"unsupported" poems
A child draws the outline of a body.
She draws what she can, but it is white all through,
she cannot fill in what she knows is there.
Within the unsupported line, she knows
that life is missing; she has cut
one background from another. Like a child,
she turns to her mother.
And you draw the heart
against the emptiness she has created.
14.1k
sometimes when i am trapped inside my own mind
and feel like i’m drowning in the taste of air,
suddenly i am eight years old years,
bobbing up and down in my wimpy life jacket
my legs unsupported
and there is still a chip on my shoulder
a mile wide.
sometimes i am still the five year old who balled her eyes out
when her parents accidentally forgot and were late
picking her up from preschool,
sometimes i am still sixteen years old and in love with you
sometimes i am a person i never thought i’d manage to grow into,
sometimes i am a person i’ve yet to become.
i am juxtaposition of a thousand different versions of myself.
i am equally the eight year old girl still afraid of the water
as i am the almost-adult you so naively believed to be fearless,
my self-assurance a really good halloween costume.
i am a newborn at the same time
as i am frail ninety year old grandmother.
i am brave and i am terrified
and i am naive and i am jaded
and i am clean and i am ruined;
i am a blank slate and i have been scribbled all over,
my skin is smooth and untouched
my skin has laughter lines and stretch marks.
i am the creator and i am the destroyer,
i am everything and
nothing at all.
i am the ocean
and i am the desert.
my lungs are failing as i’m breathing fine,
and i can see the end and the beginning in equal clarity.
sometimes i’m too old for my skin,
weary like i’ve lived a thousand lives already
and sometimes i am four years old with
my knees hugged to my chest.
sometimes we are two and sometimes we are twenty,
sometimes we were nine and sometimes we are ninety.
we are young and dumb and reckless at the same time
as we are old and wise and careful.
sometimes my father is still a gap-toothed five year old
and my mother is still a tired old woman
with shaking hands,
and my brother is still an angry teenager with a bad hair cut.
we are existing simultaneously
and growing up is just getting really good at pretending
that you’ve got your **** all figured out
when you still feel like a lonely middle-schooler
without a date to the mixer,
alone in the middle to gymnasium floor.
but that’s the thing, isn’t it?
when you are cut open, when you are bleeding,
when you have gaping holes in your nervous system
your flesh heals over
it scars, brand new.
we are bleeding and we we are healed,
we are ******* up
and we are doing just fine.
Feb 18, 2015
Feb 18, 2015 at 10:49 AM UTC
Look, you have now broken your back bone
Because of climbing tall trees and high balconies
To spy on your wife as she roves the village,
You climbed a Tall baobab tree up to the apex
To play sentry and spy on your wife
When she went down the river to fetch some water
For you to bathe and wash your jealousy body
And when she met her brother-in –law;
The man from another village across the river
Who greeted her with a prolonged hug
Embracing your wife in his strong arms
They way a giant can do to a beauty model,
Feat of goofy jealous gripped you
And you forgot that you were perching in high danger
At the top of the baobab tree, you left yourself unsupported
As all selfish men can in feats of irrationality
Coming down like a sack of wet sand
Falling in a thud, breaking your poor backbone!
Dude; be warned from spying on your wife.
Feb 27, 2014
Feb 27, 2014 at 3:25 PM UTC
Creating
that fallacious intimacy
wrapped
arm around arm
with a nameless
body.
It's easy to get
temporary satisfaction
from it.
Even though
you're chilled
and hollow inside.
The want
of not being lonely
can be too strong.
Keeping up
the exhausting task
of costant contact.
Never really
developing
a bond deeper
than physical sedation
can tire out.
It will ash away
as soon as you move
an inch
in that position
which is holding
unstably present.
Distance
would be the ruiner
of that
shallow fantasy.
But...
to be hundreds
of miles and moments
away from someone.
To be
alone and removed
from the one
who you have
a real, unrelenting
connection with.
To know
you are singular
in that very moment
but not unsupported.
Having them
somewhere you're not,
holding onto your
spiritual thread.
To achieve real
intimate foundation
in knowing the body
doesn't have to tie you
together.
That's an ember that,
when set to breathe,
engulfs you both.
Understanding
and feeling comfort
that when surrounded
by faces
and being unknown to them
is alright.
Since
that person
who lingers in your mind
Is a whisper
off your lips
and is there
in that place you
left them.
They've penetrated inside
that fortress of caution
and self-preservation and
they get you.
They are there,
hidden
and carried with you.
With their hands
cradling and cherishing
your heart
like the treasure
it is.
The enormous responsibility.
To be
the keeper of
warmth and familiarity
and home.
Even though
being separated
from one another
you are reminded of what
exists between you.
By
concentrating and honing
in on the weight
which lives
there.
That love
and loyalty
and equal respected commitment
to take care of what
the other is given.
The total
vulnerable
surrender of
yourself.
That is something
worth wanting.
That is something
to daydream for.
That...
is what we all
crave.
© NDHK
Oct 30, 2012
Oct 30, 2012 at 1:10 PM UTC
I serve you not, if you I follow,
Shadow-like, o'er hill and hollow,
And bend my fancy to your leading,
All too nimble for my treading.
When the pilgrimage is done,
And we've the landscape overrun,
I am bitter, vacant, thwarted,
And your heart is unsupported.
Vainly valiant, you have missed
The manhood that should yours resist,
Its complement; but if I could
In severe or cordial mood
Lead you rightly to my altar,
Where the wisest muses falter,
And worship that world-warning spark
Which dazzles me in midnight dark,
Equalizing small and large,
While the soul it doth surcharge,
That the poor is wealthy grown,
And the hermit never alone,
The traveller and the road seem one
With the errand to be done;—
That were a man's and lover's part,
That were Freedom's whitest chart.
2k
This house is silent now, this new smart house
The storm has downed the power lines; wild rains
Against the windows beat like hungry wolves
And all house gadgetry is silent and still
And just as still: the Barnes & Noble Nook™®
The Ipod™® unsupported, the dead FitBit™®
That failed before its third Christmas day
The La Crosse(tm)® that failed before its second
And dead are all the promises that they gave:
Our silent gadgets in this cold, dark cave
Dec 28, 2018
Dec 28, 2018 at 4:11 PM UTC
I can't love you
because we're running
in opposite directions.
I can't love you
because everyone tells us
we won't make it.
I can't love you
because I'm stars and planets;
while you're trees and flowers.
I can't love you
because we breathe
in different elements.
I can't love you
because everything I love
gets ruined fatally.
But we love each other
despite our varying backgrounds
and unsupported systems.
And maybe our love
will bring us closer
or set us apart.
-m.b
Sep 24, 2017
Sep 24, 2017 at 10:20 AM UTC
Masking tapes covers cracks
yet you still broke into a rave
it's the opposite of intentioned order
unsupported barricades buckle
the town sphere makes no sense.
Barbiturates bitters the night,
strangely forlorn as inner suppression
gives no truth.
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 5:48 AM UTC
seethe ~ bubble up as a result of being boiled,
<>
sunrise was 714 am in nyc
this perfect fall day,
chilled to perfection,
a white wine of a day,
so imbibe,
only later does it
heat up up and onwards
to the temp where the
walkers/joggers/runner recite
hallelujahs and hosannas while
moving at their own chosen pace,
in a state of warm southern comfort,
never a racing
lest
the poems
now seething, boiling-burning
bubbling up inside
into the atmosphere explode!
all of these
early warming~warning inspirations,
now~expressed,
realized flickers of
original ex-impressions,
cannot be contained in
an open field unsupported,
these
breech babies each,
in a pediatric ICU,
demanding an
instantaneous airy concoction
to Earth’s atmospheric
literary intoxication
they use:
up hard, a dice roll,
who lives
who wilts,
that docs cannot but
obey
the fetus’s insistence,
many instructions,
push pull breathe,
must the. be given forthwith
through to our
servile waiting
uterine fingertips,
for we human are just be
~ings,
nurturers of
verbal artifacts
that never die
in
an~always~at~the~ready,
in service to
the great conceptual,
poetic in/justice
Oct 23, 2024
Oct 23, 2024 at 3:33 AM UTC
When life give you lemons
You make lemonade.
But at some point
Lemonade just won't do.
It doesn't sell well either.
So you get smart
And start making limoncello
And give those *******
What was coming at them.
A face that indicates
They took on more
Than they could handle
A gag reflex and sour taste in their mouths
A sweet twist that comes from
The smirk on your face
And if they keep messing with you
They won't be able to see straight
Let alone walk home unsupported.
Oct 23, 2016
Oct 23, 2016 at 3:48 PM UTC
Life started; my ear to your heart.
I heard life growing, but you grew up too fast.
Knowing so many things--
You decorated your parents in the sweet laughter you brought
and still bring.
I feel connected to you through the rhythm of your heart.
You fought to start -- sought your own part in life,
though you couldn't do it unsupported.
Your requited love has grown, and plays on our souls in the happiness we've known.
You dance. You sing.
You've arrived. Alive and kicking.
My everything.
My reward: little socks, conversations with playful teddy bears, square blocks, and good food eaten in highchairs. Knocks on the head each day.
Your love of monsters and animals, and the funny things you have said
and still say.
Kisses. Hugs. Pokes in the ribs. Tears and giggles.
The fear of closed doors, but a big fan of pigs!
Little hands. Curly hair.
I think about you everywhere.
Your first walk. The shock of unknowing.
Our open arms and your gradual growth into them,
and growth into knowing.
Now, safe and warm, blankets and toys -- I watch you sleep flawlessly unspoiled.
I watch and need this growing piece of me; my future seed. This all-seeing, bright eyed and innocent being -- I see so many parts of me in him.
Little socks -- and lots and lots of tickles and curly golden locks and you're the best thing I've ever seen.
It is you, dear boy, I understand.
I love to hold your little hands.
And make you laugh, and hear you talk;
That way you can't say ''box''.
But most of all I just love you.
You and your little socks.
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 2:56 PM UTC
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Feb 5, 2019
Feb 5, 2019 at 7:10 PM UTC
I guarantee there will be times
Where their voices will carry you over a mountain
I guarantee there will be times
Where their backs will turn, silencing the cheers and shouting
I guarantee there will be moments
Where your goals seem within reach
I guarantee there will be moments
Where your progress will fall under siege
I guarantee there will be days
Where your dedication is rewarded
I guarantee there will be days
Where your effort is unsupported
I guarantee there will be nights
Where your dreams keep you awake
I guarantee there will be mornings
Where your fears will dominate
But I promise through it all
If you never quit your chase
I guarantee you'll reach your dream
Only you can keep the faith
© JL Smith
Apr 28, 2018
Apr 28, 2018 at 9:38 PM UTC
Choosing to die rather than watch.
Matthew rose to feet unsupported by vigor.
Wielding a simple woodcutter's axe.
Turned butcher's cleaver.
His foe turned, pivoted and let go of lever.
That wood exploded.
Its head fell into the marsh.
He fished for it but found instead.
A blade by his head.
Mar 18, 2014
Mar 18, 2014 at 1:32 AM UTC
Staring right in to this
paper for days. I thought I had
lost my ability to write.
My ability to express.
A gift that I took for granted.
My feelings were just trapped
inside the cage and needed
to escape and soar high.
I couldn't bring myself to write
and the thoughts wouldn't
find words to breathe.
There was a thirst. An
aeonian ache. Heavy pounding
of my heart and an uneasy feeling
like my lungs had bronchitis.
My body unsupported the idea
of writing as I could only
write tragedies and the perpetual
pain of my once upon a time
virtuous heart. How could
I cheat on words? They had
always been there for me.
Most importantly there when
I had slit my malevolent heart
and given up.
Oct 5, 2017
Oct 5, 2017 at 11:01 AM UTC
The creature touched my temple
I felt my brain melt and bubble
I felt it dribble out of my ears and down my neck
burning down my spine
The creature made seven neat slits on the sides my upper chest
it had a habit of reopening wounds and slicing up old scars
With long fingers, the creature cut my ribs and picked them off my sternum
it slid out each spilt bone one at a time
it did it slowly, to make sure I could feel my unsupported flesh slap against my defenceless organs, enveloping them, suffocating them
seconds seemed to break down into a million fractions
the creature would only slide my ribs back and rejoin them once it sensed my heart stutter near to a stop.
As the creature retreated, my liquid brain solidified
what was left in my skull, ached and felt toxic
my legs shook and wobbled a few steps
my chest heaved, reopening my lungs, greedily taking in air as I lent against the cold wall
"Please mind the gap between the train and the platform."
Mar 24, 2016
Mar 24, 2016 at 8:02 AM UTC
Thread through the needle head
She out the door without a word
I am so hungry I cannot stand up right
Someone's on to me
They've got a hold of my sight
One too many secrets in this place
One too many divinities here
I swear the hare stole my pocket watch
One of these days this madness
Has to got to cease and stop
Ideas place themselves on the shelves
Where all that's left is all there is
When I listen I try to keep my mouth shut
Like a worm in the ground
Or a squirrel holding on to sacred nut
The wind makes her promises
And the mountains continue to tell their lies
The guitar lays down weary
Where the saxophone wails loud n' free
This sound is starting to turn into a fury
I tell no lies unless the barrel is a gun
Your graveyard smile has got me on the run
And all my friends tell me to stay put
But I'd rather ramble with the sun on my boot
Just listen to yourself and
There'll be nothing left to be said
A crack of the bat and I'm back where I started
Laughs of uncertainty show faces all unsupported
I can't get too close to the sun or I'll burn
But there is something in myself that yearns
For a better life filled with this and a little bit of that
Where I ask myself, "Who am I when I wear this hat?"
May 25, 2012
May 25, 2012 at 2:11 AM UTC
Do we think first or feel?
Think!
UNSUPPORTED
first
we Feel
and that is itself an act
then
we think
and that is a react
To THINK
is a react to an act:
To FEEL
Oct 29, 2021
Oct 29, 2021 at 7:09 PM UTC
NURSE KRACHET
I’m scared to speak too loud
So I’ll whisper, just in case
That nasty nurse Miss Krachet
Comes in and shows her face
She’s quite a nasty woman
And looks just like a witch
Her face and nose both posses
This long and gnarly stitch
She walks around limping
Unsupported by a broom
She has this air about her
Must think she’s Heidi Klum
I asked her for my *****
When I once had to ***
She said, get it yourself
You won’t get it from me
But I’m confined to bed, I said
So I can’t go nowhere
She said, **** off old man
And that’s no lie, I swear
When she left, I asked my roomy
To get me that pissy ***
I had waited for so long
I had to **** a lot
I filled it up, right to the top
The next move quite the chore
Since I couldn’t bend or stretch too far
I barely made the floor
As time went by, I forgot
Where that *** now rested
So when nurse Krachet, walked right in
Her anger, soon was tested
Up to my bed, she sauntered
Thus did not see the spot
Where I had put that silly thing
Until she kicked that ***
It all splashed out, on her foot
The floor, her socks and shoes
And then her face, turned bright red
Which did, just me amuse
I marveled at how nicely
Things sometimes turn out
She got herself, all ****** on
But didn’t even shout
Since then I’m keeping quiet
My mouth closed really tight
I don’t want her to come around
And get into a fight
So I’m holding, everything I have
Remembering what she said
And hoping that her shift will end
Before I **** my bed
My bowels will soon let loose
So I’m praying to high heaven
Now that it’s, six fifty nine
Her shift will end, at seven
BOEMS BY JA 280
Written in hospital 2014
Aug 30, 2016
Aug 30, 2016 at 9:53 AM UTC
I’ve been unsupported lately.
Not a leg to stand on.
Some would call it untethered.
Floating.
A kinder soul might liken it to flying,
But they would be wrong.
Flying starts and ends with both feet on the ground.
Jul 30, 2023
Jul 30, 2023 at 11:49 PM UTC
Thread through the needle head
She out the door without a word
I am so hungry I cannot stand up right
Someone's on to me
They've got a hold of my sight
One too many secrets in this place
One too many divinities here
I swear the hare stole my pocket watch
One of these days this madness
Has to got to cease and stop
Ideas place themselves on the shelves
Where all that's left is all there is
When I listen I try to keep my mouth shut
Like a worm in the ground
Or a squirrel holding on to sacred nut
The wind makes her promises
And the mountains continue to tell their lies
The guitar lays down weary
Where the saxophone wails loud n' free
This sound is starting to turn into a fury
I tell no lies unless the barrel is a gun
Your graveyard smile has got me on the run
And all my friends tell me to stay put
But I'd rather ramble with the sun on my boot
Just listen to yourself and
There'll be nothing left to be said
A crack of the bat and I'm back where I started
Laughs of uncertainty show faces all unsupported
I can't get too close to the sun or I'll burn
But there is something in myself that yearns
For a better life filled with this and a little bit of that
Where I ask myself, "Who am I when I wear this hat?"
May 25, 2012
May 25, 2012 at 2:09 AM UTC
A groove
Cut too
Shallow
A shoulder
Too high
Unsupported
Raw layers
Veneers
Exposed
Rocking
Back
And forth
Till something
Splinters
And cracks
No amount
Of glue
Will hold this
Together
Rabbet
Rout
Remove even
More of
The material
Myself
Repeat until
The pieces
Hold fast
Mar 4, 2016
Mar 4, 2016 at 9:04 PM UTC
I’ve seen trees in white dust covered in red barks so to lean asking the dark-skinned civilian soldier to dance, to ****
as cranes stood awfully still in the night vigil of unsupported rhythmic rant, as mosque songs flew in cacophony with her
mental amber, whose face drips off at semi-covered sick puddle with dissolved soft tissues in magnificent soccer performance
and entering an expensive trance to answer foster homes or metro-stop problems selling large and loud fried mechanisms
of lively things, of trendy modes of being, as borrowed bikes lie unruly besides the rock, not locked but saddled down
not the saddened frown of foreigners, British consuls, forced English speakers or almost bald kindly smiling losers
that protests this portrayal, oh-so-heavily in cynicism’s eye, in the proud rooster display of really bad water quality
as I choose to not holler my soul out nakedly there, but over here where the prettiest girl in a hijab does smile
at her pious children playing wild, such bliss, that I would never know from the white thick films of her grandfather
that is mean to say, “someone down that ancestral seam must have done something.” implying folly, nothingness
in our libertarian mistletoe waltzing in suits and formal wear all andante in terminating station’s bugle’s sheer force
at its permissive admittance of goodbyes, in wispy accents that bothers your courageous boss’s college graduate daughter
at the cruel light-blue decoration bulbs draped across coconut trees that never fruit and hence is safe for the street
at the murals and skateboarding sites overfilled with graffitied mathematical equations in proud display of young idealism
at freshly brought cheap soy sauce smells rising high over no chimneys and new energy
for those without another home to smile wistfully
before bumping into the traffic lights, running amok, declaring themselves chickens.
Jun 1, 2018
Jun 1, 2018 at 10:15 AM UTC
Alone I've always been
Their true souls I've always seen
Casted out for my sight
Unsupported with few rights
I am the moon overhead
Shining on what's left unsaid
For this comes a heavy price
Knowledge of what's wrong and right
I am a song unheard
Always forgotten and never learnt
They do not wish to hear the words
That escape from their caged bird
I am the lone wolf of the tribe
No one's ever at my side
I am them and never me
Yet from my heart they always flee
Alone I always will be
Truth I always will see
Accept my solitude in this role
Expect nothing, embrace all in my soul
Aug 2, 2014
Aug 2, 2014 at 7:43 AM UTC