"unpeeled" poems
born in illusory chains
gnarled metal
encrusted in my broken skin
the copper colored dust
of rusted steel
infectiously envelopes
shaving off antiquated layers
of fundamentalist religion
encrusted for generations
unpeeled until raw
an unsophisticated method
unveiling
ancient lodged glass shards
colored with deceit
brought before their court
interrogated
unfathomably skewered
an eerie salem witch trial
in modern times
barbarically they shun me
banished
i wander aimlessly
smelling the rotten decay of deceased community
as splinters pierce my feet
from the crooked wooden plank
i walk alone now
an unfathomable inner ache
kindled a residue within
igniting a wildfire from the darkest shadows
uncontainably erupting
i dance savagely
naked in the orange moonlight
and in every shaded edge
lit my soul ablaze
i am a nomad sheep
‘tho not one of their color
no pasture to contain me
no shepherd i can follow
theological safety nets
no longer there to catch me
bohemian-like
i plunge
free falling
plummeting
stripped wide open
magically
fearlessness
reverses gravitation
floating
untethered
i soar amongst
apricot tinged clouds
my skin still wet from rebirth
and rise with the flaming coral sun
you cannot destroy me
i twisted in your decrepit pencil sharpener
and with fresh mettle
cut through the chains that bound
you can have my ego
but you cannot have my soul
dismantling domestication
transcending limitation
wildly untamed
i fly
©2016janetaylor
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 6:40 AM UTC
He bursts in with an armload of mangoes
in various stages of perfect, rotten, or too soft. One rolls to the floor and
without hesitation, he picks it up and bites in, luscious unwashed, juices dripping down his chin.
"It's warm from the sun," he says, "and the ground. I found a lot of these on the ground."
I still my tongue and watch him eat it whole, like he eats all of life.
I asked him recently if he thought I was crazy, as some do.
He said no, I want all the same things.
I wished I could tell him how I always washed my mangoes and wiped my chin,
I thought if I wore a sweater and a slip and a hat at the right times, life would turn out okay.
I'd like to call him, tell him how the wind is blowing hair across my face now.
Instead, I sit quietly, in the backwoods of Virginia
eating an unwashed, unpeeled mango
with the juices dripping down my chin.
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 1:31 AM UTC
Her figure, a fruit salad: little corks and knobs
jellyroll thighs and a smooth muffin top
unripe blueberries decorated here and there –
I would wrap my arms around her like a basket
protected from bruising or peaches robbed:
the perfect sphere unpeeled, pink honey bared.
Mar 15, 2013
Mar 15, 2013 at 12:58 AM UTC
Perfectly observant,
We share the same exact struggle.
Perfectly normal,
A conversation with all but one subject.
Eyes that refer to the category
Of deep need.
Apologies do no justice.
Unpeeled oranges that sit in wait.
Guilty at first glance, suppressing true desire without a word.
Wanting to unravel- peel away at things kept from view.
Mistaking ears for a heart.
Just what are we observant of,
Have we become profound.
A perception seen but not heard
Are we that oblivious.
Selective, inconsistent.
Following our hearts through unspoken lips.
Soiled in the thought of need.
Was I ever ready to speak,
Needing, urging.-
What is it that you are trying to say,
I feel that this is us.
The priority of a first thought,
Overcoming all else.
Every day, a basket of oranges
In arms reach- woven together
In deep thought.
Beauty is only skin deep.
Spoiled by the nectar of lips
May 26, 2016
May 26, 2016 at 12:39 PM UTC
mmm
you dredge up the memories of lost secrets
gathered up
in made up words and our twisted limbs and now
packed with yellowing newspapers in the cardboard boxes
lining the attic
ancient jokes are unpeeled too, dry and cracking
they emerge to see the sunlight
but are quickly blinded, ouch!
those pictures of our shared smiles and oh so tender embraces have faded
to sepia tone in their brittle wooden frames,
be careful as you grab them down from the shelf,
they might break.
Mmm it all comes back to me now
-our treasure trove of antique memories-
as you oh so slyly mention them in passing,
slip in those references that you
know
I’ll remember,
Aren’t you cool as a cucumber now?
but they crumble quickly in your hand
and I only hear wisps of our whispers
as the record player leaves scratches on the disks
ah darling be careful you’re about to drop it all down the 3 flights of stairs and it might all smash into microscopic pieces so very
very
soon
Jan 4, 2011
Jan 4, 2011 at 1:12 PM UTC
*shush
take the blade
dancing cutters
into your belly slow
********* unpeeled
red plush butter melting
kisses my beloved
silken tangle
around swan throat
tightening
lips numbing
growing cold
hold tight
eyes bright
legs opening
grace in submission
grateful for another wound
ooow love hurts
an exquisite intrusion
blood gush
pain for pleasures sake
a self exorcism
haunches poised
to welcome
**** and death
her noble head
*****
mouth a knit of determination
paraphillias soul
that says
i do
sizzling binocular vision
glassy eyed
flexed muscle trembles
hot sweat
torso lilting towards the floor
worked down hard
into a dark hive
until hell
feels like a humming bird
with a fluttering tongue
Jan 13, 2017
Jan 13, 2017 at 6:05 PM UTC
am I more than a drink
taken per food group
swallowed by instinct.
you’re more to me than thirst.
sliced by feeling,
unpeeled heart wrenching
take from all and, Nothing.
I wait for you here,
so perhaps the taste of you
lights back stars, and starlight.
perhaps the taste of you
finds pathways in the back of legs, of knee.
you are permenent in the heat of love
but sliced in essence.
**** ME
and ask very little in return, ask of holding.
your **** as it grows limp in the moonlight,
all I miss is the taste of your absence
all I taste is the feeling of you
finished inside of me which laid the foundations of something larger than what this body can contain,
I love it, the hurt of your breaking into me.
and hurt of the love that remains.
Jul 5, 2023
Jul 5, 2023 at 8:30 AM UTC
to the woman
******* on an unpeeled mango
like a woman's ****
you squeeze out the fruit's juices
like a child
drains it's mother of her milk
until she is empty, a shell
of her former self.
you look at her, your
sleeping daughter and wonder
where your own mother is.
Jul 19, 2010
Jul 19, 2010 at 3:15 PM UTC
I made myself so.
So small
For so long
So talk over me,
I won't mind,
I made myself so.
So quieten me,
If it's what you need.
A speechless soul,
I silenced myself so.
Daddy didn't see you
So take your aim
Argue and I will cower.
I taught myself so.
Spread corrosive untruth,
Use me and chew me out,
I oppressed myself so.
I see the end light,
And imminent reprieve.
So do what you like,
I'll make myself so.
I unpeeled my skin
And started again
I lost you and them
And started again.
I made myself so.
Feb 17, 2021
Feb 17, 2021 at 6:11 PM UTC
Do you like to eat oranges still?
You used to.
We'd go driving at your car, way past our limits,
And sometimes, an old man would sell bags of oranges,
right off 55.
They were strung in red netting, that made them look brighter then they really were,
as if oranges could ever be a lie.
You'd buy a bag, or maybe two,
only if you were intrigued by the way the oranges moved
in nets like fish.
You'd rip it open, peel the skin, carefully
You were only ever careful about peeling them,
and you'd take extra care, extra caution
to make sure it was perfect,
and we'd share the orange.
When the man asked me how I felt about the end to our oranges,
I said that you had been left unpeeled,
but I was intact.
Do you like oranges?
Do they sell them in red nets where you are?
Sep 15, 2012
Sep 15, 2012 at 4:09 PM UTC
It was an average day in May
I think that’s right, I hope that’s right.
For it was an important day, that day.
The sun beat down on my wearied shoulders
As I made the repetitive journey
Up and down that sloping hill
The one that we would later come to stumble up together
Do you remember that?
The mud clad ascent
‘Rock climbing’ by the river
Bent double in hysterics,
Hysteria that is now past recollection
How easy I am for you to draw in
when you laugh
Like that time I couldn’t contain myself
and snorted as a pig does when it finds itself excited
How I feared your reaction!
My innermost psyche cowering from you until I could not hide it anymore.
You thought I was frightened by the alien world of the cinema screen.
The next time that I feared for us was in your room.
How I adored and envied your
nerve as you kissed me
surrounded by all of your childhood dreams and fantasies
seconds away from a definite exclusion
I was yours and that was enough
I yearned, longed, wished for time to stand still, unmoving
As we whirled around among the gentle shards of grass
as it grazed our harmonious ankles.
Clasping each other, in that first summer,
young hearts
nervous of the power of this new emotion,
emotions.
Coursing through our arteries, catching on our breath,
seeping through our skin.
I guess this explains our hesitation at my house the first time that you stayed over.
Feelings I first discovered in that first month,
May 2012.
I was weak to your simple philosophy for life
Your extraordinary ability to shed new light
on every subject that passed our lips.
You unpeeled my exterior layer
Like an orange.
My core, penetrated only once before,
negative, unforgiving. Now harder than ever.
With complete and utter happiness
I let the walls fall down.
And now, how warm the coldest of nights are.
I would bare any amount of the cold to be besides you.
Even when I drool on your chest and you don’t mind.
The laughter that explodes when you impersonate people
Or say ‘boom’ in a funny context.
To feel the alluring taste of your breath on my neck
As you smile and tell me you that you love me.
Such simply things.
"How my stomach floods with waves of nostalgia and a taste
of everything that we have had to live without."
But I can wait.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 8:06 PM UTC
Summer of scales
Red dresses
Unpeeled oranges
And handwritten TV guides
The brink of sin
American dream
Whose post-war dream is it?
All the Art Golds and Hart Silvers
**** down in succession
All the shortcuts to success
All for heavier footsteps
The sacrament of mess
A body for a piece of soul
An asset for a process cold
Goddess is lost, little girl
Find her in the rippled snow
Approval looks off-red
A mailbox of empty hope
Grinding teeth and grapefruit
Strung-out taxis, rising moat
Bed is genesis of wounds
Hot and cold, a foursome’s tomb
An all doesn’t end well
Mother fell off the pier
Father has a golden arm
The only shared position is fatal
The only shared position is fetal
Falling off the plateau
To make tomorrow feel alright
To love the sun
To see the stars in plight
Truth with legs together
Death with legs apart
The tree is collapsing
Jan 5, 2012
Jan 5, 2012 at 2:48 PM UTC
Close every door
to the waist of space that I am,
Push my plight from you mind
And take all that you can
I won't miss you
But I'm certain you'll see
That once I am gone
You will really miss me.
Drill out the poisons
And shave of the trees
Smoother the meadows
and empty the seas.
I'm not sticking around
For the next act of man
My ecosystems are bust
I've done all that I can.
I'll take the birds
and the bats and the bees,
I'll keep the bugs
the shrubs and the trees,
I'll unravel the wind
from the rustling leaves
It may seem worthless to you
But it's priceless to me.
I'll unstitch the patchwork
off the rolling hillsides,
the grass can be folded
and the tree roots untied.
You can pull out the flowers
and plants crops in rows
But don't come crying to me
When nothing good grows.
I'll pick out all the fish
The flies and the frog
I'll unpeeled the rivers
and collect up the logs.
The atmospheres filthy
I'll just chuck it away
There's no fixing that
No matter how much you pay.
I've salvaged what i can
Of the soil and peat,
Some has been scorched
by the increasing heat,
I'm taking the Beavers
The wolves and the Bears
I've pack up their lodges,
their dens and their lairs.
I've had enough
of been trampled and torn
My airs all populated
And my earth is all worn.
You can keep all your money
Good look on your own
Let's see how you get on
without your ozone.
Nov 11, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 at 8:38 AM UTC
My sight, sick
Slick- a brush
Spreads your face
Layer by layer before me.
Unpeeled, my eyes
Sell truths my mind
Cherry picks, kicks around
Until they crumple,
Fester, shrivel
Fade.
For one brief
Infinite moment
I'm there beneath
That single layer,
Flush against
Soil, earth,
Summer and rain-
And the precise shade of olive
I've only ever seen
In the double sphere
Of each iris.
Jan 8, 2018
Jan 8, 2018 at 12:39 PM UTC
your kisses were jade made live
lithe like crested waves
tumbling beneath eyes unpeeled
writhing into existence
crushes crushed
flesh spent
Apr 2, 2016
Apr 2, 2016 at 11:01 PM UTC
I felt your face fade
Across the ruins against the sea
Whiskey edged cracks
As I gazed into the light
Picturing fields of poetry
Stroking the teeth of my spin
Frail stars trembling
As the roots trickle
Impatiently clustering the handfuls of voices that I unpeeled
Removing my lips with nothing to say
I glue my eyes with convictions
I'm tilted on the edge of earth
Stuffing the truth down into the mass in my throat
Sep 15, 2013
Sep 15, 2013 at 12:51 AM UTC
Kids will be kids
and boys will be boys.
We’re not who we are
and we don’t share toys.
Most days I can think
of yet better things
to paint and to trace
than my face, but that
acrylic blue, they tell me
I’ll rue the day
I let it highlight
my fingerprints
so well.
And so by fall, I
am scrubbing my hand
off the bedroom wall.
There are spikes inside
my unpeeled grapes,
in my father’s wine
and mother explains
about seeds and vines
but I forget, ask,
say it again, please,
she says write it down
instead and I tried
but I can never
find a pen.
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 1:04 PM UTC
I like a girl..
My feelings has changed
Like a switch
Just thinking about you makes me so deranged
You may not like me
But hopefully that can change
The way you look at me
Makes me feel so strange
But in a good way
I love the way you smile when you are excited
I love the way you dance as if you are alone
The way you smirk
When you are blown
I like everything about you
And that is weird
Because this is a different me
That just suddenly appeared
Maybe you are what I’ve been missing
You are the person I would like to be kissing
I don’t know how to feel
As if a layer of my heart has just suddenly opened and unpeeled
I like a girl..
Feb 9, 2018
Feb 9, 2018 at 12:11 AM UTC
A world is turning.
The deadly sin of anger still burning.
Seven sins you can't see,
You don't want to be.
Repent, rebuke, forsake & forgive.
Allow yourself again to love & live.
Mistakes educate, sometimes learning too late.
Be wise & don't trust too easy.
Try to see what no one else sees.
Have morals & be strong in your beliefs.
Everyday until we decease.
Have a reason to be at peace.
Your child is a purpose to believe.
You are a person you can not leave.
Allergies of the past.
Unreached & trashed.
Never to heal.
Records are sealed.
Crimes get appeals.
History is unpeeled.
Misery & broken lives revealed.
Heart break & pain is feeled.
Resentment congeals.
Damage is real.
Suffering & sorrow deals.
No food & uneatten meals.
Faith, love, trust, sanity, contentment, happiness, your first born, & opportunities are stealed.
Feb 14, 2015
Feb 14, 2015 at 12:05 PM UTC
Tripping over rollercoasters
of rhymes,
I can't sleep;
I'd put my nose in your mind,
Lace my fingers through
the unpeeled layers I'd find,
But this time, I know
I've been caught; you've come
armed with hand cuffs;
I try to break free
but grow weaker as
I'm being fought.
- Anti
Oct 21, 2016
Oct 21, 2016 at 8:21 AM UTC
Starflung into strange abodes
galaxies collide like minds
central cores disintegrate to recover-
atoms form into gigantic stars of wisdom
Within each word lies
the essence of meaning,
unpeeled it bursts into awareness.
we are drawn to mysteries
that never make sense
what is it?
that drives destiny down unknown paths
filling each movement with a subtle piece
of the jigsaw, falling into place,
one by one in a fulfilling way?
What is it?
The body and soul sublime
will unite with its counterpart
All the prophecies of time immemorial
will come together in perfect sync.
We discovered each others magnitude
and magnificence in a split-second moment.
Author Notes
Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 7:07 PM UTC
No scab goes
Unpeeled
Like the shedding
Of a snakes skin.
Every year passes
As a drop of sand
In a hourglass.
In a time
where time doesn't
matter, and humans
are no more than nutrients
for the future of nature.
The music of the
Snakes rattle
Plays in the background
Dark, and empty.
The future looks
Scary, as the sun
turns blood red.
My eyes look up
to see a tree
with cocoons replacing
Leaves
In the breeze.
The collective beats
of molting insects
bursting from their very
necessary flesh prisons.
To grow, to struggle
To break free
And be something the world
hasn't quite seen
You are unique
You are beautiful
You are alive
To know that human concepts
bare no arms to
Harm you.
You fly, you cry,
you live, you say
Goodbye.
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 5:03 PM UTC
salad swirls
I peer into your depths
lettuce leaves
splayed seductive
unpeeled forest green liver skins
green thumbs
red palmed
'tis only a Sunday brunch
Apr 19, 2019
Apr 19, 2019 at 12:43 AM UTC
new oranges wait
unpeeled
in an open basket
his mother
moves
in the half-light
fingers working
-small reflections
in the early hours
morning shadows
caught
like words
between us
May 23, 2018
May 23, 2018 at 11:30 PM UTC
Straw braids of pacific flutter under eyes
often when trying not to forget Oregon.
It has become somewhat of an epidemic.
They wash over unpeeled lids and hammer them shut-
raising tiny lit nails above my head in sleep.
I attempt to shut out what is now
and entangle in something that is or once could be.
I would dwell by ocean
or maybe desert
and live in total juniper and forget me not.
Ah do you smell that?
Yes, it's something in the corner by the door.
Try and see what it is-
It's our cherry blossom-
The one my grandmother gave?
Yes, that is the cherry tree-
Beautiful smell?
Beautiful smell.
And those would be the flowery words spoken
not anger and animosity building
but sharing the salt and foam
under seats of sage all over christmas valley. To the lowest water perfume.
but alas, that is only a dream. I am still here, next to shaky doors and ripe ripe apple trees all touching the sky.
Oh no, here it comes again-
a sneeze and this thought is gone.
Jan 22, 2017
Jan 22, 2017 at 2:21 PM UTC