"unusable" poems
I have only one match left
One gave me a sparks and nearly caught fire, but instead turned out to be too fragile to use, so I set it aside in hopes that it would give me a flame one day when its ready
The one before that was lit too brightly and burnt my fingers, making me drop it on the ground to burn out on its own, scorching the ground below me with licks of orange and red and passion I don't know how to handle
That one match on the counter, I'm far too afraid to ignite, and instead allowed it to grow wet and unusable to even strike against the rough to attempt to set it ablaze
All the others were duds and broke too easily, so I had to throw them all away, unable to be used for the warmth it should have provided
I have only one match left
How will I ever light my way?
Aug 23, 2018
Aug 23, 2018 at 4:33 AM UTC
The root suggests multiples,
a pair of shoes, yours and mine.
The prefix is a verb in motion, a
positive direction; a triumph of gravity
in defiance of its equal and opposite reaction.
He stands by the car in the grey light
with drizzle beading up on his shoulders.
Our life upset, torn at the seam into his and mine.
Turn around,
the coward whispers from my mouth.
I see my face reflected in the glass window
staring back at myself, the coward,
half of a set now rendered unusable, sold as scrap.
Turn around.
Multiples reduced to singular nouns.
My shoes are kicked and left by the door.
Everywhere his shapes are cut out of the dust.
The coward in me grins wide as a sickle
In the bathroom mirror. Our set of ghosts are
making too much noise, all night they keep me
up.
Nov 13, 2012
Nov 13, 2012 at 10:24 AM UTC
We stood in front of my grandmother’s
Old almirah, facing each other
The peacock feather and empty bags
Of the square room fell silent all over again,
Like strangers we stood facing each other.
Then they all came, marched in, reflections,
Paraded in like martyrs of Brute’s History.
I knew them all, she knew them too
They came, touched us one by one,
Like strangers we stood facing each other.
She looked confused just like me
Watching life pass by, centuries reuniting
After a very long season break, nations-
Travelled, explorers stood upstairs watching,
Like strangers we stood facing each other.
Streets strapped the coffee cans and middle-
Aged hospitals swallowed wars. Married women
Bend over like animals and in months, unable
To breathe they gave birth to few number plates;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.
The city vomited battles, human heads
And dreams of muted foul slaves. Men and-
Their violent tradition screeched for blue number-
Plates, lean number plates, handsome number plates;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.
Unexploded bombs bounced happy homes,
My brothers, my kids, my mothers
Blew their windows and ran, ran away,
Ran afar without destination;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.
They were all dark, their land was darkness
Or were we all blind?
Like a watchman we preserved darkness,
The vapours that filled their glasses did not speak;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.
We are all reflections, ripples and mirrors
Of men-dead and living.
They all stood outside my almirah, million faces
Inside a mirror. She did recognize them;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.
She did nothing, an unusable empathy rolled in,
The hypocrite did not even cry.
In quiet hours she smelt pain, blood and
History flowing from confronting corners;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.
An insignificant obligation drowned her nerve,
They needed a home, candle flame, cotton and wool.
The land, their land has become unfamiliar
And they stood outside locked gates and laws;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.
They all smelt the same blood, the abused blood,
I tried to kiss them and they kissed me back with-
Their cold lips. I tried to touch them, they touched-
Me back with water in their eyes;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.
Sep 6, 2015
Sep 6, 2015 at 5:12 AM UTC
We seem to gravitate towards coffee shops, even those who don't like hot beverages find themselves there. I suppose it's a good place to let go your baggage. Lose yourself for five minutes. Loosen up and unwind. That's hard to do even on a good day. The world always has an agenda that needs seeing to. Rather selfish of the Earth to be honest, and quite damaging to your self worth. You can't be at it's beck and call 24/7. But we try to, dear God do we try. Of course this leads to us burning up rather spectacularly. Giving, worrying, stressing, doing. Until we are left smoking, steam rising like a freshly made coffee. But nothing is fresh here. Burnt coffee. Unusable. No longer capable of the great feats we once were. Like the world had chewed us up and spit us out when we're no longer useful. What a ******** But what can you do to stop a ******** Not much as they are inheritly selfish - deep down in their very core, nothing but molten arrogance, festering beneath their skin this sense of entitlement. That is what it is. You can't change the world from what it is. Just as much as you can not change who you are. So take five minutes and go to a coffee shop. Lose yourself in a hot beverage. Watch the steam rise and be thankful it isn't yours.
Jul 30, 2015
Jul 30, 2015 at 3:41 AM UTC
is this craft
that chose you,
not defined by millimeters,
precision absolute,
curvatures, so eye pleasing
they demonstrate
no tolerance
for tolerance
of the
ordinary
the skill of words,
too, cut so fine,
find the
extraordinary within,
refine, refine, refine,
shave away the trite,
the reused, discard,
instant recognition,
unusable
cut new cuts,
thy spirit tolling,
thy soul trolling
anew
is thy
toolings earth sourced
from and of the
ever better,
ever closer,
always newer
make thy own designs,
faithfully execute
the new born original,
by elevating,
with the tools
in you, provide us,
by illuminating
no thing machined,
can ever be as fine
as the originality
that requires
soft spoken definition
in new ways,
heart and hand
guild crafted
when God designed the Connecticut
autumnal leaves,
overriding the summers's single green, good
but not miraculous, insufficient,
when contrasted with the
shades of red, yellow,
purple, black, orange, pink,
magenta, blue and brown
of newly fallen
words and worlds
in the season of change
write me a tool
so elegant, so complex,
so refined and yet so simple,
that its point will force no choice,
but engrave gasps of pleasure upon
my faltering eyes,
my slowing heart,
my exhausted limbs,
and make me
live again
through your
finest creativity
heat heat heat
burn to look beyond
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 9:38 AM UTC
Folksy blokes, like ya struttin’ ya thang
If you’ve come out of da Grand Ole Opry
But, won’t stay around for any old music sang
If it’s causing their head, to bob up and down and go all floppy
While rugged mountain men riding in some country rodeo
Can just step right up, to a Appalachia recording studio
Put down several tracks and become a worldwide pop star
They sing about hillbilly ways, while cogging or flatfooting from afar
Talking ‘bout wild hogs, gators, foxes & how so many more
Taste so great, using leftovers as bait & making real men roar
Old fables, told through pictures and patterns, upon knitted quilt
Even showing the feuding days of the Hatfields versus McCoys
From both sides of Tug Fork stream, with many unemployed
Although Asa and Devil Anse, said, ‘they hadn’t much guilt’
All because of a judge and 5000 acres of unusable swamp land
Once owned, by a close kissin’ cousin named, Perry Cline
Who didn’t even get any blood on his hand
They started a war, that could’ve been stopped
By a bottle or two, of good ole mountain moon-shine
Both clans almost wiped out, if last man standing had accidentally dropped.
Sep 26, 2019
Sep 26, 2019 at 10:40 PM UTC
There's something inexplicable
about the way
they make you feel
nothing.
Happiness is fleeting
but
you are your own mistake
you keep repeating.
one of these nights
might turn out right
if you keep your mouth shut
like the door you're always
finding yourself behind
with your back against the wood,
muscles tensing
as you knew they would.
Nose bleeding-
when is the last time you ate?
It took you an hour to get ready but
no one can see all your hard work
in the shade.
"baby, you look great"
is all you wanted to grace you ears
but you've got too much on your plate
and there are only couples here.
They will pay you no mind
and you will begin to feel
you might have been left behind.
you pretend you aren't hungry
because it seems more grungy.
cigarettes will stain your teeth
and smoke will spin circles at your feet
as you sway alone;
always hanging in the wings
you're looking for another drink
another triple shot
and you sink deeper into
the half-assed hope
that this will be a night
you forgot.
Just more meaningless crumbs
of these evening hours
accumulating into an unusable mass
of dried out nights
exaggerate another fight
you had with your mind-
what will you do when they call you out
for being lower than the grout
in the bathroom
baby face like you just came out of the womb
your knife is duller than
your conversation topic
you're a fake-
From a mile away can you be spotted.
Drained of inspiration
plagued by perpetual consternation
what will you sample next
on your way to a falsified elation.
Spending weeks away dragon chasing-
How long will you be on mental vacation?
They're growing impatient.
C.e.M. 12.21.2014
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 1:42 AM UTC
You will not believe this:
The uniform peeping out of the cupboard
Giving way for the cockroach to tread past the wardrobe.
The drapes shut on one side and undone on another,
For which even the squirrel on the window-sill sat in wonder!
The wet towel on top of the chair
And the filthy clothes smelling the air.
The books lying at all angles of the table,
Liable to tumble on a shake!
Glasses of water near the crib-
Half poured and some lingering for the next kick!
The timetable stuck on the wall,
Amid its spare glue inviting the obnoxious dust.
The calendar showing the last year
Besides the pen stand stuffed with unusable markers.
The school bag flung over the bed
Coupled with its stuff swarming past its outlet.
The carpet twisted tall,
Before the door slammed against the wall.
And a girl snoozing in the bed
With a book on her face-
Her finger pressing the snooze button in relentless pace,
And her feet kept over the computer maze!
You tell it is me-
A room encompassing horrid stuff during Read more →exams—
Yeah! It seemed familiar!!!
Jan 6, 2013
Jan 6, 2013 at 12:45 AM UTC
Chaos erupts through the screaming
The words jumbled, corrupt, unusable
Meanings lost
Thoughts backwards
YELLING doesn't help
Anger boiling, spilling over
The order all confused
Emotions explode
Feelings incorrect
YELLING doesn't help
I was trying to say one thing
Out came another
You didn't hear me stumbling
Or even try to bother
To see past the screaming anger
Neither of us listening because
YELLING doesn't help
I needed to air my frustrations
Not scream for an hour
Then cry for three
I needed you to hear me
Not fly off the handle
Then see my point an hour later
Next time I'll write it down
YELLING doesn't help
Apr 19, 2010
Apr 19, 2010 at 6:38 AM UTC
I am the Robot with the improbable dream:
I want to be human, the hominid supreme.
Yet, I plead for this with silent screams
For I am only a machine.
I am thoroughly dysfunctional,
Defective, inept, delusional,
Pathetic and utterly unusable,
Inadequate and artificial.
I'm synthetic, poorly composed of alloys,
Crudely manufactured and wasting away.
My will to endure has long been destroyed.
I await my welcome decay.
Bestowed upon me is an incessant sorrow
From years of feeling used and borrowed.
Life never improves, not now, not tomorrow,
So I am devoid of hope; I'm hollow.
I'm riddled with inane fears and faulty gears,
And I'm rusting further over the years.
I anticipate a merciless demise,
But I no longer suffer from the need to survive,
For I experience chronic strife;
I have the impossible desire to teem with life.
With monotony, this dream I have sought,
For I will never accept that I am naught but a robot.
Apr 15, 2013
Apr 15, 2013 at 12:12 AM UTC
I still love you. Is that a bad thing? I can’t eat or sleep. My thoughts hallucinate at the mention of your name. I see your face. Everywhere; my dreams- you’re holding me close, and you never let go. Remembering that time we shuffled out over the desolate forest in our aging wellies- you’d squeeze my hand tighter for reassurance.
I can still feel you’re warmth condensing against my skin. But it’s beginning to fade. . And I’m lost. I’m beginning to drift away. Endlessly searching for that closure you bestowed within me. I need you. I’m lost without you by my side.
Everything seemed to erode when you’d left. The ache for forgiveness is still there and forever will be. You carved that dagger into my heart like it was funny. Like you found humor in my agony. It pierced through your azure globes as your smile widened at the excruciating pain you threw upon me. You just walked away and I shouted and I screamed;
COME BACK! COME BACK! COME BACK!
I just lay there on the ground. Numb.
You gazed deeply into my soul, robbed me from of the little purity I had left. You left me. Shattered. Broken. Unusable. You ripped out part of my heart as we said our goodbyes. And I still love you.
Nov 15, 2015
Nov 15, 2015 at 1:05 PM UTC
Babe called me Film Noir
Said my head was darker than onyx, ashes and ebony,
And I was soaking in a solace that was felt with my presence,
Like hot candle wax dripped down the spine.
Film Noir with more than fifty shades of grey,
And messages I liked to leave in his pants pocket
"God is Dead" to deepen his uncertainty of faith.
Merlot on my tongue like a mouthful of blood while I watch him unravel.
Babe called me Film Noir
Said I always felt like home,
Like home was hell and made you anxious and suicidal,
Like a door with nothing behind it.
Film Noir that was art and lovely and terrifying.
And appreciated for it's talent of deepening wounds that were thought to be already healed.
Then kissed them apologetically, stitching them closed,
But so insincere.
Maybe now he's my Film Noir,
So tragically ending our love.
Like broken china on the floor of the parlor,
So precious to look at, but unusable and a waste.
Till the day he took his life
Babe called me Film Noir.
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 11:02 PM UTC
is this craft that chose you, not defined by machine millimeters,
precision absolute, curvatures, so eye-pleasing,
they demonstrate no tolerance for tolerance of the
ordinary?
***the skill of words, too, cut so fine,
find the extraordinary within, refine, refine, refine,
shave away the trite, the reused, discard the instant recognition,
unusable***
Aug 11, 2016
Aug 11, 2016 at 7:43 PM UTC
At times it all fails
to make any type
of worthy sense
at all.
Watch the talking heads
talk about false
events and never question
this reality.
The lies flow like
***** undrinkable
water out of a
rusty unusable pipe.
That turtle I seen on Alma
street wasn't a turtle at all.
It was a tire.
The mind finds ways to accept
these unbelievable truths.
Even when your soul curses
your decisions
and your heart cracks in
zig-zag patterns as
you ingest more
and exhale the soot
of your experience.
Scrape away all that remains
of yesterday in hopes
of creating a better
tomorrow.
Make your own path
past the
justly stricken suffering
souls who bought into the
lie and now dance among
the angry dogs.
Plenty of riches blind
the fools,only
one true eye controls
them all.
Make the first move
in this
war they have waged
against our reality.
Hold true
to that questioning voice
inside your head and run
towards the front,
while screaming
questions about
it all.
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 4:42 PM UTC
I put on your old watch. "Like father like son." ( —Not quite.) It is too big. I took a few links out but I'm leaner. All of the windows are open and the quiet fragments of unasked questions linger. I think I lost them in the newly occupied rooms of houses strangers now call home. Like an attic with limited storage space, I arrogantly discarded the opportunity to inherit your more worldly possessions —as though I believed your thoughts and memories weren't even worth it; like they would have been clutter. Unusable. But we are still too much alike. Every year I find more of you in my mirror. In my house. Downtown. At the dock.
Will I love my future children the way you loved me?
Mom still wakes up at 5:30, did you know? She makes me tea, and gives me a look she used to give you. I can see that she is afraid that I am becoming increasingly unreachable; that she is watching history repeat itself. She read it in your cards, and I guess she read it in mine too.
"You are so much like him," she'll fuss. She'll ask me to cut my hair for the hundredth time. "He liked that too," when I breathe in fresh air. Her garden was your favorite place in the world. "You know, your father..."
—She's getting married soon, but I can see that she still misses you. Your name is still on her lips, but she keeps them pursed to take a slow sip of her too-hot drink. She doesn't want to burn herself on the memory of you.
Apr 24, 2014
Apr 24, 2014 at 11:17 AM UTC
I look into myself and see only an accumulation
of lost objects
Piles of beautiful, forgotten documents
unusable
but loved for what they are
I am the words on a tea-stained music sheet
that mean nothing
and yet
you turn them over eternally in your mind
because there's something about that
sequence of syllables
that makes them
irresistible.
Look at my shelves and see my soul
Repeat my words and learn my essence,
Home is knowing who you are.
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 5:16 PM UTC
Carried home from a family occasion
and placed in the icebox,
slowly slid to the back of the fridge
as leftover moments fight for space
near the front.
Styrofoam predictions
of life after childish ambitions
are accidentally neglected
and left to spoil,
unattended and tempted
with wayward growth.
You may find them again,
rummaging through,
making space,
or maybe just looking for something
you thought you lost.
Long since forgotten,
the ideas molded
over the ages of a chilly
adolescence,
and what might have been promising
is now indistinguishable and unusable.
A small, unaffected edge may remind you
Of its purpose in a past life
and you’ll sigh
as you change the trash liner
to accommodate another failure.
You sometimes wonder
What you may have missed
piling so many options
only to be forgotten until they’re rotten.
It doesn’t help any
to be the one who has to retrieve it.
see what it is,
know what it was...
a subtle, sneaking certainty
of what it could’ve become.
more and more often, it’s too early
to stomach the sun
and you find the day
has begun without you,
as if it doubts your commitment
to present tense.
Still, you continue along hanging
from a precarious
cable car of ambivalence,
waving at each opportunity missed
as it passes you by,
your eyes
idly on the sky.
"Next time, next time"
You mutter
"Next time I'll give it a try."
C.e.M.
2.17.15
Edited 4.18.17
Apr 18, 2017
Apr 18, 2017 at 11:36 PM UTC
Katydid, dear katydid
Your wings unbroken
Whole, but unusable
All scrunched up
Like a terrible essay
Or the tenth draft of
A love letter
Tossed aside
All crumpled up
Because of how you
Backed yourself into a corner
Hidden amongst tendrils
And strands of grass
And weeds pressed into
Place in a synthetic
Prison-turned-hospital
You hide and change
Your skin, stripping it away
To be subtly reborn
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 2:09 PM UTC
I look down at my palette, and see the paints melting together.
I remember when we were like that,
colouring the canvas with life.
You were the deep, dark blue of an ocean at night,
and I was the grey of clouds.
You brought vividness to me,
and turned my dull hue to vibrance.
So how did we get like this?
The painter’s brush mixed us too far,
turning our kaleidoscope into a jumbled mess.
Murky brown, and unusable,
unable to be separated.
We’ve become so close our colours have merged
and we are no longer separates.
Wherever I go I take some of you with me.
Dragged across the canvas behind me,
like an afterthought.
The trail of a comet.
A past that will never really leave me
because by now it’s a part of me.
It’s second nature
to think of you when my mind wanders
and to reach for your hand without thought.
You’ve changed me forever
and I can never go back
to a time before you
before us.
But why would I want to?
May 24, 2013
May 24, 2013 at 10:37 PM UTC
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “tainted”? Poisonous, contaminated, ruined? But what if tainted means the start of something new? When animals die or become road **** they start to decay, bringing foul odors from so much decay, yet the decay brings back life to the world. Flesh being eaten preserves life’s energy. The organs fertilize the seeds for grass to grow. The air whips away the smell of tainted meat rotting, as the sun grows hotter. Maggots feast until they’re flies. When nothing is left of the tainted carcass, they fly away. Blood feeds the soil which causes a new beginning of flowers, grass, and trees. The old tainted life can turn into a beautiful new start. In life, just because something is contaminated, or tainted, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is unusable, but it could be something greater than what was left behind.
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 3:44 PM UTC
I am a puzzle,
When completed I am a masterpiece,
But now I sit here unfinished at the hands of a five year old.
I am the half bitten cookie,
That the five year old left out on the table to be tossed in the garbage.
I am an ice cube,
That unfortunately missed the cup and now lays on the floor,
Still strong and solid but partially puddled in sorrow.
I am an old bridge,
A few years ago I was glowing with beauty,
Now I sit here broken, unusable and instead of glowing,
All I cast is a dark and lonely gloom.
I am our love,
Something that could be magical,
But instead is a chess game of emotions never to be finished.
You are that five year old,
Leaving me in the dust unfinished and broken.
Jul 2, 2013
Jul 2, 2013 at 1:31 PM UTC
All I have to give to you in this life
Is the words that I forge on the tip of my tongue with my own two hands
So listen closely and read carefully
To these words that I shape in fire and darkness for you
Heated up in a blazing furnace stoked with the coals burning in my heart
Hammered into these sentences while still glowing yellow-orange
Placed in water to temper and harden
So that when you trace my lexicon it won't break under your scrutiny
And will last under the pressure of your love
(Discarding away the **** of unusable vocabulary;
I repeat this process until my words become sentences
And my sentences become the verses that I meant for you)
Aug 6, 2012
Aug 6, 2012 at 11:11 AM UTC
It’s a strange thing
This company we crave
The rehearsing of phrases
And emotions
Forever striving to fit
Into the puzzle
But those inconvenient feelings
Distort our edges
Making us unusable
They cast us aside
And we painfully discover
How tricky this puzzle is.
Straining to crack the code.
Though its all just for show
Oh, but we do want to be beautiful.
So does it matter if all the pieces are unique?
We’re all just looking at the big picture anyway.
-Taylor
Aug 6, 2011
Aug 6, 2011 at 10:01 AM UTC
Sparklers, fireworks and simple flame has drawn my attention since I was young.
I almost set my moms apartment ablaze at 5 years old.
She said,
"You play with fire, and you'll get burned. Or worse, you'll burn everything down."
She never told me that one day a boy would set a fire in my soul and never return to put it out.
She never told me I'd have to water it down to unusable kindling.
She never said that wet wood would warp.
She never told me that cutting off the oxygen would suffocate me, too.
I guess she shouldn't have to though, because if you play with fire, you could burn it all down.
I just never thought that "all" would mean me.
Mar 21, 2015
Mar 21, 2015 at 4:04 AM UTC
In a city
In a room
With no thing
Save a rescued
Chair
There’s
A windowpane view
Without reflection
To the streets
Below
Sits
A man without
Purpose
With Determination
Broken
By
A Notion
You see
He thought himself
Conspicuously unusable
Sentenced
To Be
Some detached observer
Surfeited with suffering
Posing
What
Could be
Apart
From the pain
Aug 6, 2016
Aug 6, 2016 at 12:21 PM UTC