"unswept" poems
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.
5.7k
I'm not good with words
they always come out wrong
but I'll write you a poem
because you keep me supported like my unswept floorboards
you have that wonderful smell of old ***** books
I want us to get together like cars merging into one lane of traffic
You're prettier than a third grader's sloppy cursive
You have a shine kinda like how people shine after sweating in the heat
you're more attractive than an icecream truck to suburban little kids
Your eyes are greener than lettuce
and your voice is more captivating than ****** pop music on the radio
Here's your poem
I told you I'm no good with words so yeah I'm not sure how to end this
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 1:45 AM UTC
Her fingers were covered in corn.
the corn after chewing, broken
pierced, churned- it could spread as butter
thick on stale toast, if needed
"it's fine, don't you worry, we'll get you all cleaned up"
she stared indifferently
Strings dangled from her mouth, unswept
full of necessary greens ---"mhm there there, this will give
you so much energy" --- drags of breath,
half inhale half choke. nothing to look forward to,
not the next soaking glob, not the cursing woman
in the bathroom, not the spill of light to her eyes
Where are the ladles, Did you check on it? The key? Just moved, most the suitcases aren't there yet. Remember to bring the Did you check on it? pay attention. Have you seen my grand kids?
who are you?
Sunday's are for the active ones
The games down the hall are too far. Why worry with legs, if she could just adjust to the left
the world could sag into an ongoing dream- No demands, no games, no movement.
The nurses hair net had more presence than the splotch of gray against her peeling itchy scalp. Drool leaked from leather lips, dampening the collar of her two month sticky blouse. Arms curled and locked,displaying under the wax skin cranberry patches-
she never wiped them off. Always the soft murmer of
a snore, always the smell of unbrushed teeth and hampers.
"Did you touch those where don't touch me scott scott scott leave my things alone thevenin I need a stop lying I want to go scott, scott? scott. I can't remember any"
I said my name four times before she heard me, knew me
I fixed her pillow and my sister marked off the day on the calendar.
We told her about school, the marching band, each word
filled with forced enthusiasm. She bobbed her head in circles, lazily
rolling her eyes, the curtain shading the empty space. We spent 30 minutes precisely.
She was more than I realized.
I never knew she had horseback riding, violin playing days. She traveled and hiked. We could have been close. Unraveling with the mystery, I felt the lateness of my curiosity.
It was 30 minutes precisely, always.
We acted as strangers, reciting routine and wishing each other a happy day and a quiet love you
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 5:21 PM UTC
flip/switch.
the dark runs to corners:
unswept cobwebs, unmarked
graves of
lacewings.
mirror, mirror.
tessellate:
you
me
you
kaleidoscopic in the seven years’
worth of bad luck.
you come here with new eyes and
brand-new dockers. i
mend the broken siding in my mind’s eye.
prune the wisteria and uproot
ivy in handfuls.
i unconsciously check for
onion peel
underneath the kitchen sink.
the pantry
where one of the pups died.
the disappointment of eyes
bloodshot
but dry.
Oct 26, 2011
Oct 26, 2011 at 7:19 PM UTC
he had low-grade
tattoos on his neck
and his clothes
wore transparency.
beneath his eyes
held a dying sun.
he spoke in thanks
and respect, the cuts
upon his wrists called
reached a finger out
and called my eyes
to say hello,
he spoke in gratitude
for the smoke i gave him.
he smelled like cigarette
stained couch cushions
he spoke a respectable
ebonic intellect.
his fingernails
were unswept
floor trim
and his teeth
were smashed
dinner plates
at his mother house.
departing he said
thank you
and i offered him
a cigarette for the road
and he refused and said
“for talking to me”
Aug 23, 2015
Aug 23, 2015 at 9:26 PM UTC
I have always thought of home to be a place
have described myself within a myriad of
different protagonists, herbs and flaccid analogies
i have been birds nesting in rafters, wolves
and nothing more than a willowy spirit without a
body--
and i thought for a moment that people could be homes
too, the way you walk into hugs or are metaphorically
gathered, i watched him in the mirror sliding around
my waist, resting on my hips, smelling my hair, picking
me up to put in a vase, ridiculously pretty, you know that?
and it's not that I longed for more,
that I have longed for where, for a here that
i am acutely aware of how i vacillate between empty
and overflowing, of my own thoughts, i have heard
you think too much and maybe I do-- maybe too much
of me lingers
In dreams I unzip and turn myself inside out
like a dress, fold my shoulders down and the mountains
reappear, i am all the grass of a former self, before the tides and winds and men, before my choices bent me back
and took a swiss army knife to whittle me away
i think i am longing to be clean
to be over to breathe and not feel the strings
the way my voice splits into a rank of pipes swelling into a hundred voices and he only hears a few, i am many
longing to be one, he cannot twist the drawknob
because I am already filling the cathedral in the words of
Stravinsky, *the
m onster never b r e a t h e s*
and I feel like i never have
i am earnest to fill my lungs with air instead of water
join the present, but the Welsh knew me too well,
the portuguese, saudade and the Germans, sehnsucht
put a letter to the things that can only be described in paragraphs or tears or indeterminate intervals of time sitting on his bed while he showered, all the doors slammed, empty coffee cups,
clogged sinks, unswept floors, long drives,
shots of whiskey, withering glances held on tension and
te amo mouthed across the room--
we wonder, can we be reached? wrought? touched. found.
in our deepest hearts, wounded mysticism, an untapped sense of joy that can be lanced and spilled, I am wistful, anxiously waiting to be siphoned,
Hiraeth.
Apr 9, 2017
Apr 9, 2017 at 9:41 PM UTC
On sunshiny mornings I'll
Perch myself on the edge of
The sink and look past the
Basil and cyclamen
Past the stained glass birds
And rainbow crystals
And I will look at the trees
As I feel the poetry and taste cold pizza.
When it starts to rain I
Will brew myself a blue mug of expensive
Imported tea and sit upon the
Unswept linoleum as I listen to the
Refrigerator rumble behind my head
And the rain echo in sheets on the skylight.
And once in awhile a
Stray drop comes through the window.
If I ever find myself lonely
I'll take the six minutes back to the
Place that never sleeps and
Drape myself on the humming stairs with my other half
To remind myself that
Solitude is a gift.
People change but
Houses stay the same.
There is much to be found
When you stop sitting in chairs
And realize that the place you call
Home is a place to feel safe.
Jul 10, 2016
Jul 10, 2016 at 6:17 PM UTC
Before too long I'm gonna go away.
I'll walk the unswept streets and the humid heats
In the uncleaned city of L.A.
There are things I'm sure I'll break as I make my way;
Laws and promises, hearts and confidences--
That's the sad way we work today.
My heart'll find its home out in the West,
In the form of a man who will enclose my hands,
And he'll spill all his words out and digress.
We'll have four children, then never get our rest,
And we'll apologize when they finally find out that
Mothers do not always know best.
The sun will stain our skin,
And then illness can take us, our treatments will break us,
And we might not ever be whole again.
Then we'll never know
If there will always be borders and pain and disorders
And longing and fences to slip below.
Our children will grow old after we die,
While we sleep in the ground with our roots all around
Or our ashes will wade through the deep sky,
And they will miss our lives, and so will I,
But they'll think of when we walked the unswept streets
And we tucked in their sheets
And they'll smile while they cry.
Mar 24, 2013
Mar 24, 2013 at 2:07 PM UTC
You cast that vermillion border
and glance at me with unswept eyes
Your voice holds pain and the comfort
of solitude
I have journeyed you a hundred years.
The wind gets caught
in your waves. You throw us back to sea
I hunger for you,
the clamor of rocks that descend into darkness
and the clouds that hide your secret skies.
The ecstasy of you in the very
pit of me waits to come out
and engulf me once more.
Nov 19, 2018
Nov 19, 2018 at 8:19 AM UTC
Not only in sweet melodious song
Of robin trilling at fresh break of dawn.
Thy love and Presence I now find
In floors unswept and tattered blind
From wearisome day and night void of sleep
Which causest the merriest heart to weep.
In dismal November's drizzling rain
Which beating against broken windowpane,
A funeral dirge from sad yesterday;
Solemnity of knells—hopeless decay.
~Hilda~
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014 at 6:57 PM UTC
stove-top percolator sits stove-top *****
house is a flippant mess of disgust and
attempt. there's a distant whisper of a
yell to somewhere someone else outside,
blinded windows and piquing sunlight
writing lawnmower hums to the conclaves
of covered eardrums and a thought crosses
the mind:
*'stale old coffee and undusted, unswept floors.
life is an attempt to keep the world clean and yet
lose yourself in the rubble *** it seems that all
secret desires crave an unmade bed'*
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 6:15 PM UTC
Eyelash powder flowing loosely
As the window of wishes is dusting the breeze
Fingertips with scars that one cannot see
Lips that shudder with waves of pills
Swallowing a maze that one cannot follow
Malicious force when one is weak
Jan 1, 2014
Jan 1, 2014 at 5:08 AM UTC
It's been ten days since I've written.
Ten days I've been an uninspired mess.
Ten days I've had the little dizzies after standing up too quickly.
Ten days I've felt rug burn in my cheeks and cotton mouth in my eyes.
Ten days I've felt the grease ooze from my hair down my back.
Ten days I've found a home in the unswept floorboards by the door.
Ten days I've bathed in crumpled, ink infected papers.
Ten days I've drawn blood from dry lips no longer able to whistle.
Ten days I've doubted tomorrow.
Ten days I've...just...
Jun 29, 2012
Jun 29, 2012 at 12:10 AM UTC
january's the year
where mottled greyness
mingles in with a spitting torrent
of teawater
and shyly showing
slowing
a shadowed gold wisp
of cloudy hushedness
settles past broken branches
and scratched identity
mossed-over
past purple stones
upon the leaves of day
and afternoon's
gleaming water shimmer
though fathomed reaches falls
into icy teacup thoughts
through unswept orange light
in shortened shadows
down from a scudded moon
of frog dimples
and imperfect rays
as fire-cold steam
rises to a rapid slip-stream
and crish-crash clouds
hush and sigh:
diminished lightening shock
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 3:51 AM UTC
Reluctant sadness
was hidden in the essence of my skin
I am dressed in black
for the walking mysterious, feaful,
recurring death I have become.
No one can see my tears
or feel my soul;
they just walk on my fractured heart
that has become a broken glass
unswept in my coffin of thoughts.
I can barely breathe
when all I inhale is toxic cosmic
my vision is blurred with lines
of obscurity and anxiety.
I am down to feeling sappy,
happiness is fake smiles in daylight
and wet pillow at night
fiction truths arouse in my dark room
as I depict a dark twisted fantasy.
My soul is darkened
as my spirit reminisced over my dark ages
when I was a soulless temple
with no cups running over me
no spiritual reflection,
no mental redemption
just a broken sculpture
who can barely breathe.
Aug 4, 2015
Aug 4, 2015 at 4:26 PM UTC
Shifting bruises in unswept dust
Summer whispers to trees untouched
A wind-swept melody
runs through sun-baked weeds
Amber roots seep steadily
Staining the driftless sky
May 2, 2021
May 2, 2021 at 12:35 AM UTC
Advent at the Dollar Store
The ***** roachy desperation of
the unswept dollar store’s cellophane dreams
At Prices You’ll Love boxes of oilless
popcorn poppers deep-fat fryers massagers
to sweeten generational desperation
behind the counter cigarettes locked up
We Cash Work And Welfare Checks can’t afford
Lives collapsed so we console ourselves with
electric hair-curlers and boxes of chips
singing NFL coffee machines
shiny new bicycles to be stolen
before the end of January or
left out to rust in the February rain
dusty plastic holly shiny CD
players for the administration of
anaesthesia Jumbo Bargain Gift Wrap
for Your Happy Holiday Shopping Pleasure
No Shirt No Shoes No Service No, No, No
Hyphenated Industries of Chicago,
Tokyo, Seoul, and Taipei wishes us
a Merry Christmas
Dec 10, 2016
Dec 10, 2016 at 7:34 PM UTC
The next time you go running in circles daydreaming, take me with you.
Round and round and round and round
Until the sky clears, clouds disperse on the ocean,
Dancing.
On unswept autumn leaves.
On a hillside with the heavens open - soaking you to the skin.
A field of long grass in morning mist, of corn at sunset.
Flowers in your hair, linen round your shoulders, round your waist,
Freckles swimming in flushed cheeks, auburn hair
Whipping round your face. Smiling, laughing,
Round and round you race, chasing down your dreams,
Leaving normality behind. Up you soar
To dizzying heights,
Forgetting sleep on summer nights.
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 2:23 PM UTC
(Secret lovers) By meself.. secret devotions, titled emotion sweeps the dusted lands.. Secrets turned to openness,false lovers have strong demands. Fashion glasses and technology to hide the child inner face, the inner place is no longer in their hearts, yet their pocket books. Unswept crannies and nooks to unmask young romancers graves, where if you turn the page your conquest would not be seen..Two lovers one dream can they entrust all to eachother, sister and brother how thyselves you soon forgot.. The kettled *** boils to free those worldly slaves, where none behave. For god calls us all to an enlightening where the invitings for you and me not them..Forget your soo called friends for they make you stools of what was, all because fake words turned reality..For they believe as they please, their hearts are lusted, theyve spoiled their seed.. Open your eyes new age 60s generation, where **** and *********** are now your wicked god..You fashionistas you comfortable slobs...How lost you have become in fornications, where the world is your heaven, your divided nations are bound to fall sometime soon....
May 9, 2015
May 9, 2015 at 12:43 PM UTC
I am good with life, and life is good with me
We have battled
shed blood, and puddles of tears
fill the footsteps of our struggle
We have loved deeply
melded spirits lifted above an unswept life
exposing the naked elegance of the universe
We have learned through reflection
now in evening hours, battered and cut, toothless and bloodied,
looking out and laughing at conquered obstacles
wiser from experience, fear is now friend, not foe
love is embraced as the magic elixor, and learning continues
Dec 7, 2015
Dec 7, 2015 at 8:30 AM UTC
he was an unswept floor
she was unsolved rubik's cube
he taught her to write poetry
she taught him to love
she said that love was a butterfly
he'd never even been in a cocoon
he said that words were twelve story buildings
she was afraid of heights
he was a creaky old cabin
she was an unfinished jigsaw puzzle
but he had the missing piece, lost in the dust behind his rickety counters
and she was a fixer upper, looking for a renovation
they were red stripes with orange plaid
they were mismatched socks
both so different
both so lost
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 9:35 PM UTC
I’ve been letting the weather be my liaison.
I can’t look at you,
That’s my reason.
Windy autumn guard-dogs my fears
Whistles and whips words
Right past your cold ears.
We harvest our regrets before the midnight frost.
They thicken with the air
to freeze the pieces that we lost.
Frozen long enough to forget the trouble.
Choreographed in time
Cut into double.
Her hardest hue remembers the rest.
Ice thaws and so do we.
Subside, and try to do what’s best.
A new spring-clean
forgives the light that we’ve missed.
Even beige walls gleam.
Cicadas and stillness, and summer rain
harmonize with the crackling fires
and night train.
Stronger I’ve called it
to let the tides of change
drown what’s around it
and let “the way things are” surround it
but there’s nothing cookie-cutter
about it.
Like dust left in a corner just to settle there
a dear friend left unswept
flavors stagnant air.
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 2:20 AM UTC
Suffice to say
that if you came back,
I would throw open my arms
and dance, love,
because it's easier
than falling prostrate
on an unswept floor.
The door remains unlocked
in case you try
to come back home
but have forgotten your key.
There's one beneath the mat:
back left corner.
Although it's possible
that you've forgotten by now,
so I sleep easier
leaving it open.
If someone should enter,
I have nothing to steal.
Some things have changed:
The cat has run away
and I've learned
to find strength
in solitude.
But I still wear
that blue dress
that you always loved,
and I like to pretend
I can still make out your scent
among the cotton fibers
as they rub together
when I dance to a familiar song.
And I do still dance.
Once you return
we can re-lock the gate.
The neighborhood's not safe
like it used to be.
Sep 4, 2011
Sep 4, 2011 at 8:19 PM UTC
Take my heart
But leave my soul alone
Leave my slate unswept
Leave my mind unbiased
My innocence intact
I wear my heart on my sleeve to let those who wish
To see it
To soothe it
Or **** it as they choose
But my immortal soul
My unknown reputation
My fluxuating mentality
And my receding innocence
Are mine to form
Are mine to shift
Are mine to mold
They
Are
MINE
Leave them be
Take my heart instead
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 5:41 PM UTC
Behold boats ashore
Sailors tucking
Amidst tranquility
Unswept nooks prevail
Behold ant's mount
Throned treasurer
Amidst royal urge
Shattered crevices prevail
Behold crowned emperors
Blessed rancid troops
Amidst hordes of entities
Solidarity still prevails
Seems bleak yet blissful
Let bitter truths be sugary loopholes..
Jul 7, 2018
Jul 7, 2018 at 6:17 AM UTC