"untaught" poems
I'm somebody's daughter
Made of sugar and gasoline
I wash away the filth until I bleed
Desperate to be clean
I'm somebody's daughter
A small and hungry crime scene
Made of guilt and strawberry cream
But I never cry in my dreams
I'm somebody's daughter
Trying to become untaught
They love the sound of sorry
Even when they know I'm not
Sincerely, someone's daughter
Jul 20, 2023
Jul 20, 2023 at 3:48 AM UTC
That you are fair or wise is vain,
Or strong, or rich, or generous;
You must have also the untaught strain
That sheds beauty on the rose.
There is a melody born of melody,
Which melts the world into a sea.
Toil could never compass it,
Art its height could never hit,
It came never out of wit,
But a music music-born
Well may Jove and Juno scorn.
Thy beauty, if it lack the fire
Which drives me mad with sweet desire,
What boots it? what the soldier's mail,
Unless he conquer and prevail?
What all the goods thy pride which lift,
If thou pine for another's gift?
Alas! that one is born in blight,
Victim of perpetual slight;—
When thou lookest in his face,
Thy heart saith, Brother! go thy ways!
None shall ask thee what thou doest,
Or care a rush for what thou knowest,
Or listen when thou repliest,
Or remember where thou liest,
Or how thy supper is sodden,—
And another is born
To make the sun forgotten.
Surely he carries a talisman
Under his tongue;
Broad are his shoulders, and strong,
And his eye is scornful,
Threatening, and young.
I hold it of little matter,
Whether your jewel be of pure water,
A rose diamond or a white,—
But whether it dazzle me with light.
I care not how you are drest,
In the coarsest, or in the best,
Nor whether your name is base or brave,
Nor tor the fashion of your behavior,—
But whether you charm me,
Bid my bread feed, and my fire warm me,
And dress up nature in your favor.
One thing is forever good,
That one thing is success,—
Dear to the Eumenides,
And to all the heavenly brood.
Who bides at home, nor looks abroad,
Carries the eagles, and masters the sword.
3.8k
I
I greeted you, my inevitable day
In this shaky firmness of my hands;
Assuring me of my weakness; the languidity of my serene constitution.
The sky smeared with fright,undeed, and look, hark to how the sun closed the night!
This was but unpalatable dew, misty in its impatient greyness
Avidity for genuine sorrow and late confessions
The calm heart then wronged, and soon the war touched the light!
II
Beware of love, o silly hearts!
Loving thoughts, are indeed averse to relenting;
albeit they are always leading to smirks and destitution.
Release thy grains from yon grievous chain!
Spark thy wings, heave and bend!
Wear thy glee, ere any of the gruesome tears remain!
Shield thy mask with greater abhorrence!
III
O notions, fruit my doom and feed my sight!
From womanly misery I yet ought to emerge
and all its surly sleeves I ought to blight!
IV
O peace, fetch for me my untaught breath in vain
Keep me steady, ditch me not in the rain!
Tend me more, yet not my cheerful friend-
in pleasures whom thrives, in virtues was whom foolish!
Praising plaited hairs, swept amidst folded skirts.
Gruesome lies they carry, the finest they conspire to marry;
what a horrid, unalterable, evil concoction!
Yet pureness is the only that deserves awe;
virgins are a symbol of unrequited love, but tenderest affection!
However lonesome, hither and thither I shall bear this pain
Until my stern heart melted to love again.
Dec 19, 2012
Dec 19, 2012 at 7:38 AM UTC
Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Fair Venus’ train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo’s note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whisp’ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro’ the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.
Where’er the oak’s thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,
Where’er the rude and moss-grown beech
O’er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water’s rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclined in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the Crowd,
How low, how little are the Proud,
How indigent the Great!
Still is the toiling hand of Care;
The panting herds repose:
Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect-youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o’er the current skim,
Some show their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.
To Contemplation’s sober eye
Such is the race of Man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the Busy and the Gay
But flutter thro’ life’s little day,
In Fortune’s varying colours drest:
Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chilled by Age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.
Methinks I hear, in accents low,
The sportive kind reply:
Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone—
We frolic while ’tis May.
3.1k
Before man came to blow it right
The wind once blew itself untaught,
And did its loudest day and night
In any rough place where it caught.
Man came to tell it what was wrong:
It hadn’t found the place to blow;
It blew too hard—the aim was song.
And listen—how it ought to go!
He took a little in his mouth,
And held it long enough for north
To be converted into south,
And then by measure blew it forth.
By measure. It was word and note,
The wind the wind had meant to be—
A little through the lips and throat.
The aim was song—the wind could see.
2.8k
I'm in the here&now;
or on a ***** street busy with indifference
daylight falls over
like an iron curtain
and my caged dreams
suddenly claim
their seed innocence
I thought I met you
on unpredictable roads under my skin,
in the splitting of one second into another,
in the empty spaces of the atoms,
in the breath of the night
into the unthought known
or some promise, untaught
I’m holding here
my exhausted smile
me and a flower lady
holding unwittingly
a water lily
redeemed
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 11:31 AM UTC
Though frost and snow lock’d from mine eyes
That beauty which without door lies,
Thy gardens, orchards, walks, that so
I might not all thy pleasures know,
Yet, thou within thy gate
Art of thyself so delicate,
So full of native sweets, that bless
Thy roof with inward happiness,
As neither from nor to thy store
Winter takes aught, or spring adds more.
The cold and frozen air had starv’d
Much poor, if not by thee preserv’d,
Whose prayers have made thy table blest
With plenty, far above the rest.
The season hardly did afford
Coarse cates unto thy neighbors’ board,
Yet thou hadst dainties, as the sky
Had only been thy volary;
Or else the birds, fearing the snow
Might to another Deluge grow,
The pheasant, partridge, and the lark
Flew to thy house, as to the Ark.
The willing ox of himself came
Home to the slaughter, with the lamb,
And every beast did thither bring
Himself, to be an offering.
The scaly herd more pleasure took,
Bath’d in thy dish, than in the brook;
Water, earth, air, did all conspire
To pay their tributes to thy fire,
Whose cherishing flames themselves divide
Through every room, where they deride
The night, and cold aboard; whilst they,
Like suns within, keep endless day.
Those cheerful beams send forth their light
To all that wander in the night,
And seem to beckon from aloof
The weary pilgrim to thy roof,
Where if, refresh’d, he will away,
He’s faily welcome; or if stay,
Far more; which he shall hearty find
Both from the master and the hind.
The stranger’s welcome each man there
Stamp’d on his cheerful brow doth wear,
Nor doth this welcome or his cheer
Grow less ‘cause he stays longer here;
There’s none observes, much less repines,
How often this man sups or dines.
Thou hast no porter at the door
T’examine or keep back the poor;
Nor locks nor bolts: thy gates have been
Made only to let strangers in;
Untaught to shut, they do not fear
To stand wide open all the year,
Careless who enters, for they know
Thou never didst deserve a foe;
And as for thieves, thy bounty’s such,
They cannot steal, thou giv’st so much.
2.4k
The law said her body was made for love
The kind of love that wants to show you
just how much it loves you
by sticking things inside of you
hard
fast
Then slower
The kind of love that wanted to make the bible blush
make you quiver; the
kind of love when you put a female and male hamster together.
The kind of love that wanted to make music out of your ******
Love said "This is what happens
when you use
Needles to ingrain the words love
on peoples skin"
It feels a lot like pain did
Like when the first boy you ever loved
said I love you back
And proved it because he held you after
sticking sticky things inside of you
Like how he said hed wait untill you were ready
then said "You're gonna make me wait forever.."
How that guy on the third date said
"Come back to my apartament
So I can put what I want into you
Until you are empty
Because we might call it love"
Until you met a boy
who untaught what the word love meant
never asked you when you wanted to have ***
whose hands never roamed as greedily
searching for places to settle on your body
who didnt wish to make a home out of you by filling you senseless
and calling it his furniture
art
who traced outlines of constellations on the palms of your hands
and played
"Guess the Nebula"
Whose hardness never prodded you in the back
like a protest
in the early morning
whose breath always came easy
never hard
or fast
It was just holding you with no intention to
**** you
He said
"Love isnt what you put inside a person
In hopes of making it stick;and naming it after something beautiful
I can pin my thoughts on you but
you are not my canvas. That wouldnt be fair.
I respect your property."
There was nothing broken when he left.
Jun 10, 2013
Jun 10, 2013 at 3:57 PM UTC
While waiting at the river Styx, in twisted time untaught,
from branches of the gallows tree, in recollections wrought,
your soul, a beggar’s blanket, hangs in crazy quilted knots,
with dangling pearls and diamond studs in dripping crimson clots,
midst gaping wounds and bulging eyes like fouling apricots,
for wrapped like rope around your throat’s the Reaper’s grim garrote.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 9:48 PM UTC
Deep in my bones
In the webs of my soul
Dwells an experience of something much bigger
Hidden rhythm trickling through the flood of love's eyes
My heart melts as realizations collide
Spiraling through creative mind substance
Harmonious abundance
The back of my head
The seek in my bead
My dreams unfolding as we dance with the dead
Feeling the wait of heartache and dreams fade
The seems break
Drowning in words unthought
Language of the mind untaught
Heart strings pulled by moon beams
Seal the reams of each page
Writing away each wage
Are we awakened by our purpose?
Is it love that assures us?
Tip toeing through plastic gardens as not to awaken the true self
Searching the ground for what we know we put on the highest shelf
Maybe it was to keep it sacred
Perhaps by falling into falling out we chose to ignore our highest selves
Shocked by our desire to understand the depths of hell
As we fell attachments released and real ceased from our grasp
Choosing to relinquish with deadly sap
Stuck in this head throb our heart knows and time clocks us out from this doubt
We let it go
We let it go
We let it go
Oct 19, 2012
Oct 19, 2012 at 4:27 AM UTC
A dóggy drópped sóme Crappó
steaming ón the street,
a cóffee cólóred fungus
piled up óh só neat -
and there a juicy maggót
fóund it óh só sweet,
só simply sóft and tender,
just like a córpse's meat
Thee maggót, nót só clever
- simple and untaught -
was dreaming óf attentión,
slimelight's what it sóught.
An empty-minded cómrade
certainly'd help a lót -
anóther wórm-like nóthing
just the thing! it thóught.
While ******* in the Lóg's brain
- óh quite a simple chóre -
it replicated pustules,
petty, ghastly, sóre.
And when the Lógy maggót
****** in nóthing móre
it burst apart in wónder,
clóned Thee Artiste Whóre
Well, Petty Little Lógbrain,
Whóre, Thee Artiste crank
Are mixed up in the mire,
in mindless **** they sank.
Thee cópies creepy Crappó,
from pages where he stank.
and claims tó be Thee Artiste,
- Thee smell is simply rank
The móral óf this fable,
clear fór all tó see:
If fated with a Lóg brain
bear yóur destiny
and never let yóur EGÓ
rampage ón a spree!
Ór else like Whóre and Crappó
yóu'll sóón turn intó Thee.
CrE aka Trollminator
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 6:28 AM UTC
Globally dense, our ailing nation
makes one weep for sheer frustration
thoughts and dreams grow numb.
Tech-addled students scroll on phones,
‘midst scent of android pheromones,
wafting digital dumb.
Pop-culture, narcissist unkind
dispenses with the human mind
which, failing further, falls behind
the grimly global curve.
We read, in writing on the wall
arithmetic’s impending fall
while numbers loiter in the hall
to get what they deserve.
ENQUIRY, tagged as D.O.A,
a sheeted stiff, is wheeled away
her mourners left to grieve.
entitled maiden, full of sass,
LIBERTY begs a bathroom pass
her bladder to relieve.
When zit-faced rebels run the show
the dismal ratings plummet low;
a vulgarized cartoon.
Descending to unfathomed levels,
Ignorance applauds her devils
calling out their tune.
PATRIOTISM, tarred and feathered
headless, claws its cage untethered
foul, unloved, unfree:
Another casualty of time
which fell for want of noble rhyme;
to water FREEDOM’s tree.
CURIOSITY, half asleep,
now stirs and murmurs from the deep
uninterested, untaught.
She grows yet duller in her ways
returning to her ocean daze,
(her schools of fish uncaught).
HISTORY, dormant, lies in dust
a narrative no man can trust
a book no scholar reads.
Events unstudied as designed
wherein the heart of humankind
for want of context, bleeds.
DEMOCRACY degenerates
until God wills and activates
a nation’s drive to learn.
Curricula will be made void;
disheartened teachers unemployed,
their wisdom fit to burn.
You think the past was less obtuse?
Less prone to youthful thought-abuse?
Perhaps… back in the day.
And though it may have been the same.
this poet opts to place the blame
on digital delay.
May 1, 2017
May 1, 2017 at 6:55 AM UTC
Flames upon a plastic world
Take away what ugly truths lie beneath its skin
Unveiling what rotting minds forge
Upon the fragile births of a dreamworld
Far beyond the corruption and sin
Ground together so the greedy may gorge
No two flames are ever lit near
But on the rarest of days
The flames burns paths that cross
Igniting themselves to greater strengths
To eliminate what the greed filled world held dear
Showing old ways to untaught youth
To free their minds from frosts
And bring them, a more beautiful world.
Jul 5, 2016
Jul 5, 2016 at 12:06 AM UTC
I wonder if you know
how much it hurt
to be buried in intuition.
pure, untaught knowledge
without a single doubt of feeling.
I lay before you like
your open palm,
waiting for you to grasp
the concept of my love.
instead you left,
like the tear escaping my eye
and rolling down my cheek.
t.m.v
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 12:06 PM UTC
I don’t know why she was so easily frustrated
or why she spent hours on end,
at the end,
on the floor compulsively cutting
butterflies out of book pages.
I don’t know why she grew to hate her birthday so much
or why she seemed to become increasingly more and more indecisive.
I don’t know why she began to write those letters,
that jumbled, nonsensical prose
that tumbled, then rose again
only to fall again,
end and begin again.
What begins only just ends again.
And again.
I don’t know why I write in third person
or why I write these letters
or why I can’t make decisions
or why I hate my birthday so much
or why I’m burning these butterflies,
watching the flames feast on their wings.
And I don’t know why I think these things,
the things they say not to think.
But I think that the thoughts I think can’t just be unthought,
that thinking these things can’t be untaught,
like I can’t be untaught to love you.
And that’s where things get really confusing
because you’re not the you that I knew
anymore.
And I suppose I’m not the you that you knew anymore either,
but in my heart and somewhere in the attics of my brain
we’re together, alive again.
Aug 3, 2016
Aug 3, 2016 at 12:44 AM UTC
I transpose a verse in perfect harmony.
Specks of self-loathing fall from pitch and pattern.
Words backfire, break, and delude,
Into nothing more than a harmony.
I break apart a God complex larger than myself,
But still find I am the root of an apathetic religion.
I am broken, brittle, taut, but untaught,
I am nothing more than myself.
I speak to ears from days of lore.
I send for memories ago.
Passages forgotten, buried, and bruised,
Forgotten with the word of your.
Sep 14, 2011
Sep 14, 2011 at 11:22 PM UTC
The geometry of perfection
An equation of stars
Constellations spinning
Rhythmically to a melancholy
Melody written in the language
Of the essence of being
A brief connection that spans
Ages and draws together
The centuries since past
In reverent bravado
Wordlessly etching a memoir
Into a stately marble floor
Stumbling into grace
Like sudden elegance found
After a third glass of rose cabernet
Untaught steps mastered in
Moments engulfed in an
Overwhelming sense of pose
The dance of dances
A most classic and romantic
Masterpiece of body
Music and mind
Scripted by the soul
A renaissance of heart
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 11:41 AM UTC
Pride is a must, essential to guard
The Soul Within you claim your own.
Vanity, a replacement, an alter ego
To depend and rely prior
The True Self is known.
You are compelled to construct
a man made core to revolt
Around to contain your thoughts,
your feelings or else—
your heart shall rust.
Then living will no longer be
possible for you, are blinded.
You can't see, you cannot seek
yourself in your fear.
Confined and so you had to pretend
to put up a facade, a mask a tent.
Untaught of the fickle you must believe
in the dark, the unknown, mysterious
Shadow.
Aug 21, 2014
Aug 21, 2014 at 2:04 AM UTC
Times long gone; forsaken;
My vague and rusty past.
Moments lost and forgotten,
Through you, they always last.
The paths through life not taken;
Opportunities and decisions too;
Dreams, to be realized and broken;
My life, me; I see it, through you.
Through you; fragile; pure; I see,-
My genesis; every last memory,
Battling fate, learning to be me;
I see every detail of my life story.
You're like a mirror, in my future,
Through you, I see what I was.
I see, vividly, the whole picture;
Strokes of my strengths and flaws.
In you, my whole life is mapped;
Moments untouched; my destiny;
Like a dear present, unwrapped,-
Through your eyes, I see me.
Through your smile, I see hope.
I behold, me getting up after a fall.
Struggles on the route to the top;
Successes and failures; I see it all.
Through your tears, I see pain;
The essence of joy, love and faith.
Despair; the background of gain,
But beyond the hurt, I see strength.
Strength to overcome opposition.
Courage to look failure in the eye;
Will, pride, joy, and determination-
To spread my wings, to learn to fly.
In your silence, I feel my peace;
Composure in my loud thoughts;
Imagination; portraits of bliss;
I see the lines connecting the dots.
In your touch; untaught, harmless;
I feel love; energy pure and true.
One soul in two bodies; oneness;
I see us and I see me, through you.
Keep Smiling
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 10:23 AM UTC
This is not a poem.
I am not a lullaby
Nor a childhood monster
I am untaught
Unseen
Uncaught
You can never bring me down.
Though you try
I overcome it all
The hate
The violence
Mindsets of a bygone era
If I should fall
Another will take my place
**We
Are
Endless.**
We exist in the hidden places
You do not see us.
Yet we are rising
And we will be beyond restraint
by the time you finally deign to see us
As anything but your inferiors
Abnormal
QUEER.
This is not a poem.
This is a war cry.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 4:16 PM UTC
Your Gift
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
Counsel, console.
This is your gift.
Calm, kiss and encourage.
Tenderly lift
each world-wounded heart
from its fatal dart.
Mend every rift.
Bid pain, “Depart!”
Save every sorrow
for your own untaught heart.
May 10, 2020
May 10, 2020 at 6:17 AM UTC
Long ago at the water's edge
As I stared at the tides
The ocean waved at me
The wind played with my hair
A thought came to me
Silly as it may sound
"How will people know
That I was here?"
So I grabbed a stick and scrawled
My name on the shore
Happy that everyone
Will remember me for sure
But the water charged at the shore
Like a bull with horns
And to my horror
My name was gone
So I stopped worrying
If I'll be remembered or not
And felt the cool breeze
The nature, untaught.
Jan 11, 2018
Jan 11, 2018 at 12:48 AM UTC