"unshaped" poems
I am told to believe in myself
look past the flaws
imperfections,
because all those things
define the uniqueness
within my body,
my soul
but what I see
when I take that
prolonged, aching glance
into a mirror
as cloudless as a
summer evening
is everything
I am told doesn’t matter
but
how do I ignore veins
crawling up my legs like
the spiders they're named after
or
fat under my skin
that seems to expand so widely
it is impossible for my
eyes not to trip upon it
and
wide hips
unfocused gaze
gaping pores
unshaped lips
rippling marks
etched on my skin
as a form of punishment
for being myself
sloping thighs
feet like
the twin towers
giant
tall
wide
deep
is that what I am?
uncertain
unknown
unloved
but in the end just
“unique”?
human
we’re all just human
but then
why
do I feel
so
mis
understood?
Oct 4, 2014
Oct 4, 2014 at 1:52 AM UTC
Here are the names of my lovers,
The women I sleep with, whom
I use, like they use me.
Spent, they discard me, for when their pleasure needs
Satiated, they climb aboard another man.
What they do not know,
Is that in my mind, in my ears,
everywhere,
I did not let them, or you go,
We are still romping,
For I
Take them as needed.
I need them all,
For my pleasure needs, like my unshaped heart,
Addictive, endless.
If your is name is here, I do not
Apologize.
Pink
Adele
Lilly Allen
Anna Nalick
Bess Rogers
Beyonce
Brandi Carlisle
Cat Power
Colbie Callait
Duffy
Eva Cassidy
Evanescence
Alison Sudol
Fiona Apple
Florence Welch
Grace Potter
Ingrid Michaelson
You
Joni Mitchell
K.D. Lang
Kate Nash
Kate Voegele
Leona Lewis
Lizz Wright
Madeline Peyroux
Marie Digby
Mary Wells
Norah Jones
Regina Spektor
Sara Bareilles
You
Sara Haze
Taylor Swift and Tracy Chapman
Tristan Prettyman
Vanessa Carlton
So many others, used so long ago, I can't remember the faces,
Which can't be googled.
Use them hard, use them often, more than daily.
Bluntly, I tell you
Your name is on my list,
Even if I do not disclose it.
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 9:31 AM UTC
fortunate dreams, folded within security and affluence
a laundry pile of capital
you’ve tried and succeeded
prosperity, wealth, Constitutional rights in abundance
American dreams lay thriving, slithering between your fingers like sludge
nice sludge though
snow crystals rest upon the sludge, decorating it for the holidays
barren attempts to take hold of opportunities, you didn’t really try
efforts lay unmade, like the bed he shared with you
penniless
inferior in the corner of the kitchen
last night’s events crawling across the tile towards you
running over stains and chips, creating unshaped perfect squares
a city on fire; flames stumbling in the breezes
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 9:11 PM UTC
You are no black widow, you are far worse.
No remorse nor will to better your ways.
You bruise and contort, cast off and coerce
Until another, unshaped, gives their praise.
I am torn more by your guile, not regret.
To lie through teeth much sharper than what's there,
Is riddling and insulting, just bet
I won't be here when your guilt's made aware.
You shrink my worth with my name in your voice,
To be unmoved by poor, swayed lives that prove.
Alone, you roam and give in to poor choice,
And desert the ones who swore were unmoved.
I've never seen one's mind so strongly strung,
And one's paltering heart so wrongly flung.
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 11:41 PM UTC
The Process
There is the notion, the urging.
The first spilling, the self-congratulatory
Commencement ceremony for
The process.
Then there is the first short-pause,
a quick-freeze hibernation. Then,
The bubbling,
The querying, the special fear,
What have I started?
Where is it taking me,
Am I properly undressed for doing
T he process?
A new vocabulary,
an arm extended, but distended,
Words are all angled puzzled,
Capable of unity, but first,
Unshaped but swollen,
By the process.
Hatching, head-aching,
words arrive rushed, but disordered,
Confused by the process.
*{The exception has it own character.
One kingly, run-on sentence birthed,
After silent labor, a full poem, fully dilated,
A shocking head of hair, full developed,
So fast does "it" fall onto the paper
The obstetrician arrives too late
To process.}*
The exception, exceptional.
The normal, normative.
Twenty four hours of labor,
False starts, much screaming,
Painful joys, hardly seamless,
This process.
Distractions the enemy,
Compulsion the master,
As you choreograph the work,
In loving servitude to
The process.
You the doctor, insert probes,
Looking for the tumors, the out of ordinary,
For normal flesh is not of interest as part of
The process.
Finally, you do exhale,
With unique the pleasure, of the longest sweetest
Female ******
The breathing less labored,
Tho whole, sensing a diminish-meant to convey
That completion is the end of part of you,
The near-end of the continuum, lessened but continuing
The process.
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 6:51 AM UTC
Don't listen to me, I'm a copy too
I'm nothing that should be considered original
I'm nothing worth building a statue over
I'm nothing that can't be replaced
If I get hit by a bus
Just pull someone else of the street
Put them in my clothes
You'll hardly notice the difference
I think my parents will like someone they won't have to feel guilty towards
They ******* me up
They know it, too
My brother'll like someone that's not trying to put him down all the time
I'm still in the process of ******** him up
He knows it, too
You could all just throw my dead, stinking, toxic body in the back
Feed me to the dogs
Let's mosey in the other extreme, let's say I'm unique
Or you are
They won't let us be different
If the commonwealth start listening
They'll **** us
Out of fear
What else they can do?
If we threaten them with consciousness among the masses
We got to go
It's nothing personal
I'll never have a Swan Song day
I'll never have a woman that I love
I'll never get to die peaceful in bed
I won't get to see the kids I never had grow up
But I'll have the benefit of having the memory of a fresh life
Doesn't sound like we have much of a choice, does it?
Conform, jump through the hoops, sell our soul, give yourself up
Or you live your life not giving in
And they decide you can't stick around
You're given the people funny ideas
I'm sure they'll **** you or me
If we're too free
They already got rid of Bobby, John and Martin
I guess that's why Jerome went into hiding
He gave too much hope and courage to people
You can either rot from the inside
Or you die young
Because, maybe one way or another they get you
I like to believe they don't though
Imagine this, as you lay bleeding from the three holes in your chest
With that last word of hope or love or divinity or whatever you want to call it on your lips
You sit and you think
It was all worth it
I don't regret anything
Because
Unlike them
I can still taste her lips
Unlike them
I can still hear the music
Unlike them
I can still see the endless fields of rye, the forests, the amazons, the rivers, the mountains
Unlike them
My eyes still smile
Unlike them
I laugh
Unlike them
I dance to my own music
And as the blood that retains it's anima leaves my veins
I smile
Because I'm not like them
And I realize
So I'm grateful
And I notice
All the little scared people look so cute in their mislead, unshaped, self-righteous indignation
Dec 13, 2011
Dec 13, 2011 at 1:15 PM UTC
Free. Unrestricted. Unlimited.
The ability to overcome the stares and glares of judgment and see far ahead of and beyond them.
Further than their ignorant minds would ever care to see.
Free like black smoke rising from a stuffy shack on the side of a dirt road.
The freedom that the most free of souls long for.
If Birds were as free they would fly in all directions but the set route of migration.
If paintings were as free they would outgrow the sides of their frames and become their full forms, limbs and smiles included.
If the Nile was as free it would flow like the ocean it looks up to, unshaped by the selfish lips of the forest.
If the Atlantic was as free, waves would wave and remain in mid-air for as long as they wish before hunching their backs to embrace the Inner Sea.
If words were as free, they would reach far beyond the limits of a four cornered space and whisper into the ears of men across oceans.
If you and I were as free, colours would not be afraid to be vibrant. Sound would not be afraid to scream.
If you and I were as free, our arms would always praise the vast Sky. Our teeth would always greet the sun. And even in the worst of pain, our freedom would allow us to let go of our misery.
If we were as free, beauty would no longer hide within the unbreakable walls of a mere bracket.
If we were as free, borders and bridges that fought for centuries to keep us apart would crumble.
If you and I were as free, establishments would not be established for the good of greed, but rather for the good of man.
If you and I were as free, we would fly like magic. We would take over the nation as a nation.
If you and I were as free, stereotypes and prejudices alike would cease to exist. We would live fully, even through the journey of death.
If you and I were FREE, we would be.
If the world was FREE, we would always be.
Jun 11, 2013
Jun 11, 2013 at 3:35 AM UTC
Sun rays roll down the green grass & ochre weeds
Yellow, bitter, flowers, litter the hillside
Long red rays turning pink as split figs
Orange as hot coals, blue as the ocean
Then the bustle of twilight, such noise
Streaking headlights fade into receding redness
Carrying their sound with them, down the road
Figures, sillouhetes, wander by me, quiet conversations
Wind stirs their outlines, rustles their clothing, their hair
Bringing me the scent of dust, of split juniper
Darkness descends, but it cannot ***** out street lights
Or the flourescent floodlights, glaring artifical brightness
Or the blinking red eyes of radio masts
I'll peddle back now, chased by headlights
Down black asphalt roads, black as the night
Radiated heat, gathered from this boiling day
Sweat pouring down my face, into my eyes
Breath tearing at my chest, blood racing through veins
I have to outrun the night, to make it on time
To that quiet destination, a little room on the second story
With a chair, a desk, a shelf full of unread books
A yellow notepad, a pen that doesn't work so well
Arrowheads and unshaped stones, a bullet on the dresser
My grandpas old knife, a symbol of the ****** Mary
Your charms that you carelessly left behind
A small tiled room with a shower to stand under
Watch it drain away, dirt & soap, all of it
A face stares back at me, changed, distorted
A reflection in the mirror, a reflection that was me
Oct 4, 2010
Oct 4, 2010 at 5:09 AM UTC
You are a doll,
too pretty, too arresting.
But you are mass
that demands shaping,
and my fingers are not accustomed
to one such as you.
I press too hard
and sculpt too much.
You are too soft
for my fervid hands.
My own prints roughen you up.
I am anxious.
You should be
as you are.
You are an unshaped doll,
demanding familiarity.
I draw back.
I don't know how to draw back.
My fervid hands are arrested.
Too soft, too much, too hard.
You are pretty but I am anxious.
I can't sculpt you.
My prints are too rough
to be familiar.
I am too unaccustomed.
You should be as you are,
without my prints.
I am not a doll.
for l.r.
091718
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 8:33 PM UTC
We find between well loved pages
Why do all our hearts beat for them
I grew up with 2 loving parents
Shaped by 4 loving hands
1 half crazy hands
But love all the same
So why do i feel you
Harry, oliver, frodo,
Why do i know...
I guess we all have our abandoment issues
I guess lonely is something we all relate too
I guess i know you
In the back of my mind where we are all
Unshaped, and learning to be brave.
Dec 28, 2016
Dec 28, 2016 at 8:17 PM UTC
The landscape blurs often
as poets go about their business
crafting metaphors of unexpected delight
in forests of jangled words and visuals
unable to contain their excitement
at having conquered that crystallised
moment of love, hate and everything else
in a frozen sliver of time
inescapable from their minds excursion
into unknown unshaped lands.
Not all succeed in this endeavour
most try, few unable
to melt the metal in a crucible of colour
sound, taste or touch, to smell
emphasis and cocktail curiosity
bringing the best to the fore.
The newcomers tremble at the awe
of maestros watching their work
and dissolve in disasters.
There is the odd one that unknowingly
write splendid poetry
and when noticed and heaped with praise
often springboard into showcasing talent.
Reading the works of the masters
is always good. If they think it
is good then it must be good.
So many footsteps to follow and learn.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 12:39 AM UTC
I was an unshaped sculpture, wet, raw and transparent.
As is death behind a fallacious smile.
I knew nothing of intemperate stars
That appear every night, And fade in a matter of hours.
To reappear on a nightly basis.
Till there is no night anymore.
Perhaps my vision is blurred
For all these packs of little gifts I receive everyday pills.
Pink, bone-white, orange and blue.
Wherein witches, no singing, scream lullabies to my ears.
But so does this world seem to fade in and out
Till there is no night anymore.
I look for lost meanings in a rose bucket like a life-long challenge.
I look for drought in children of the sombre clouds in my neighbourhood
That lay on the storm-beat shrubs as midday approaches.
To cover up the clumsy repetition of early mornings.
But oh darling! One day there is no night anymore.
Flirty gestures, handsome men and outbursts of tears
Will turn to ancient words in hardcover manuscripts.
Through which we continue to live a dreamlike life!
Dispensed from life itself and made to live in a glass box.
Transparent, still, with ****** reeks on its windowpanes.
And the blood stains remain, till there is no night anymore.
9.02. 17
Jul 15, 2017
Jul 15, 2017 at 7:04 AM UTC
And humans enjoy pain. Because even when they are perfectly happy they always dig for what they don't want to find. First letting others tear you down, then you finish unconsciously tearing yourself down. Finally you're so unrealistically happy that you want to know all the negatives, Foolish human.
You want to remember error after error marring life. And knowing you can't turn back time you make yourself angry, you make yourself hurt with knowledge that even if you could-you wouldn't have changed a thing. Yet you smile that bittersweet smile as you look back. There's no voices, it's just you. Tearing yourself apart. Because that's what you've learned. That's what you do best.
Ignorant human
Why didn't you know? You're a meat coated skeleton made of stardust. Like thousands more. You aren't the only little human. There's more-there will always be more. Time cannot erase what it's shaped. Time cannot change another souls' will to make unforeseen mistakes. Mistakes that harm.
And you're marred. Marked by time. Marked by those mistakes. Aged.
You angry, insecure, foolish, ignorant, little human.
And even if you smile-Once more with this quaking pain you've brought on yourself. You chose this. And although all is forgiven and forgotten by those souls. You will always remember. You will alway regret. But you've been shaped-cannot be unshaped. You cannot turn back time. Once a raindrop falls it into the puddle it cannot come back out for as it fell time passed and the seconds aren't coming back.
So now you accept it, although it hurts you remember
Little idiotic human
And so now you have sunlight with shadows,
Nights with moonlight, happiness with agony, and life with death.
You're haunted. Filled with self hatred.
And you,
you're just a sick human who enjoys pain
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 18, 2016 at 4:13 AM UTC
so-in-time-so-inside or
as inside so in time
the plasma of thoughts far away
there in the spaces without meaning
the sprouts of faceless darkness
and systoles without time
I step from one silence into the other
and unshaped my body sings
I am babysitting my heart while the light loses its weight
on my shoulder
time is a pocket and I can hear only my blood
the luxury of mending this piece with that one
I am so complete when I am my feet
sometimes I don’t need a name
no need for one way roads
when quietly the dark sprouts me
and the days pass
without complaining
Sep 18, 2015
Sep 18, 2015 at 4:33 PM UTC
A pure soul remains a pure soul, and a soul that loveth, loveth from infancy.
We're all born to start a life and something new but not all that get to finish it.
Many do but few does finish well with a broad smile and not a sigh.
Even at point of death, they smile wide enough because , not only for themselves, for others and the tomorrow's people.
It's also only the few who view the span of life past, present and future: as a twig woven of others of different material but weaves theirs to suit what is woven and what is to be woven.
What shall we say then, is it of the desire of men to shape destinies of souls of men.
Or to see them unshaped and lives ruined...
Always know when it's your call you will not fail
Dec 22, 2016
Dec 22, 2016 at 6:20 AM UTC
*
Whenever you try to do a
"Cut and Paste"
of your faces in life;
It deletes the originals,
Giving all imitations;
It limits to your
Shadow faces
To be unshared faces;
To be unshaped faces;
To be unshaded faces;
It is your mirror
facing
one towards the ugly;
the other, as the elegant.
*
BY
WILLIAMSJI MAVELI
[email protected]
www.williamsji.com
Feb 27, 2013
Feb 27, 2013 at 2:48 AM UTC
they laughed under the sun;
glistened
shiny
brightly in sweat
like unshaped diamonds,
hidden in the cave
of age.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 5:14 PM UTC
Beauty, soft as morning light,
a golden glow, a breath so bright.
It lingers sweet on petals fair,
a whispered song that stirs the air.
It rests in laughter, light and free,
the way the waves embrace the sea.
In fleeting glimpses, lovers’ sighs,
the stars reflected in one’s eyes.
It lives in youth, in uncreased skin,
the way a tale of love begins.
It hums in silks, in mirrored glass,
a spell we chase but cannot grasp.
But beauty’s hands are laced with thread,
of woven myths and words unsaid.
The colors shift, the echoes fade,
and shadows creep where light once played.
They carve the lines upon our face,
remind us all: this is a race.
The painted lips, the powdered cheeks,
a mask we wear, afraid to speak.
The whispers turn to cries at night,
"Be softer, smaller, more polite."
"Be brighter, bolder, never old."
"Be worth the weight of all this gold."
The hunger grows, the mirror calls,
distorted truth in silver walls.
The scales, the numbers, counting sins,
a war where no one truly wins.
The rose is crushed beneath the hand
that once adored its beauty grand.
What once was soft turns sharp and cruel,
a hollow voice, a hollow rule.
And so the petals drift away,
the laughter lost in yesterday.
But beauty never learned to stay—
it flits, it fades, it slips away.
Yet in the ruin, something new,
beyond the glass, beyond the view—
a beauty raw, untouched by chains,
not drawn by hands, nor bound by names.
A beauty real, unshaped, unscorned,
not bought, nor sold, nor torn, nor worn.
Not weight, nor skin, nor youth, nor face—
but fire, wild, and full of grace.
Feb 17, 2025
Feb 17, 2025 at 3:54 PM UTC
Winter is stirring beneath my skin
Clutches my bones, tells me I'm cold
Head sinking down, down it goes below
Growing up, growing old
I iron out my creases but I can't stop the fold
And each year I get better at it
This thing called living, carrying my own skin
But each year still feels like drifting
The clock strikes and I am somewhere
All things new, all things, they just go
Holding life by the frays, unraveled threads
Weave and follow
I follow
And find
Other knots to untie
And somewhere, someone says hello
Greetings, passings, goodbyes and we go
Dreaming of infinite versions, you again
Unshaped entity that flickers like a flame in the darkness
Lighting my way, on and off and on and on
As one we grow
Sep 19, 2016
Sep 19, 2016 at 2:20 PM UTC
What do you do once your heart becomes stone?
How far must you chip before you don't feel so alone?
Every piece of marble waits to be sculpted
Just like every heart wishes to love, uninterrupted
But what do you do when you are tossed aside?
When the artist ignores the potential inside
How long must you wait unshaped and rough?
When do you decide that enough is enough?
Jul 16, 2018
Jul 16, 2018 at 11:18 AM UTC
60 seconds.
44640 minutes.
744 hours
31 days.
That's how long I've waited for you.
Unshaped, floating under the dark sky.
A light, brighten the big city.
Oh how lovely when you're a full.
Jan 19, 2018
Jan 19, 2018 at 11:03 PM UTC