"unstrung" poems
(1)
The day she visited the dissecting room
They had four men laid out, black as burnt turkey,
Already half unstrung. A vinegary fume
Of the death vats clung to them;
The white-smocked boys started working.
The head of his cadaver had caved in,
And she could scarcely make out anything
In that rubble of skull plates and old leather.
A sallow piece of string held it together.
In their jars the snail-nosed babies moon and glow.
He hands her the cut-out heart like a cracked heirloom.
(2)
In Brueghel's panorama of smoke and slaughter
Two people only are blind to the carrion army:
He, afloat in the sea of her blue satin
Skirts, sings in the direction
Of her bare shoulder, while she bends,
Finger a leaflet of music, over him,
Both of them deaf to the fiddle in the hands
Of the death's-head shadowing their song.
These Flemish lovers flourish;not for long.
Yet desolation, stalled in paint, spares the little country
Foolish, delicate, in the lower right hand corner.
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Suddenly it’s broken.
My beloved
lies below my hands.
Aquamarine, amethyst and citrine.
My stones
now unstrung.
You were my ‘promise ring’
my ‘engagement jewelry’.
You gave it to me
and I promised to return to you
Santorini.
Then it shifts:
I am pleading
in your aquamarine waters.
“Forgive me”
Pleading to your citrine hills.
“I promise”
Pleading, pleading
while your amethyst moon watches,
because it is always watching.
Apr 28, 2011
Apr 28, 2011 at 9:47 AM UTC
I'm trying so hard
I don't know what to do
My heart is aching
Thinking of you
A small square of paper
Sits on my tongue
With razor sharp edges
and tasting of dung
It takes me to spaces
Deep in my mind
Where there's too many places
and not enough time
I've been drowned in guilt
and I'm suspended in shame
Repeatedly killed
like in a video game
Written upon
the sharp paper square
are words for destruction
and guilt and despair
It's a trip like no other
you won't even feel high
you'll feel like a bother
and just want to cry
'...You're wrong, you're wrong,
you're wrong, you're wrong
How could you do this
How could you
do this to me...'
I'm floating in place with
no lover to face
trembling, trembling
trembling heart space
I'm spinning in circles
looking for miracles
and it's proving to be
horribly difficult
Trying to fly
with no wings to spread
I crumble and cry
a song for what's dead
the sound of alarms
ring in my head
Take me
cradle me in your arms
Drifting in place
dead in deep space
You left me here with
tears on my face
Crystalline droplets
scintillating pearls
spinning in circles,
spirals, and swirls
Why did you think
to leave me alone
at the cold ugly brink
a frost to the bone
the cold hard shoulder
feels far colder
than a lifeless boulder
I'm cold, I'm
cold
I speak with my music
and these notes are my words
My harp is my voice
and these strings are the cords
I try hard to play
But you've cut them all off
My harp is left bare
naked, unstrung
I'll move all the pedals
But unto what end?
I can't speak my heart
I can no longer pretend
It's time to stand up
and take a great bow
Walk off the stage
The end is
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 9:17 AM UTC
On moon-damp sheets, you slowly open my violet fig, passing halves tongue to tongue,
its seed-pearls, captive minutes embraced by our soft lips,
each velvet pulse a swallowed clock tick, unthreading the night’s camisole—unstrung
Our minutes take root inside our souls, night’s vines in green hour’s gentle grip,
soft pods burst open, figs too ripe to cradle our desires,
their wet seeds, exploring, ticking onward—dreaming of a solar eclipse
Dawn’s pallid hand already tests the window, sprouting its cruel thorns and briars,
we stack our stolen seconds like leaves against the latch, a barricade of lost cries,
yet every green minute bleeds to gold, slipping through fingers, we tire—
Seconds steep in our bellies like sour home-brewed wine highs,
bubbles of yesterday escape—tiny pale moons clinging to folds and hips,
drunk on recycled time, we speak only in overlapping echoes of whys?
One corner of the mattress folds like a calendar page—blank, stripped,
our shadows lengthen backward, seeking last night’s candlelight,
Dawn’s fiery glow becomes a vortex of memory and lust—we slip, hip to hip
A seed-shaped cog spills within; its milk is bitter sun, not honeyed night,
the soft ticking falters—our wetness rusts the teeth of fragile gears,
we press our palms to the fracture, bluffing the hunger of day’s appetite.
All swallowed instants germinate in rapture; green shoots flare wild from every tear,
morning slips through the leaf-lattice, feral, unstoppable—death,
the room sighs oxygen unearned; we wake leaf-littered, dewed, a frontier unclear
One last seed, caged behind the sternum, ticks backwards, waiting for breath,
it counts in reverse, each tick a small fist begging still to be loved,
we do not let it out; we cradle the echo, its name?
Aug 24, 2025
Aug 24, 2025 at 2:45 PM UTC
Coyote’s mournful howl echoed
in the new moon’s enchanting sultry ether;
breathing the living harmony of the wilderness rhythm
He seemed to sense a soul reincarnation
within a pervasive spirit light
an oft misunderstood
common thread shared
this hallowed land’s night
An uncommon Zen stirring from within,
stifling apathy ..,
. . . of rumble deep beneath
a dormant volcano reawakening ;
that which lies undiscovered
just before the ruptured moment ..,
liberation of release ―
dust and ashes taking flight
Through open window insomnia churns
fifty shades of blue ..,
cast in shadowed hues of broken silence
Coyote stirred the stillness
with a hauntingly familiar cry
reading the ridge-top echoes
like the book of my mind
" YIP YIP A ―W O O H !!! " . . . the somber plea
For it is in these final hours chosen chore
the recurring torn
these chains and things
Coyote was going there ―
to stand these watermark crossroads
this hour of need
Accepting brother has always been lonely
sometimes anything
means something - -
and so it goes ..,
Coyote communes in pulse
from ancient realms
this sacred blood ..,
Om
the lost chord
wounded healers ,
. . . one mutual spirit
runs marrow deep
where dogs run free
The moan of doves whisper to the impending dawn
. . . always known these days
too soon do come and gone
What once was a life well lived ,
s l o w l y e v a n e s c i n g
like the summer river’s flow
some say ..." you never miss the water
'til the well runs dry "
. . . regrets a waste of time - -
Rumination, a loathsome silent reverie
a taunting unsolved koan
an unplanned oxymoron ,
beget of a deafening silence
. . . dust sleeps with indifference
veiling a beautiful handmade
unstrung guitar
muted - - abandoned,
tone poems, unsung
and so "re-begins" the task ...
come what may rise up
into the dark star's light ...
Coyote was going there - -
a dawning metamorphosis
under another nebulous sky
. . . refreshed by Luna's potent alchemy bestrewn
in her spellbinding lambent moonlight elixir of life ...
harlon rivers ... 5. 21. 2015
Oct 20, 2017
Oct 20, 2017 at 11:21 AM UTC
A poet is daydreaming – contemplating,
Stale is his entire mind surpassed;
An accomplice confers his realization,
Neither to suffice the fool – disillusioned.
That poet daydreams, dismayed in trance,
‘A truce!’ he barters, on a fitted fray.
Frailty of his core seems definite in stance,
‘Tis anecdote… apparent of dismay.
The poet daydreams of the one he loves;
Severs the sympathy by egoism and contempt.
Scalar quantity of a breaching throb,
Under the tutelage of an infidel attempt.
The writer’s words are never dull, always honed;
Unyielding cutting edges fit for the crockery.
Elusive as emotions – tender as the blade of words sliced,
Thus cuts through the flesh, mind and soul like mockery.
Thus the poet’s mind can never be measured,
Nor does the ability of a man can overcome;
For both come from the Divine – Oh, highly favored!
Poetry of prose, so unique and unstrung.
Mar 3, 2014
Mar 3, 2014 at 12:40 AM UTC
Pink wisps
thin, like cotton candy,
f
l
o
a
t
softly around my skin.
I s n
p i
under the expansive, lucid
sky.
S i g h.
Air flows in and from
my lungs.
Hung in the depth of the horizon
sits a mountainous,
golden
sun.
I run (run, run and run),
quick to catch a lick
of the warmth
into my mouth so it
f
i
l
l
s
me
to the seams.
Light b e a m s
from my f
i
n
g
e
r
s
Yellow air lingers
on
my tongue.
I t l
w r
i
'til
I am
unstrung.
Lunge! Forward and fast,
Make this
f
a
d
i
n
g
moment l a s t.
Past the horizon,
the
sun
s
i
n
k
s
low to edge of the ground.
I found
my meaning
in the gleaming
l i g h t
that beats so b r i g h t.
I use all of my height to jump and grasp
the last pink wisp
that kiss(es) my lips.
"'Til tomorrow",
I whisper to the now
dark sky.
I'll keep my head held
up
high,
for this this just a temporary
"goodbye".
Sep 8, 2015
Sep 8, 2015 at 5:11 PM UTC
Who passed the night with silent pining?
A face hidden from moonlit sight,
Twas I the hunter said at last and sighed,
My only prey has taken flight.
She fled into the brambled thrall,
I ne'er but glimpsed her pale white face,
And since that night I've wept within this wood,
'Tis become my solitary place.
My quiver lost its missles long ago,
This sacred bow remains unstrung,
The cold now creeps like moss on trees,
And her song is yet to be sung.
My hair is white my face is grey,
These peircing eyes now dim,
I sometime catch her gentle scent,
Perhaps its just my foolish whim.
But O' that once and once again to hunt,
Her wiles seducing all my heart,
And I pursuing yet pursued by love,
Once again to draw the soul apart.
By S. E. Johnson copyright 2012
Nov 16, 2012
Nov 16, 2012 at 7:43 PM UTC
There's something missing in this heap of hearts.
i'd happily admit he'd fall apart
without his special taste of what was to come
after every horror night he'd slept,
beauty truthful, I wish i'd seen
his glory days, our glory days
we breathe as one, and there's music to come -
but an unstrung guitar would yearn for it.
Something like diamonds or vague metaphors
like years of friends and friendly enemies that struck a bone like a tattooed hand a chord
something like that which fills the soul of rueful smiles and before they left -
he knew that was where he took his breath.
One day I'll come to understand why deprivation is my vice and virtue
and why good things come to those who forget -
but for now its grief for ghosts and phantom hands left unheld
that keeps us both waking during the night.
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 1:11 PM UTC
Intimate adventures: purple sunset;
Sabrina Elliott at her canvas;
My brother boarding some Utah-bound jet;
Easton Connell reciting tender lyrics,
Caught in a mad faith’s unwitting net:
“Daylight licked me into shape”; then night fell;
The city struggling with unheeded debt;
Lieberman and Sathyadev dying young;
Their mothers, a heart-wrenched duet.
James Howard humming, his guitar unstrung,
Paganini in that delicate hand:
The failed romantics; a thing to be forgotten again.
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 4:40 PM UTC
As often-times the too resplendent sun
Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon
Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won
A single ballad from the nightingale,
So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,
And all my sweetest singing out of tune.
And as at dawn across the level mead
On wings impetuous some wind will come,
And with its too harsh kisses break the reed
Which was its only instrument of song,
So my too stormy passions work me wrong,
And for excess of Love my Love is dumb.
But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show
Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung;
Else it were better we should part, and go,
Thou to some lips of sweeter melody,
And I to nurse the barren memory
Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.
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Her words were thrown in the air.
I stood there.
I walked home.
I unlocked the door.
I stripped off my damp coat, unstrung my scarf.
I collapse and sit on the cold, cold wood floors.
As I do so, that’s when my metaphorical heart splinters into the tiniest of pieces.
Anatomically real hearts don’t break, they cannot realistically do so.
Which is precisely why this is so ******* hard for it to heal back.
As you are fighting against a beautifully lucid and meticulously choreographed illusion.
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 1:40 AM UTC
Friendship is wings
Unstrung and uncaged to fly
Even when it's dark
Apr 10, 2014
Apr 10, 2014 at 7:57 AM UTC
Doubtful of the future
As our wooden furniture
Creaks and cracks
Like wounded soldiers sutures
House on the edge of the water
The Earth shows to
Only be getting hotter
Heaven may only be a starter
I've asked all my questions
Meandering in drunken perspiration
The moon hangs laughing
Behind my back
Where I was before this
I can't keep track
Trams, metros, terror colored in streetlights
All souls around me barely giving off light
Piano man plays with broken fingernails
Screaming he's guiltier than all that is wrong or right
Could have beens
Would have beens
Should have beens
Sticky black tar regret
Stare at the sun and
Unveil the lie they've
Been telling you all along
I wrote something
That looked like something
That came before
I wrote that other something
And when I read that something
And read the other something
Both seemed to be about
Nothing and nothing
As well as
All of the above
Staring at the stove top
She lays upstairs in bed
Silence atop these fingertips
Secrets flying high
In this unstrung kite
A cloud stubs his toe
The sun makes His move
I feel like a real man
Acting like I have a plan
Too fast some days
Other days
Too slow
Proving routine
Is the curse of the
Owner's of the silver spoon
I hang on the edge of
A smooth, round beer bottle
My hardened fingertips
Show to be slipping
I'm lost in a sea of forgiveness
Frantically keeping my head afloat
While smiling to myself that I left
The life vests tied upon the boat
My need for revenge has
Sunk into The Black Sea
Bitterness was such a boring feeling
Like an old ring I was always wearing
I hand out my pleases
Like ripped off store candies
Everybody's got their maybes ready
I look at my hand and see its steady
This day
This month
This year or so away
From home is
Showing me
Only I
Know where I need to go
Let the snow fall
The government post what they will
High up where we can't reach on the wall
All will be remembered
All will be forgiven one day
The last man to laugh
Will be
He who believes not
In His own trap
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 4:18 PM UTC
Starlight blind mine eyes this night
let me not perceive the emptiness of days
morning pray hold back your dawning
to light the place my love no longer lays
Soft breeze if thou would but please
deaden my ears to the silence all around
gentle rain come once more disguise my pain
and wash away the memories yet bound
Fitful dreams replaced by nightmares evil screams
dumb now my impotent tongue
let me be oh unrelenting misery
and let at last my heartstrings be unstrung
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 10:24 PM UTC
I've got words
All bottled up
Inside of me,
Unstrung chords
Abandoned pup,
Floating in the open sea,
So far away from you
In this great big blue,
I'll all stopped up
With emotions
And notions
Overflowing cup,
Cork won't loosen
Around just anyone
To a paper I took pen
But I wrote just one
Sentence; better said
Than written are my thoughts
Like molten lead
Ready to be shaped into pots,
Anything I've got to say
Is for your ears only;
The tide is rough
A ride on a bumpy road in a cart of hay,
In this ocean I'm lonely
Being away I've had enough,
And it feels like forever
Don't know if ever
I'll reach the shore
Frozen to the core,
I'll be hoping it's you
Who'll be there
Arrival long overdue
Crack me open without a care
Extract my contents
Unfurling a thousand moments
I imagine I'll explode
Or just as well implode
A million things to say
Laughing all the way
Gushing and spewing all about
Shaken soda pop splash, as I shout
But I know I'll just simmer and fizzle
Waterfall dammed down to a drizzle,
As I sit by you
Not saying a word
Just happy to be enamored
There next to you...
© okpoet
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 5:21 PM UTC
Despite of your honest intentions
One will come up
and blow your dreams away.
Some will seek
all of your flaws.
gather them up in a jar,
and emphasizes it
until all seemed sour.
Despite of your humble beginnings,
one will find your bread and butter.
will treat it as no brained boast,
it will backfire to you
at all cost.
Despite of your dangerous acts,
that proved to be a game winner.
Despite of all your heroic antics,
that could have mattered.
They will not see the good in you.
Until you're six feet below.
until you are gone.
until everything is over.
when there's no reset button.
and all are messed up.
you cannot see what is in front of you
despite of your heart,
and your mind,
numb and faking
unstrung and broken
Dec 18, 2012
Dec 18, 2012 at 12:39 AM UTC
Icicles dribble down the tip
of my nose as frost fogs
the humid corridors of my mind.
Tundras yawn before me
and sea-foam green ribbons
helically orbit one another.
Streaks of yellow roll between
the spiraling bows in the sky.
Stars twinkle slowly, just beyond.
An icy howl jars the halcyon
serenity as a harbinger of
hardships and blizzards.
But I am not of this.
I carry a hearth in my chest
and open my arms to embrace.
Ah, and now she steps down
from the gathering clouds;
her gown rippling as it unfurls.
Her aurichalcite eyes echo unsung
songs until I can't bare the separation.
My unstrung heart beats on, begging
for another verse from her slightly parted
-- but how much they open! --
lips lying, parabolic, atop her chin.
She meets my pleas succinctly:
her out-stretched hand offered
in tribute to another kindred soul.
My mind is fixated, not a thought
intrudes on my contemplation
of her exotic inebriation.
Does she know what she's done?
How every movement makes
me stutter, slightly, shuddering
(unavoidably)? How could she
understand this intoxication
which I don't even hope to know?
I suppose that's all man can hope for:
a single day, maybe not more than an hour,
where "love" can even be considered.
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 2:23 AM UTC
.
To gaze upon you in the dusky dark
There is light, light as fine as breath,
Spun gold, light that only the blind
Know, as they dream in blue daylight,
Eyes infilled. I see you as mystics do,
I colour your face with mute wishes,
That time has allowed and moments show,
My being unstrung as one abandonment,
A broken guitar in an alley so flayed
Of cat gut and new sorrows unplayed.
If you were any more ethereal —
I would simply lay down into dust.
.
Jul 30, 2021
Jul 30, 2021 at 11:54 PM UTC
It was a rainy day
when he sent off for a pair of X-ray specs
he had seen in the back of a comic book
Days passed slowly like they were stuck in glue,
outside, a bike, chained to a leaking pipe,
rusted.
Weeds escaped through concrete.
Upstairs, the rattling bones
of skeletons in closets,
ghosts under the bed,
spider legs,
electric shocks and books already read.
Finally, one day,
slack jawed the letter box opened.
A brown parcel, tied.
Postage stamps and ink.
His hands carefully unstrung
the string and the paper fell open.
If he had X-Ray specs
he would have known
that the package was empty.
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 8:12 AM UTC
I tied a noose
to have me hung
the knot got loose
I came unstrung
I got a gun
to have me shot
the barrel spun
an empty slot
I took a knife
to my wrist
such luck in life
the vein was missed
Aug 31, 2021
Aug 31, 2021 at 2:57 AM UTC
1. Flush your sleeping pills despite your graveyard shift, and the caffeine from coffee that has soaked into your veins, like the people on **** you serve Dr. Pepper to with a smile at 4a.m. with their jerky, constant movements
2. Go to the field behind your apartment bring a tumbler of ***** and orange juice, two Miller high life's and a jacket talk to the moon scream that you're still apologizing, that you're not enough tell her you're tired and that you wish her well she will not respond, a wolf will howl in the distance.
3. Warn everyone that oil will not mix with water that she took your stability with her boxes of cardboard, filled with memories you made with her you have unstrung the laces between your teeth the phone rings; call ends immediately
4. Write this poem let her leave again let a storm untie her shoes ask a god you don't believe in if you will eventually get better a wolf will howl in response
5. Repeat.
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 10:00 PM UTC
Beautiful stars, mourning the earths elements
Collecting the warmth from the colorful vines
A shadow in my throat, flowers, unstrung and unkind
Whimsical foreign pages, surrender and thaw
Jan 4, 2014
Jan 4, 2014 at 11:51 PM UTC
the stockings were hung
then unstrung
the gifts wrapped
then opened and scrapped
eyes open wide, at gifts given with pride
forgive us dear lord for the little white lies
I adore it, no it won't leave my side
*Where can we find a place for,
this monstrosity to hide*
The church bells were rung
the carols sung,
All the while thing of the traveling miles
for the holiday away in the summer sun
Dinner was baked bbqed and burped
Wine was drunk, now Uncle Albert
is dancing, just shy of naked
drunk as a skunk, Aunt Em in the throes
of the holiday funk....has declared her new teeth
have been sunk into the trilfle....of which she is
elbows in, having a rifle, through
Dad's mid nap, and we are counting down the seconds
between each snore, Mum still asking any one for any more pav
And Malcom has dissapeared to the lav
and this is the Christmas, that we have had,
and tho it sounds dorky....I am a wee bit glad....
Tommorow we box ourselves in the car
travelling, travelling o so far
and back to the bickering, backstabbing and fights
but we practise peace to all men at Christmas
as is our right....
but with da and his snoring,
we have no chance of a silent night.
Dec 25, 2015
Dec 25, 2015 at 1:11 AM UTC