornament,
With but a history of beauty
To entice.
From the East rises
Your tardy champion,
Whose eyes behold
Your *******
Passionately reminiscing,
Former design;
With righteous vehemence,
Strikes freeing strands,
To emancipate such glory.
Yet, as forces pare unevenly,
And tears trickle anew,
The weight of neglect
Burdens the vestiges of youth.
Tense and straining to liberate,
Healed wounds succumb,
Divide and detach,
Falling lifeless upon the linen.
Too old, or too cold,
To bleed the farewell of allure.
Dec 2, 2010
Dec 2, 2010 at 1:59 PM UTC