"unoccupied" poems
A vacant room of dark spaces,
where furniture once lay
An empty lot of trash and cracked concrete
Where weeds take root with hopes of becoming trees
And cobwebs span for miles
Worn wind chimes still glisten in sun
Papers of bad handwriting fly with the wind
This place left unoccupied for so much time
Small lives make home in the walls,
While this home settles further beneath dirt
This place reminds me of our forgetfulness, our need to not rebuild
As a place turns old we leave it behind,
never to fix again,
never to feel loved again
Weeping floorboards
Walls crying tears of yellow paint
Roof caving in feeling hollow
Abandoned places
Forgotten
Always forgotten
May 16, 2015
May 16, 2015 at 3:42 PM UTC
Have you considered being a *** worker?
You have a body.
I know you never sleep there,
spend less time breathing than associating with your own ribcage.
You're an actress
no script, just a character summary.
Limp, age 12, non-verbal marionette.
*Snaps her strings when forced to dance.
Clings to the ceiling tiles, like the shadows she hallucinates.
Let's the puppet fall numb under strangers.
Ragdoll to be used for kindling.*
When you play your part
You'll inherit enough money to afford a studio apartment
in Washington, or Las Vegas; anywhere with men paid large enough salary to afford your vacant body,
three phone plans,
a hotel room for you to stay awake in
Listening to dull thuds against your wrongfully warm corpse
Invited hoping the stinging could form tendons
adhere together like rubber bands
Snap you back into your skin.
You cling helpless to the ceiling tiles
Watch the ragdoll make mistakes.
*"Have you considered being a *** worker?"*
A homeless woman asked me,
*"Unoccupied bodies should start charging rent.
Let a man who can afford it pay for utilities.
You might be homeless
but you won't be wasted space".*
Oct 18, 2016
Oct 18, 2016 at 1:56 PM UTC
Everywhere
She's in every crossword
She haunts the radio
she's in my mind, memories blurred
Cant help but chase her shadow
I feel my heart still palpitate
With just the utterance of her name
All my life , to her , I'd gravitate
For no one else, i feel the same
She's in the stars, for each an ode
Under the moon I'd weep
I think of all the " I love you's " told
And I cry myself to sleep
She's in every, unoccupied thought
I can't help but to endear
But despite all this, its all for naught
Because she's everywhere, but here .
Feb 27, 2015
Feb 27, 2015 at 12:30 PM UTC
Krypton didn’t fit with anyone,
as it was the unfriendly one,
it never went beyond it’s limits
even if others did loose their limits.
It was from a forlorn world,
nobody cared to say a word,
to this enigma of another world;
no one wanted to share a word.
The nobles were always preoccupied
with their occupied shells,
they never hung out with the occupied,
nor the unoccupied.
Krypton was mistaken for kryptonite.
It wondered every night,
Why they accused it for the assassination?
it didn’t have the power of absorption.
Krypton had very few of it’s kind,
it didn’t know where they were aligned.
He held the hope of being able to be lined,
with the rest of it’s kind.
Poor Krypton, he was on the farthest
arena of the periodic table
it wished if it could turn the table,
so that it can at least act a bit feeble.
Experience taught this novice,
it calculated the calculations,
to traverse the long distance,
fear hindered the transmissions.
Krypton used to think without links
he was one of the stable nobles,
he wasn’t the one that wobbles
and, one of the table’s baubles.
Dec 17, 2016
Dec 17, 2016 at 4:36 AM UTC
I come inside the room and sat at front
on the last unoccupied seat
I spot a girl that’s not at all blunt
and was really kinda intimidating with the way that she greets
very ecstatic and charming with her gorgeous little smile
she was lighting up everybody in the room, it was really worthwhile
I was looking at you in disbelief, I almost started to sweat
then you glanced at me so I started to fret
but you made a silly face and I did too
that was the day that I met you
Happy birthday Yam Ng. This one's for ya. Love ya bud.
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 9:13 AM UTC
Thoughts escape through cracks and crevices of the swelling gray matter. Each breath forcefully exhaled through thinly parted lips pushes the unfinished coliseum constructed of heavy stones, weighted with unsure purpose, out into the previously unoccupied space before me. Each exhalation creates small beings composed of struggle that march mechanically into the arena. Ready to throw their lives on the line to fight for recognition. As these thoughts battle one another, one falls after the next. Once the battles between these thoughts has finished, and the coliseum is filled with dreams and ideas that will never find themselves fully recognized, only one stands victorious. Though battered and broken from the ****** battles it has fought, selflessness has conquered any that would seek to oppose it. It inhales the dire wounds caused to the others, and they stand before the crumpled mass that saved everything they fought so hard to achieve through personal sacrifice. Not knowing the events that occurred, they cannibalized selflessness to sate their primitive greed. Now a small portion of him exists within every ideal that escapes through pursed lips from the fields of grey matter where they were conceived. Through this process the idea of love was given life, and it will forever seek that selflessness that gave birth to it.
Oct 14, 2012
Oct 14, 2012 at 12:49 AM UTC
THIS **** ******* *****
You have deleted every profile picture
and cover photo with us in it,
Ten times out of Ten you changed
your laptop background of all the pictures
of us,
Forgot the song that you gave us 3 years ago,
changed your cell phone background,
deleted the cell phone pictures,
Go to sleep without thinking a bit about me,
Talk about me casually to people like I
pretty much don’t ******* exist,
And to top it all off,
You are probably the happiest you’ve ever been.
Like our relationship was nothing but handcuffs of burden
you were dying to break out of.
I guess my lies and stupid decisions were memory cards
large enough to completely erase all of our past data -
How is this so easy for you?
How is walking around campus easy for you?
How is going home alone easy for you?
How is cooking alone easy for you?
How is sleeping alone easy for you?
We have marked our forevers on every inch of this
25,000 populated resident.
I can’t go 3 feet without remembering a time where
we were here, and there, and EVERYWHERE.
How we held hands on every speck of the sidewalks,
How our favorite bus seat is now unoccupied,
And our short cuts that weren’t really short cuts,
just flatter ground to walk on because you were so
lazy to walk that way is now a ghost filled alley
of “I don’t give a ****
What also ***** is I still do all of your habits.
Like put my sides of food on top of one another.
Or how I turn off the lights when I leave a room,
Or how I now buy that Gain powdery washing
stuff for my clothes
Or how I turn off the sink when I’m brushing my teeth,
AND how even though I am not lactose intolerant like you are,
I STILL BUY LACTAID MILK!
WHY?!
I DON’T ******* KNOW!
My mom always told me I will learn everything the hard way.
I guess I wasn’t meant to get my first real relationship
right the first time around.
Heartbreak.
I would rather wish for God to come take back his Saints
but leave me on earth’s dying wasteland
than this.
I feel like I am wasting my time saving myself for that
hint of what if called, faith
but then doubt comes along and says,
She’s gone.
She’s never coming back.
Ever.
Move. On.
It’s so hard for me.
What harder is that I know it’s easy for you.
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 7:55 PM UTC
Yes I am in love...
Sticky toffee-apple kind of love.
The kind that leaves my mouth thirsty, gulping for more.
I think it's love, it feels like love, it should be love,
I have no words for this foreign emotion that has found dwelling in the open space that has been unoccupied for ages.
It's so awesome having a silly smile plastered on my face the whole day.
Easily, wonderfully, beautifully.
It could last forever, maybe it will, perhaps it will...
I never knew my mind could brew up such words, such expressions of a heart beating smoothly from the sound of your voice or the thought of your existence.
Could it all be a dream...fairy-tale...a make-believe story of two people liking each other incredibly?
Hmmmm....whatever it is, I like it. It has unearthed my buried treasurers.
Given back life to my mute opinions....re-energized my hopes for a happy-ever-after.
Jan 1, 2014
Jan 1, 2014 at 12:22 PM UTC
Now:
The EMTs respond.
A Jane Doe is found dead.
Beneath the I-90 overpass.
They lift her
Zip her into a bag,
And transport her to the morgue.
They can’t feel sad.
Today:
The few wispy strands of hair that remain
Dangle haphazardly from her scabby head
Jagged misshapen teeth protrude from dry cracked lips
betraying breath that stinks of infection and decomposition
Vermin gnaw on exposed flesh while parasites feast within.
Her eyes dim as her body putrifies.
Last Week:
Mission workers prop her up against the wobbly chain link fence
A thin blanket is wrapped around her bony shoulders and
Her blue-tarp awning is adjusted
She would be less wet and cold.
For a night.
They leave a cheese sandwich and chicken noodle soup.
The rats eat most of it.
She wouldn’t have kept it down anyway.
Last Month:
The shelter is scary and dangerous.
She couldn’t sleep without nightmares and her screaming disrupted other ‘guests’.
The shelter workers apologize and put her out at 2:19 AM.
She finds a spot between two dumpsters.
It reeks of **** but is unoccupied.
Sometime in the dark she is ***** and beaten by two crackheads.
The crime is unreported.
Last Year:
The fluorescent lights sting her eyes.
The antiseptic smell burns her nose.
The noise and chaos that surround her make her dizzy and disoriented.
She fights hard to get away but is restrained by strong hands – then leather straps.
A painful jab in her arm and then nothing.
Days or weeks later she emerges in a haze.
Kindly eyes greet her.
They stay with her.
They accompany her to the shelter.
They tell her to come back for follow-on care.
She never sees them again.
Before:
The divorce rips her heart in two.
She has nothing.
She is nothing.
Her world crumbles beneath her and she crumbles with it.
Where would she go?
What would she do?
Everything has become so wrong.
Once Upon a Time:
She was happy. Joyful.
Filled with life and hope.
He was smart, funny, successful.
Together they were magical.
Perfect.
May 9, 2017
May 9, 2017 at 3:21 PM UTC
I am under the sun’s dust-specked rays
With the low mumbles of a nearby river flowing into my ears
My brain bathes in it’s cool water
The pitter-patter of energetic drips hopping in and out of their prism
Becomes the only sound that occupies my head
Leaves,
Brown
Gold
Holey
Deep
Crunch crunch crunching
Dirt like magnetic attraction clasp to
My boots
My pants
My hair
The sky
Empty
Unoccupied by nothing but the birds that fly in it
Deep breaths of wind proud and tenacious caress my eager face
And it gets dark and the sky swirls and contorts
Screaming out it’s agony and frustration
Over another dying day
It assaults my eyes with it’s canvas
Melted oranges, cascading reds, opaque violets
Illuminating all it looks over
With the glow of it’s ferocity
The scent of pine needles and bark seep into my weary lungs
And I am invigorated with a burst of life
I’ll laugh and let the cold air cap my teeth
And grab my naked eyes
And shake me and shake me and shake me until
I can’t take it
And I cry from it’s frozen clutch
And I laugh and my face is as red as the burnt burgundy leaves that cushion the bottom of my boots
And all
I can hear
Are the echos
Of my solitude
And the toads
Croaking
And
My skin
Warms
And my
Heartbeats
And
My brain
Is silenced
And my eyes close
When I open them I see nothing but my ceiling
And I look forward and my TV is staring at me
With the look of nefariousness it always has
Frantic, desperate, delirious
I grab at my skin
And I
Am
Cold
Nov 3, 2011
Nov 3, 2011 at 11:07 AM UTC
Catching, imperative
Just like a great cup of tea
Curiosity is cumulative
'Wonder what's grasping me?
These tides flowing peacefully
Numb, pondering your grace
Achieving supreme harmony
Within your tender embrace
Living casually, unoccupied
Nibbling softly into meditation
My happiness would be amplified
If only I’d give in to temptation
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 10:07 PM UTC
Stomachs fill
and bottles empty
and pictures are burned
along with bridges.
To be a second choice is not good.
To now you are a second choice
and being happy that you are a choice at all
is not good.
I came to her with a heavy heart
and a poem
and I asked her if she could hold me up
and for a moment she did
but falling to the floor
I realized her heart was heavy enough for her.
She sought refuge by sleeping with sleepy men
and by drinking although she was already drunk.
And now that her bed is unoccupied
and her stomach pumped and her heart not so heavy,
she wishes to help hold me up.
But I have realized that I don't need her help.
I don't need the help of someone who
wishes only to help those who can help her.
Feb 11, 2014
Feb 11, 2014 at 7:31 PM UTC
The wood room door was opened wide
I closed it firm last night.
I woke at four and felt it's breath
It gave me quite a fright.
I felt it's chilly, gentle breath
Exhaling on my brow
And upright in my skinny bed
Roared "Get thee gone ghost,
**** off now!"
With naked shanks I padded forth
To set and light the fire
Whilst outside in the wilderness
I could hear the specter's ire,
It moved about deliberately,
It stalked outside my room.
I warmed my *** by fires heat
And cursed to dispel doom.
That icy feeling permeates
It reaches to the bone,
It is far to early for a call
Yet there's the ringing phone,
I listen to the vacant hiss,
There's no one there of course
So I bellow forth obscenities
And hang up with a curse.
Old Basil told me of the time
He watched with open mouth
Whilst a faceless man in hounds tooth coat
Glided past him from the south.
The housemaids tell with fear filled eyes
Of depressions on the bed
Where something sat and rested there
Laid down it's weary head.
Except the house was empty then,
Unoccupied by guests.
No cat nor dog nor friendly hog,
Nobody playing jests.
Some nights I walk the corridors
To see what I can see
And I fancy Thomas Dawson's ghost
Is quietly watching me,
For he only shows his bearded face
At the darkest witching hour
And it's usually in the dead of night
To the echo's of the old clock tower
When the mountain looms above the lodge
Enshrouded in the mist,
And the morepork calls its haunting sound
And the snow is moonlight kissed.
Marshalg
Dawson Falls Lodge
TARANAKI,New Zealand.
18th August 2008
- From Watching the Ripples Radiate
Jul 7, 2013
Jul 7, 2013 at 6:56 PM UTC
It drank upon humanity like a fine
Wine, pungent in
Hatred,
Loathing,
Malice
Upon another, it drank with a
Steady flow. Intoxicated on the
Evils of
Man,
Woman,
Child
Was the final key, for the seed was
Pure, but know even that was corrupted,
It was a sweet moment in eternity. As it
Drank like never before,
Souls where consumed upon like never before.
Souls were indulged,
As the screams echoed, conscience was
Shredded and turned black. Now empty
Thrown like so many before
Void,
Barren,
Unoccupied
Shell, but humanity was plentiful and darkness
Would be intoxicated on the fullness of
What they had become. We are what we have
made ourselves. Food is for thought, and now
Intoxicated darkness drinks till we are but a shell.
Apr 9, 2015
Apr 9, 2015 at 8:08 AM UTC
*coats of dust & pollen settle
on an unoccupied desk;
clumps of rust sprout
on faded typewriter keys.
marmalade pages with
elaborate strokes & scribbles
shrivel like mango slices
suffocating in tropical heat.
a dozen lolling envelopes
with awe inciting addresses
from San Francisco to Shanghai
each wither like aging flowers.
the room once gleaming in
luminescence now hoards darkness.
brandeis blue curtains drape
the windows, stifling sunlight.
sober emotions linger
in the thick, musty air;
overripe creativity decays
into the unwashed floorboards.
rhyme, rhythm, & reason
of the mind cease to bloom;
curiosity & inspiration fall dormant
in a chilling, thoughtless winter.
the mind of a former poet
is an unkept garden;
an Eden of ideas abandoned
in favor of myopic trivialities.
though unattended, the
garden is never barren;
cultivate your imagination &
you will always harvest beauty.
**it’s never too late to pick up your pen;
water your mind & your garden will grow!***
Apr 5, 2017
Apr 5, 2017 at 6:39 PM UTC
“Love: an emotion, one that, so low as to bar
From fair desire—self-righteous and self-serving
Excuse, a pretense, lyric, will not inspire.”
I detest to hear him speak—
Adulterer, why, pray tell, do you prey upon the weak?
“Simple in answer, as simple in method. No heart
Rich needs to beat for “that” emotion obsoletes.
Adults, mature, do not even think the distinction
That is kid’s table morality, what mommy
Only says after a few drinks, winking, your father
In his eyes—just where you have come, in fact—
You needn’t think mommy and daddy stayed together
After long spats, strife, and frustration for their waves
Struck the same height or the moon hits mom just right.
It is not the eternal enthrallment of Eros that keeps them in motion
Dear, friend—it is “that” emotion. In bed, hearts
Are inverted and split down the middle
The negative just drowns away in chemicals.
But how bad we’d feel, (no?) if that, the long and short?
Machinate the “thing” justify “that” feeling
Ennobling, beatifying, kindling for sonnets and odes
Fashioning morality and aesthetics onto sweating
Thrusting beasts, one on one in their dance of love.
A harlequin of truth, my friend! When it is found
In contraception, safeguarding our natural predilection.
Ha! Oh, fools! Why trouble with the rituals
When, really, ****** collocations concern capricious
Chronologies and covetous craving for **** and ****
How ****** How crude! But, oh, but oh how true; think:
Admit the urge has primacy, the “L” emerges and
Lies emitted: of connection, intelligence, intersubjectivity.
Given its stage of farce and face, our sieves are at
Ageful capacity and then needs a bargain, more;
The office of “thing” goes unoccupied, its twin
Will gladly keep it clean and orderly, act
As it did: gentle and cordially.”
Blast it! Such ways in truth and walk, for
Repetition in faith of life
Pegs my myths with all their strife,
Strife and succor irony.
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 11:48 PM UTC
An empty bar - one table, two chairs,
Occupied.
A drink in front of both me and you.
Silence.
How difficult must conversation really be?
An exchange of inaudible outbursts.
You overexert, I over-assert.
How can two feel outcasts in a group of
two?
They always said that silence was silver.
I like to take a mouthful from the bourbon and coke
You follow suit
and take a sip from the bourbon,
you choke.
An acquired taste, I guess.
An empty bar – one table, two chairs,
Unoccupied.
Sep 10, 2015
Sep 10, 2015 at 9:54 AM UTC
there is a bed that you haven't slept in twice. i should have asked you who taught you to
lace up your shoes in an instinct
that feels just like a memory,
your luggage is always packed.
you love out of a suitcase, always
ready to pick up and move. your hands are stained with their last
names you have boarding flights tattooed
on your palms because you're so used to
leaving, there is never a good-bye it is
always departure gates and terminals, and i'm writing this in on connecting flight over the ocean because close to nowhere is
the closest we've been in months
just to tell your passport that i understand
how you cannot love me. i could
taste it in your gas-station coffee breath i could
feel it in the hesitance of your fingertips
you are always close to the highway you are always waiting to hitch a ride with a new girl who will write poetry about how badly you feel like permanence and i
am always trying to unpack you, begging
you to stay one more night.
i understand how you cannot love me, i stay on the ground and you buy plane tickets with spare cash, with a turbulence that makes me
want to fasten my seatbelt.
there is a bed that you haven't slept in twice and i whisper to the sheets
"i thought i could've made you stay."
your face is always towards the
humming of the window and
i like to imagine you can hear
me if you can hear me, you can leave all you
want. you can travel across the world and exchange your
heart for currency, you can walk through
security and stuff your belongings into the closets of cheap
hotels. i understand how you cannot stay because you're always too busy leaving,
but there will always be a place for you to
unpack in my chest.
there is a home that remains unoccupied.
there is a bed that
you haven't slept in twice, i keep it unmade in case you
ever feel like coming back.
Apr 10, 2017
Apr 10, 2017 at 8:00 AM UTC
Your chair is unoccupied.
I am waiting for you to come.
But you will not.
Why does it happen?
When I touch you, you are not there.
A silent poem writes your name.
Untouchable was your
pain. An eagle hovers in the blue sky
to pick up the child of death.
Aug 20, 2023
Aug 20, 2023 at 9:25 PM UTC
**She wasn’t there, in her cubicle, when I arrived.
It was empty, that part of the faculty area apart from the tables, the afternoon light passing through the window and the ravines dividing the place.** Her spot was full of dust, past dated old calendars and dreams of its former occupant who was eaten by the ocean and drowned. Well, at least the rumor claimed.
I don’t know if it’s true, but everyone knows what the former occupant did last summer. It was about two weeks before her wedding when she ran away with her student. Both of them just disappeared from the circulation one day. During the early part of their absence, the staff and classmates assumed that the reason might have been just trivial, like a mere cough or a fever.
But time and weeks dragged on and both of them were gone. Nowhere to be found. No words were left. No notice either. Nothing. They simply disappeared, just like that. Like one day, they have decided not to exist in this conventional world anymore. Like a bubble ceasing to float.
They stayed in an island, it was said. Packed their bags with clothes, flash lights, canned goods – everything they could carry at a dead run. Then they hired a boat which carried them to their destination, but no one found out the existence of the boat. There was no trace. Not even a slight.
The island was remote, detached and unoccupied. People say they built a settlement somewhere in the area, made of woods, twigs, leaves and perhaps, love. But some says they have their tent, and it was where they dreamed their elusive dreams.
But a storm broke in the dead hour of the night, shaking their sleep. All the trees and vegetation swayed to and fro, trying to catch the unfamiliar song of the wind while avoiding the occasional bouts of the lightings.
It must have been beautiful, the entire universe in sheer panic, in the middle of the night, embracing you home.
Before they knew it the tide rose and the world quivered and the waves grew massive and rolled and crashed in that part of the island and that edge.
She wasn’t there, in her cubicle, when I arrived.
Nor did the island in its former spot. It was vacated, that part of the faculty area apart from the afternoon light passing through the window which overlooks the contour of the overlapping mountains.
I placed my bag on the table, took a pen and scribbled a note saying that I’d be back some other time. She must have been in her class but I cannot be sure.
I cannot see the ocean from here.
Aug 24, 2013
Aug 24, 2013 at 1:15 AM UTC
The things she said to me
Settled into the crevice
Of my heart
Previously unoccupied
The tighter she hugged me
The warmer I felt
I could never recreate
Her love for me
The words
"Adopted" float around
In my head
Like clouds in the sky
I've thought about it
A thousand times
And now I know
She thinks of it too.
Dec 15, 2014
Dec 15, 2014 at 5:33 PM UTC
You have a body.
I know you never sleep there,
spend less time breathing than contemplating,
jailbreak daily from your ribcage,
harbor kitchen spoons to feed your escapism.
hide the entrance
under stale white hotel sheets.
Born to be an actress
with no script, you ponder this
in every mirror.
In every mirror you inherit this vacant body,
enough money to live in a studio apartment
in Washington, Vegas or anywhere
men would pay for three phone plans,
calf-length black socks and pseudonyms.
A room at the Marriot to trade scars,
connect you again with your skin.
At a political dinner
roasted hog, blueberry pie,
gilded knifes protecting the spoons.
Dog mouths are wet for scraps.
They bark beneath the table,
"Unoccupied bodies, should start charging rent.
Have you considered being a *** worker?"
"...Oh come on,
you never even turn on the lights."
Oct 28, 2016
Oct 28, 2016 at 3:54 AM UTC
Our routine entwines filaments of comfort
Finely woven between gaps of unoccupied time
My hands wrinkle with the loss of my
youth
Cracks and flakes of dryness and Future
I am only 23, but my soul says otherwise
My fingernails grow like tree branches
I cut them down and use them as swords
Battling imaginary creatures who stalk my shadow
Each victory harms my ego
Each trophy an intangible farce
Foreknowledge and foresight allowed me to
forego certain forgotten ceremonies;
I encounter them on the road to Manhood
Avoiding each by traveling the dark impasse
I cloak my yearning in a wool coat and a bright red scarf
Bound by absurdity,
I become the High Priest of Ritual
Anointed with the experience of Curiosity’s fluid influence
I wade in the shallow waters to catch my breath
I see you walking on the pier,
Pensive and lonely
I am too late.
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 12:12 AM UTC
I followed a mob march of taillights
back from work. Two rows of thirty flames
spaced out streaked the darkness
beneath the looming sparkler
adding stars to midnight sky.
Roman candle travelers eager to burn
out tried to shoot past traffic
on slivers of unoccupied sidewalk.
The closer they got to town,
the more stars faded above
their hoard of torches.
Jul 3, 2014
Jul 3, 2014 at 10:27 PM UTC
her mind wandered
as she sat
silent
mind wandering
as her body
should be
thinking of
what she shouldn't
her body was
unoccupied
she had
what they call
wanderlust
if her body
wasn't moving
then her mind
must
Aug 29, 2020
Aug 29, 2020 at 11:02 PM UTC