"unstressed" poems
(explicit)
**** my soul
with poetry
scream out my gracious name
slay me with words
that peel my layers
and simultaneously
drive me
insane
finger me slowly, hotly
with just the right rhythm and rhyme
push me past my
tender limits
into tongues of syntax,
sublime
alliterate my senses
(in swift stac
c-at
o)
until my mind is but blank verse
mess up my stressed
and unstressed syllables
in unsung language, versed
I will speak to you in vowels
(the only sound
I will be able to make)
as you stroke
my iambic pentameter
in the heat of frothed-up
ache
we are this heroic couplet, you see
even if the meaning seems veiled
no need for simile or metaphor
as I feel your chest rise
in deep inhale
we are a natural paradox
so many ironies abound
discordant harmony
is our synaesthesia
in visible darkness found
and I love this delicious enjambment
as your aura invisibly slips
into mine
our lines have no beginning,
no end
as we undo
the boundaries
of time
Oct 3, 2017
Oct 3, 2017 at 5:18 PM UTC
Cats are Iambic Pentameter
Light-footed cats are nature’s iambics
Each subtle feline step unstressed to stressed
Across a lawn, a counterpane, a heart
As a tail-twitching cat ballet, all grace
But dogs are four-beat Anglo-Saxon1 lines
Galumphing heavily and clumsily
Across a moor, a sleeping-bag, a heart
As a tail-wagging country reel (gone bad)
Soft-footed cats are nature’s iambics
And dogs are four-beat Anglo-Saxon lines
1Old English Anglo-Saxon (approx. fifth-twelfth century). Applies to four-stress hemistichal alliterative verse, e.g. Beowulf.
- Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within
Jan 30, 2017
Jan 30, 2017 at 3:49 PM UTC
Each morning I lie in bed and anticipate your arrival, my awakening, our escape
To the fair ground lights outside the city, and I dream that as we peak on the Ferris wheel,
And, with stars as our witness at this paramount moment, all of Texas comes into view.
Autumnal air ruffles your hair, and I'm reaching for you like always with little gestures:
My smiles, your smirks, my laughs, and our quirks. Mingling at the summit,
A hand brushes slowly along a knee with the smooth reintroduction to an old friend.
Long fingers fumble with need, and it's just you and me distancing ourselves
From our every day studies in distraction, comforted in our mutual procrastination.
With you I catch up on my anatomy and you excitedly review me in structures and railways.
On a train homeward bound, the heat of blood rising in your cheeks and lips
Sends an electric surge to my head and heart, and nerves tingle from anticipating home.
Under your tutelage, I soon appreciate the bridge of a nose finally unstressed by glasses,
The dynamic arches of a worn out back, and the strength of pillars erected in urgency
'Til daylight exposes last night's mysteries, and we rest in our ecstasy perspired,
Both of us finally relinquished from the weight of anticipation for this weekend to arrive.
Oct 4, 2012
Oct 4, 2012 at 11:50 AM UTC
I heard there was a secret metric foot
that David knew was favoured by the Lord,
and when he penned the psalms he'd often put
this pattern the Almighty best adored
amongst the endless praise and imprecations;
unstressed, plus stressed, suffuses through his pages,
though hidden by the English of translations;
pentameters still echo down the ages.
The spondee's spurned, and has been from the start;
an anapaest's anathema, and grim.
Though trochees may be near the Maker's heart,
you'll never hear a dactyl in a hymn.
There's only one the Lord thinks worth a ****
the sacred, the unchangeable iamb.
Jun 22, 2010
Jun 22, 2010 at 8:07 AM UTC
Sunday’s an auspicious day to suggest
that you, as a student, take a recess
in order to try and decompress
from our studying and stress
Now, of course, if you’re so possessed,
or some might even say obsessed,
you could study for a test,
we all want to do our best
but some work habits can oppress
and leave one all depressed
Just take a needed rest
and if your needs are unaddressed
get caressed when you’re undressed
some would have that thought suppressed
or simply left it unexpressed
but under oath I would attest
and to a priest I have confessed
all my roommates acquiesced
that for relaxation it’s the best
and quickest way to get unstressed
there are a hundred things I could suggest
you type “A”s tend to make everything a contest
in this, there are no professors for you to impress
this isn’t a competitive, academic trap, trick or jest
I just know that, on Monday, this girl will be refreshed
Apr 30, 2023
Apr 30, 2023 at 11:11 PM UTC
When I'm loved by some,
I think of you and feel blessed.
In your company alone,
I find myself totally unstressed.
I have no one but you,
Only you as my Confidant.
I believe in you deeply,
You won't betray, it's evident.
I thank you, Divine Being.
You took my burdens away,
You kept evoking me that
Tomorrow's another day.
Your Love and Care and Grace,
Knew no bounds.
I fall short of words to praise,
And even If I do, it'd be never enough.
You know me better than I,
I replay and hold on to pain.
Help me, O lord! to get through.
I'll never forget to thank you, again.
Aug 4, 2018
Aug 4, 2018 at 6:03 AM UTC
My sister has curly hair
From day one
She has cut and burned it at every chance
Her hair is dark and thick
Like our fathers
I wish I had his hair instead
I wish the follicles on my head
Wernt thin and brittle
And quick to fall
Would that make me a man?
My sister has a flat chest,
My ******* have been called the best
My family and friends alike
She calls her own chest, childlike
If we traded, and my breath was unstressed
If they fell from my body
Would that make me a man?
What an unjust God
Who would give us bodies
That did not fit our souls
What cruel diety
Would leave us feeling
So cramped
Jun 15, 2023
Jun 15, 2023 at 11:38 PM UTC
Kamau Brathwaite wrote
That "the hurricane doesn't roar in pentameters"
And I really believed it could be true
That Caribbean hurricanes had their own cadences, their own dances :
Ida was reggae, Allen was merengue Brigitte was gwoka
David was cha cha cha and Edith was kadans rampa and Dorian calypso
All dactyls hatched instead of iambic pentameters
Out of each island Zeus 's head
Until i met the still eye of Hurricane Muse.
Muse was her nickname
Her real name was Shar
Named after shark and share and shear
and sharon,
Named after a calypso rose
Fearless except for lizards, a rose of tiny thorns
With a taste of a stormy black coffee
Born to a dragon of Jade and a white *** tigress
In the midst of the 1961
hurricane season.
Shar has the S of Sébastien Sally Sam Shary Sean and Sara
The H of Humberto Hanna Henri Hermine Harold and Hélène
The A of Andrea Arthur Ana Alex Arlene and Alberto
And the R of Rebecca René Rose Richard Rina and Rafael
And she dances not only calypso
And quadrille and zouk
But a mix as well of Salsa Hustle Affranchi and Reggae
In iambic pentameters
While she gently paints fearless green lizards
Having her five iambs of coffee
First thing in the unstressed and stressed morning
Before she even opens the syllables of her still Muse eye.
Sep 7, 2019
Sep 7, 2019 at 3:23 AM UTC
What keeps me happy makes me happy,
can get me blue than slaps me, lastly aske me,
What happened at sea?
Connecting closer and closer to you and you,
it's easy to lost sight of the light that's brought you to,
walking through the valley of doom,
with a capital V for vicious, vastly,
and the various moon;
I was swept to my back by the scariest broom,
left breathless, meat of my body unstressed
and stretch less for the world to consume.
Woken up my throats choken up
from all this rough spoken stuff, though
none was really spoken to me but
rath spoken through me, while thinking
I'm being consumed when I was only consuming.
Earth - yes I get a bit gloomy and ********** sue me!
But all you'll get is what I've given to ya,
the beauty of the moon, sun, land and the blue sea.
Apr 22, 2013
Apr 22, 2013 at 12:05 PM UTC
My lord and savior,
Stuck in a world
Fifty years too late
And thousands of miles away.
Salmon flesh stuck to his legs
And his camouflage blent into his surroundings;
It was only visible by the sewed-on patch that read,
"Stop War."
Hair held back tightly,
Sitting across from me
With a look of pure fascination,
We were introduced.
My gaze consistently found him,
Eyes closed, picturing the words and only the words.
Shoulders, chest, abdomen moving to the rhythm of
Stressed and unstressed syllables,
Snapping his fingers when his body contorted the most;
He could have walked on water.
With him standing on a chair screaming Ginsberg
Like a pastor would The Bible,
My heart skipped a beat
And I found religion.
Jun 5, 2015
Jun 5, 2015 at 3:42 PM UTC
"Caliban must have dinner."
Let him have first a bit of scansion
Of the vowels marooned to his feet
Along with the consonants washed ashore
By a called up mock storm
Inhabited by catalectic trochaic Trimeter, hexameter or pentameter
Name it !
This muse is his.
For his is the muse
This muse is his island
And every storm of hers is a beatitude
Passed on him by his Sycorax.
So blessed is Caliban
For his is the musedom of light
This muse is a perfect antilabe
He has pampered her with caesurae
He has spoiled her with feminine
Stressed and unstressed syllables
Kissed her with iambic pentameter
Caressed her with hemistichs
A trochee here
A spondee there
Caliban is beatitude in scansion.
Blessed is Caliban
For his is the musedom of light.
Sep 11, 2019
Sep 11, 2019 at 12:28 AM UTC
Pressed hard against warm flesh in the barely illuminated darkness guesstimating the blessings of your fresh mess, I ingest the best and leave the rest unstressed. Soft caresses underneath the dress bring visions of ancestral ****** in jest. My accentuated ******* bereft of the simplest zesty scents leave jesters lamenting about the repressed nexus of flexing wreckers. Flickering trestles rustle as the mesh lays lifeless after undress and the pressures of the rescuers sheds ravenous blushers rushing and undulating such as plush calves do. Fissures, wet, impress impresarios investing in resting besties and ********** lechers; a pitcher, ditched by the rich, flashes in the marsh stressing the finches and leaching petroleum onto the beaches. I reach for another peach and beseech the mashed potatoes makers, “just take a rest” –
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 5:08 PM UTC
The melancholy eyes of departing,
The lingering taste of love’s last kiss.
To the skies I've been sentenced and
In the soil you've been left, softly sprouting.
Oh, what I would do, to spread my roots
There next to you.
Our petals caress with love unstressed
And our leaves would collect the morning dew.
But I’ve been plucked,
Snatched in the claws of the bird!
Cast to flight, cursed to explore
A life without you that must be endured.
Upwards dragged but eyes cast down,
Drinking in the sights of her last frown.
The wind pulls me clean, and I see
The last of that morning's dew
Falling with a shimmering gleam.
Feb 21, 2018
Feb 21, 2018 at 3:16 PM UTC
A poor old man chants through his crumb-y beard:
(In iambic dimeter)
“The WORLD has CHANGED”
“The WORLD has CHANGED”
(sometimes unstressed-unstressed-unstressed-to-stressed,
Even though his biscuit is not impressed)
“The world has CHANGED”
“The world has CHANGED”
(and back to iambic dimeter)
“The WORLD has CHANGED”
“The WORLD has CHANGED”
While at another table a man shouts
Importantly into his busy-ness ‘phone:
“SO DO YOU WANT TO PAY YOUR MONTHLY BILLS
OFF EACH MONTH LIKE I DO? THIS IS A GREAT…”
(He pauses for a bite of his Big Linda
Braekfast [sic] Special)…“OPPORTUNITY
FOR YOU I NEED GOOD SALES REPS THAT’LL WORK
HARD TO REPLACE SALES REPS THAT WOULDN’T!”
A part of this healthy, nutritious breakfast
Apr 16, 2018
Apr 16, 2018 at 3:07 PM UTC
Silence once happened hither
To this place of point
Yet , the needle and it's thread
Sleeps forever sewing and weaving me
I once spoke as whispers
A sound of one sea shell
The soft flicking of a
Single sheet of paper
And softly eating jelly beans
A crumbling sound of an empty plastic
A dance goes it's twist
Crush , buckle , mangle ,and daydream
No-one could perceive with an ear
A sound so softly made of a relaxing guitar tuning
A loosen sound of kitten purrs
A book of Spanish poetry
Translated into modern English
There was a thick fog outside my window
I saw strange flashes of lightning in the shy
There was no sounds of thunder...
A rainbow in a celestial sphere
Of a red beautiful dawn
A relaxation of a whisper
Always to his own
Forever to never I understand
Hello to you dear fall
I've been waiting patiently for you unstressed
For I will greet you
With a whisper near midnight
With a nimbly slow movement
From a pleasantly subdued manner
A near fall whisper
Sep 28, 2016
Sep 28, 2016 at 3:15 AM UTC
Tho' I do write with truth, my self's conceived -
That where your love abodes, resides just me.
My love in rhyme, is rhyme in part deceived
Do, I linger still or let this sonnet free?
The former is a rhythmic dance of words
Where A can't wait the love connect of C.
The latter brings the sorrow near the thirds
As each unstressed, would stress the pain to be.
I pass this ninth with syllable delay
The tenth, I love but yearns a love as true.
I burden here, where eyes of yours can't sway
Yes now, at last, do I withdraw from you.
I hope the other grows to love as I
But doubt that heart the will of heart to die.
Feb 10, 2019
Feb 10, 2019 at 7:04 AM UTC
There was a richness
in her voice
A calm, deliberate, unstressed
expression of thoughts
Even if in disagreement
I never offered a voice
Only listened
Content, in the melodiousness
of the breathing of her mind
Jul 10, 2018
Jul 10, 2018 at 2:13 PM UTC
When i am loved by some,
I think of you and feel blessed.
In your company alone,
I find myself totally unstressed.
I have no one but you,
Only you as my confident.
I believe in you deeply,
You won't betray, it's evident.
I thank you, Divine Being.
You took my burdens away,
You kept evoking me that
Tomorrow's another day.
Your Love and Care and Grace,
Knew no bounds.
I feel short of words to praise,
And even if I do, it'd be never enough.
You know me better than I,
I replay and hold on to pain.
Help me, O lord! to get through.
I'll never forget to thank you, again.
Jul 28, 2018
Jul 28, 2018 at 7:54 AM UTC
Moonlight can give a helping hand,
To ease a mind that is harassed,
Its mystic rays can calm the nerves,
To leave one pleasantly unstressed.
Oct 10, 2022
Oct 10, 2022 at 4:08 AM UTC