"unvarnished" poems
Static, memories
Emanating, separating
The postcard- perfect
Still life speaks
From its storied past.
Invisible, to drift
Among
The florid aphorisms,
Ending in
Deleterious debris,
Aftermath of
The inevitable.
Empty room, echo hollow
Tabula rasa -
Carpet clean, quite candid in it's
Return to callow.
Consciousness athirst,
Absorbing phenomena
Effervesce, inquisitive
Ideas foment,
Sealed inside a question.
The what -
Against the narrow
Scarcity,
And fatigue of should.
A tender malleable
Youth,
Betrayed, under
An assumed decorum -
Residue of truth,
Flattened emotion
Privations of a self
Unheard;
Misplaced affirmation,
Buried pathologies
In architecture
Fear manifests symbolic.
Harboring apathy
The lunacy of pious
Pedigree,
Import contagion,
Fetters of benignity
Doubt and indecision
Into ******
Cognizance,
Fallow spirits
Seep fumes of decay,
Credulity bleeds a human stain.
Social edifice, inoculated
Heirs of neurosis;
Palpable, sensual pain
And transience, though
Tacit - remain,
Our haunted history,
The blind hyperbole,
Maudlin
Forbearance, this haven,
A portrait
Of immaculate condition,
Nurtured with precision
Under sterling pretense.
Provincial domicile -
House beautiful,
Savage irony -
Unseen treasure
Innocence unabridged,
Faces, tiny creations;
Compliant vessels
Wounded,
While modernism murmurs
Its promise.
Brave New World,
In a late model sedan,
Domestic ranch on a
Corner lot,
Suburban natives,
Silence means security.
The misunderstood
Speak louder -
Consumerism beneath
Unvarnished ambition,
Never could
Repair the brokenness within...
© 2011 & 2018 W. S. Warner
Oct 20, 2011
Oct 20, 2011 at 5:38 PM UTC
rich soil
fleck with a bit of black
dark chocolate
parched summer soil
glossy chestnut brown
unvarnished oak
mahogany flecks
apple pips
varnished cork
dessert palm tree
flecks of acorn shell
his eyes
the most beautiful pair
of eyes
she has seen
Jan 20, 2020
Jan 20, 2020 at 3:55 PM UTC
tattoo ourselves in electric ink memorializing calendars,
diaries of observantional digits, black on white, no gray,
birthdays, anniversaries, dates of passing, starting lines,
occasional achievements, departure dates, even glaring failures,
sundial mundane records of diurnal habitude…even
defining self by, bye, byte marks upon flesh, upon our calendar
*not my first trip-tracking, he ruefully rues, wry smiling,
many voyages of indeterminate measuring length,
leaving litter of arrays of hopeful estimations & destinations,
each unequal, any or all possibilities, each day notated,
without critique or commentary, the numbers are the
gaols (jails) of goals, target, indeterminate determination,
terrific, horrific, introspections, inverse images resolve, resolute*
a year ago, +/- a few days,, new travelogue commenced,
notated but not annotated, just numerical truths,
(sans comments for the divine nature of numbers don’t lie)
and today my calculator app informs, that I am now
19.4 % lesser, but that clarifies less than expected
naturally this provokes a natty,
spirited, self-inquiry, lessened,
lessor, for better or for worse?
have the physical alterations
accompanying this reduction
mean exactly what,
if, it should be, a greater lesser?
here is the hard part.
your have always been a mirror~poet,
laughing, bemoaning the unvarnished, unshaven
AM sightings of a human perpetual dissatisfied,
the external never denying the interior “less~than,”
a J Peterman catalogue of weathered ****** expressions,
counter-parted by multiple Venn diagram intersections,
of experiential labeled bits & pieces of emotional empirical
less than good, not even close to perfect, so now that I am
*gaunt, spare, lean, grayed, narrower, again ruefully rue,
the even more visible truth reflection eye~hidden:*
I,
am the sum of the weight of my history, my deeds,
my disbeliefs, murderous deeds, weak choices
and that hasn’t changed nary an ounce, no matter
many times examined, indeed I am forever a lesser man,
there, internal infernal
too…
Apr 9, 2023
Apr 9, 2023 at 2:12 PM UTC
I lie strategically in place
Innocent framework fused
With royal carapace
Frail and allknowing fingers clenched and intertwined,
Mimicking the honest silver circuit in the night sky
As candid as the shore
Each slumbered and delicate breath
Vitally delivered from those sublime lips
Both damp and potent
I get a candied wind of
An accidental consolation
To my crippling worry
Sorrowful, I am, my love
For eavesdropping, but
My reveries are your keepsakes
And I,
Watching you sleep, carefully
In A placid coma, caging waves of covenants
And exhaling tokens of a life once dreamt of
I envisage the unvarnished truth,
your marrow as my sustentation,
Your veins, My lifeline
Where each filament of platinum and sorrel remain entangled and sprawled in forever, impeccably
And how drawn out and vexing
My intervals of lingering for you
Have been
And then you leak a sigh in a dream
And exhale a veil of whispers
Directly to my ribcage
And I simper, cradling you tighter
So you can breathe my craving,
My contented tribute
To my one veritable sentiment.
And I seal it all in the midst,
Of a drifted and slumbered and deathless
Kiss.
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 7:24 PM UTC
~~~
a poem derived from these words of
Joel M Frye
"Poetry is a self-policing agency, enforcing nothing
~~~
The Truth Burden
is the accursed need obligatory,
the sacred sanctity requisitioned,
when the whenever,
chooses to drops in and
upflag the mailbox,
an uninvited invitation,
announcing with precise bluntness,
that precisely now,
is the tool crafted moment
and you fool,
are the selected tool
you must render unto Ceaser,
by your own hand,
render your own rendering,
do your own undoing,
go forth and in haste,
will thyself into the cauldron of the
Great Mystery of Creation
you cannot lie in poetry
-one can only validate-
you will tell the whole truth,
and nothing but,
all in good order,
to secure me to thee,
to muddle
our molecular cocktail mix,
you must,
must give only
truth in poetry,
or give
nothing
police yourself
in every aleph bet,
don't substance abuse us with deceit,
give only your unburdening,
force us to lip kiss
when
we face each other,
when
pronouncing the blessed script of
ourselves,
that we have been granted by sharing
each other's unvarnished lettres
the burden is
to un burden
cut out what needs
to be bridged from
the secret walled-in safe,
and give form, life and breath,
expose it to the atmosphere,
reform your bleak introspection
and white horseradish bitter realism,
turn blue blood veined internal
into an amberina red,
all by being
unsaved, unsavory, unsafe
you are the enforcer,
you are the police,
you are the validation
and the validator,
enforcing this sole law,
police your self,
give us
with no agent in between,
give us
nothing but,
a voice
one will recognize instantly
as the whole fats milk of
truth
oh, how I will embrace thy
one and only,
when given,
your
one and only
for do we dare disagree that is
each other's truths that
shall set us free?
•••
for we are the inhabitants,
of this wild land of
no inhibitions,
no rule of laws,
except one,
defend the essence,
protect the defenseless integrity,
promote the mystery of the
human poem
Aug 9, 2017
Aug 9, 2017 at 9:21 AM UTC
i love your imperfection
dry, split ends, rosacea cheeks, dry skin
the real things, the unique things, that make you
i love you most, in the morning
when you are just waking up
the natural, the real, unvarnished look
unpainted, i can see, you, in all your beauty
the acne on your chin, the scab on your lip
like a diamond with its countless flaws
you look, are vulnerable, approachable
i want to touch, caress your face
kiss your dry, chapped lips
rough hands, warm heart, i kiss your fingertips
nails natural, unpainted, coated in potter’s clay
i press my face into your hand, feel their strength
weekends, wearing comfortable torn jeans
baggy shirt, draping, but non concealing
i hug you like a dear, loved teddy bear
dollar store flip flops with a dandelion tops
the bottom of your feet dried, a bit cracked
from walking, bonding barefoot with gaia
you are the feminine, i am the masculine
you are the woman, i am the man
you are the girl, i am the boy
my love for you is endless, boundless, eternal..., Minou
Dec 28, 2018
Dec 28, 2018 at 11:23 AM UTC
I've been drawing
A blank
Dwelling in this
So called
Conundrum
Only giving
Half hearted gestures,
Forsaking all others
I've deliberately
Out smarted
All the details
Lost in time
Jittery
On every
Steamy day
The remedy
Never lies
In the score book,
Or with
Criminal instincts,
Not even
The crooked
Cab drivers
So I'll wander
In these
Unvarnished
Chocolate covered
Nightmares
I'll hide
Under the
Stairs
Where spiritualistic,
Speakeasy
Behavior
Only leaves
You
Killed or injured
A whirl
Of such discovery
And you
Will finally
See
It's mostly people
Who cause
This kind of
Unease
Aug 12, 2013
Aug 12, 2013 at 12:55 PM UTC
*dreams in colors that don't exist,
and 'mares re dear sir, deadlines missed,
wrestle~arrest poet,
instant awake
in the wee time,
pouring liquidity,
fluids and words,
puddling, stinking,
coming,
from the
always dangerous,
always interesting temple inner inside,
sanctimonious no more sanctum*
this particular sleep,
shortened, irretrievable,
bookmarked "closed,"
chapters,
hours too soon,
this rest business,
arrested
filed in an ugly
grey metal file cabinet,
in an unfinished manila prison
with your other unimportant poems
*the dark room universe
populated by
hints, shadows, voices,
waiting, welcoming,
mirrors on the walls
unified in one voice
deep, obtuse,
demanding recognition
"hither hither come"*
forced march
to a visitation,
to the the parition,
of your reflection,
clearest ever seen,
in the black pitch,
uncovered by guise, feathers
the clothes of normative pretenses,
the man-made borderlines of
preservation falsehoods
*seen your own semblance,
parts rearranged,
uncanny,
the mirrors are screaming:
shameful lovely,
this, our artistry,
your apparition,
now accurate,
reflecting your under-
lying
condition,
at last,
an accurate portrayal,
of your inaccuracies*
do you find yourself attractive?
this new balance,
the unregulated pieces
of you
before your dissembling,
discerning,
dissecting eyes?
*feeling the valence,
an introduction,
a physical magnetism
any attraction
any resemblance
to the semblance
that writes
this s.o.s.?*
answer us thus,
do you up
and like yourself
unvarnished,
grunge, swag,
truth trammeled,
don't you want to kiss yourself
goodbye,
or better yet,
fare thee hell?
*go ahead,
ask yourself now,
that one question
that prevents conception,
from your inception,
what is it that
makes you exceptional?*
don't you realize,
everything about you
ends in a question mark?
*how dare you write poetry?
you are the false poet,
you live on the division
tween artifice and self-deception,
this, your only precept,
and now that you are
clarified,
answer this,
knowing you know
nothing
but artifice,*
how dare you write poetry?
Oct 22, 2014
Oct 22, 2014 at 5:07 AM UTC
an utterance of folly
her natural unvarnished thoughts
spill slowly from her adorned lip
and crawl forth to battle his opposing view
her words crowd his ear
a thousand angry little versions of her
with sword in hand coming to slay the misbehaving dragon
of his free will
his own thoughts flee as one
from the opposite side ear
with furtive glances back
hoping to escape unscathed
his own folly
childlike in form
plays marbles
looking for that elusive Aggie
called inner peace
together they amble down
country road
both shouting the random formulas
for completing and mailing
the required forms for
a visa to paradise
its roads are paved with candy
she insists
its hills are carved from
pure chocolate he interjects
neither realize its paradise because
it lacks the likes of them
he kisses her adorned lip
and tastes the metal of her
resolve to endure
she french's her tongue into
the small spaces of his mind
and savors the spices of his
need to flee
whats needed here they devise
compromise is a plate of cold fish
seal it in a bottle and cast it overboard
perhaps their lives shall find a sandy shore
to rest their every weary
makeout machine
Oct 17, 2013
Oct 17, 2013 at 6:30 AM UTC
I read
I read anything,
Prose or poem, article or essay,
I'm so hungry for it
I wish my eyes had detachable jaws
That ate ink and binary alike.
Its not for allure of assonance and alliteration,
The collective subjective seeking the objective,
But the idea whittled, still unvarnished,
Because that is what we are and that is who I am.
Sep 17, 2012
Sep 17, 2012 at 3:32 AM UTC
"Try it out." he said
And my stomach
tangled with my brain
hunger
consumed me
but not the other
way around
we had always been
unvarnished
and mostly untouched
but then
I crept into the
basement of my
halfway thoughts
and there I wished
to hear him
one more
time
but I knew
his pale,
blue moon voice
had been lost
and I knew
the past could
only feel good once
and cigarettes couldn't
be smoked twice
I knew better
but still
it came as such a surprise
that each fraudulent feeling
wouldn't seep the same
and even through
your stumbling words
I could tell
that you meant
well
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 10:08 PM UTC
You told me it was wrong.
The magnetic pull of my body towards the need.
The way I feel it, the longing, in my chest,
how I place my hands absently on my neck,
sultrily telling you what I'm feeling.
Perhaps it's a ripple of something that has been brewing
for many years. Something always there, underneath.
Heightened by loneliness and summer heat.
Maybe it comes from a lack of normal things,
things which usually accompany
young boys.
Those things I didn't get.
Maybe it's someone's fault.
Maybe I should ask Freud, maybe he
could place his hand on my delicate cheek bone,
how it comes it a gentle hill.
He could stroke the freckled valley underneath my eyeball with his smoking pipe
and tell me pragmatically
the reasons for my feelings,
why I wanted a man to touch me without asking,
to make my face his baby in wrapped cloths.
You told me it was wrong,
like the smoking
done after the house had gone to bed at hushed hours
in the ***** garage.
like the tequila shot I did at the kitchen counter that summer
how it tasted like heat and pine needles,
how it tasted like the wooden chest in our home,
like the inside of it, the dark unvarnished interior
that could hold my tiny body if I had needed to hide
where my father kept his winter sweaters.
And how I ****** it down with the lime that I didn't bite hard enough,
my eyes were red and flooded.
It was wrong.
Jul 14, 2013
Jul 14, 2013 at 6:57 PM UTC
I found it in the way my name stumbled out of your mouth like it had weak ankles.
Almost like it had been stuck in the hollows of your cheeks.
But it wasn’t stuck.
Just lingering.
I found it in the way you unfastened the brass buttons down my spine and slid the tough skin off my shoulders, like a wool sweater I never grew into.
Almost like I never knew how sticky and hot my woes were.
Until I saw them piled on the floor right at my feet.
The chill of the air hitting my bones.
I found it in the way you unraveled my grief, and used the same tattered thread to hem patience into your heartstrings.
Almost like the fabric of my intricacy kept you warm.
You and I.
The same cross-stitches of unvarnished truth.
I found it in the way you uprooted the weeds nestled in my soul to make light for the marigolds.
Almost like you always believed in my potential garden.
Despite the monsoon rain and my uncanny inability to tend.
There was always room for growth.
I found it in the way my hands extend towards you, until my fingers coil into vulnerability.
Almost like I sought solace in the holes of your palms.
Being entirely, immensely, forever
Tangled up in you.
I found it in the way the fog draping my irises lifted when your kisses graced the corners of my eyes.
Almost like you unveiled a galaxy of color I never knew I painted.
Brushstrokes of clarity.
A reverie of us.
I found it in the way you delicately dismantled all my fragments to polish them.
Almost like you salvaged me from my own wreckage.
All this time, I dreamt I was wandering.
But I was undoubtedly misplaced.
Tucked away in a wrinkle of solitude.
Until you, my love, unearthed me
And in return, I found my heart;
A vestige of our pearl in the oyster.
Nov 6, 2015
Nov 6, 2015 at 2:17 AM UTC
Why do biopics
have to dramatise and
sensationalise?
What is wrong with the unvarnished truth
Do they think that our brains can't handle it?
Harry Houdini the famous escapologist
never hated his father
met Rasputin and never was a spy
He did escape whilst tied to a cannon
with it's fuse lit
and don't ask people to punch
you in the stomach
because that is how he died
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 5:30 PM UTC
Soowee, soowee. Top of our lungs
That’s how we used to call the hogs
And every time they would come,
Running just like well trained dogs,
Because they knew it meant food
Even though that food was just slop,
Those pigs have nothing like taste.
But nothing could make them stop.
Lately I have noticed human beings
Who seem to behave the same way.
They gobble the media slop they hear
Every day after mind-numbing day.
They too seem to have no taste
And smell something they really dig;
Nothing any sensible creature eats
But it seems to be ambrosia to a pig.
Squee, squee, squee they snort
And salivate, squeal and chow down
On the unpalatable pap served up
By the greedy media super-clowns.
It’s almost like they would pass up
A meal of honest, unvarnished truth
To gorge themselves to a stupor
On the crap they loved as a youth.
I’m always surprised that these folks,
This metaphoric, too human swine
Don’t go out in public in pajamas
Like worn by young neighbors of mine
With cartoon mice and supermen
Instead of the clothes of an adult.
They go vote like uninformed fools.
And current Congress is the result.
Dec 12, 2016
Dec 12, 2016 at 10:12 PM UTC
I lie on the grass and listen to the silence that surrounds me.
I immediately squint my eyes as I look up at the sky
I take a deep breath and ask myself, What is the sun?
I think it is just a ball of hydrogen and helium bound together by a strong gravitational pull
A pull towards the light at the end of the tunnel
A long breath held with the ability to suffocate and torture
But still held together by a thin string of hope,
Hope that the light will come soon
Or maybe it is just where everything began
A look shared by two souls with
A secret understanding, not known to the rest of the world
Maybe it is the shining light upon all of the darkness in the world
A merciful and truthful gift that was given to us from nature
The protective cloak of warmth, safety, comfort and certainty
A chance to start a new chapter with nothing the armor of love
A ruthless game unless played with nothing but honesty
Of what seem to be the unvarnished truth
But maybe is it more than it seems
Maybe it is not a blanket of the warm and fuzzy feelings of love and trust
Maybe it is what makes me so blind to the truth
Naïve and easy to fool
Maybe it is the pain from the revelation of that truth
The sting of his touch
The mark of his burn
The ashes of a broken heart
Scattered
Along the beaten path
And along the same beaten path,
Another illumination of what was and what could have been
Constantly reminded of the naked truth
I wish that I could comprehend the truth; the purpose of the light
Understand the reason behind pain that surrounds the reality
And the importance of the getting hurt and moving on
But because of the of truth, there is no longer an us
Because if there was a beginning,
This must be the end
A release of the breath held in
With the realization that
Truth comes from the revelations of darkness.
And excruciating pain comes from the revelation of the ugly truth.
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 10:42 PM UTC
Alright lads here it comes full truth unvarnished
lately I feel life is tarnished,
with this Patina upon my soul,
I tell you all I won't grow old.
We won't be sharing drinks and dandling grandkids boys,
this world is grey, I'm null and void,
underappreciated hated unemployed,
a jaded unappreciative oul ****
yeah I deserve that-I can't front
no more lies but bitter truths,
lets rip these forgeries out by roots,
lets force this Gall and Hemlock down,
a deadly cocktail but I've found,
once choked down I'm Numb...comfort cold,
to you I'll leave behind I know,
believe me please...just let me go
Chorus/Sample 2
"So if you love me let me go
And run away before I know
My heart is just too dark to care
I can't destroy what isn't there
I only wish you weren't my friends
Then I could hurt you in the end
my own was banished long ago
It took the death of hope to let you go"
all right lads "order! down in front"!
a lot to take in all at once?
I know I know my lying smile
has fooled you all but it's been awhile
I'm sorry Bro I really am,
I tried my best to face the flames
but now I'm falling, no more games
no more lies Procrastination,
no more ******** obfuscation,
took the Beck Depression inventory...scored 100%!
been through a few too many ****** up life events,
more just round the corner-the Reaper awaits,
but It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
"So if you love me let me go
And run away before I know
My heart is just too dark to care
I can't destroy what isn't there
I only wish you weren't my friends
Then I could hurt you in the end
my own was banished long ago
It took the death of hope to let you go"
The End?
May 17, 2019
May 17, 2019 at 7:05 AM UTC
No, never any clutter.
Disarray somehow never an option and everything in it's place.
Each object assigned to a specific spot on your shelves,
furniture rarely catty-cornered and
blinds always straight.
I watched you dust twice a week with dejection and revulsion because
clean bedrooms just have no remembrance.
If I can't smell what you've had for dinner
two nights ago
ascending up from underneath your bed
then where do you truly live?
I want to see nicotine stains and cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling.
I want to wonder about how long they had settled to get to that gradation of yellow.
How long have they been hanging on by just one string?
Tell me,
how do you scour away at that intricate wondrous web;
another creatures art,
all for your woebegone off-white walls?
Abandoning the remains from your dust pan into the garbage without feeling resentful.
A clean bedroom has no trace of life.
How do you sleep at night
aware that there are no *** spots on your freshly washed sheets,
not being able to think
"This is where she showed me she loved me."
I want hidden messages behind picture frames throughout the hallway.
Give me mud on the carpet and fingernails in the bed.
A clean bedroom...
How could you be so muted,
so unvarnished,
to keep a clean bedroom?
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 1:52 PM UTC
If you saw me
unvarnished,
unscripted
would you stay?
You'd know the cost
of loving someone
who's learned to disappear
before she's left.
You might step back.
or worse,
what if you stay?
and see me crumble
in your kindness
I don't know
if I could survive
being loved like that.
May 29, 2025
May 29, 2025 at 10:02 AM UTC
I ride this broomstick high on *** or Lsd either
one,
it don't bother me, nothing does above the roar
of my heart shredding
and, what is more,
I have no license for this stick, which I
picked at random,
I am the kick, the jam, the butter and the ram,
the ruthless raider on the lam but on the stick
I am superman and I am so slick
it's sick.
But bedding down
I am the crying clown,
the fish without its bowl,
the end's in sight but not my goal,
unfinished artwork
I am sold, unvarnished,
tarnished by some trick,
painted
tainted by the stick,
no room for two upon the broom,
in the doom there are no friends,
only ends and untied things.
Mar 22, 2015
Mar 22, 2015 at 5:14 PM UTC
I don't want you to bother
building up a thick lather,
your shower-soaped hand
moving between your legs,
then reaching the long-way round to
spread yourself wide open, bending forward
just so that you can drag the steel edge of a razor across
your soft skin
I’ve never stood
in a field of wild flowers and
thought it to look overgrown
You don’t need a single drop of perfume
on your ******* near your *** or on
your sheer white tank as I don’t mind
the taste or scent
of your sweat,
dripping
from your summer skin,
glistening in the
afternoon heat.
No need to burn
your soft long locks between
two tongs,
to pull them taut, or blow them dry
to make them straight.
Your curls,
untamed and
and unpredictable
need no refinement;
I'll follow them as they
twist and turn
I want you my love,
unvarnished,
unapologetic,
unfinished,
unrealistic,
and most
assuredly
unshaven.
Jun 3, 2017
Jun 3, 2017 at 11:54 PM UTC
I was open before you,
No passwords, no keys, no locks.
I was unvarnished and credulous -
My heart was out, my soul had no blocks.
I was stark naked before you,
Without shyness and ceremony,
Not covered by lie, off laws and rules,
Either in passion, or in agony.
I was before you all as I am,
Every bit of me, of my body and soul.
I awaited. And I'm really tired.
My body's petrified in whole.
Aug 2, 2025
Aug 2, 2025 at 5:21 PM UTC
*( Haiku )
1
Frantic
Not much left of day
On piney branches birds dart
Sun shots behind them
2
Sparklings
Autumn blue jays come
Light unvarnished from nowhere
Leaves lit up on ground
3
Love Grows
Whole world spins seasons
Time budding graces in trees
For love roots and leaves
4
Fruition
Life unshackled now
Mountain rains in the distance
Old age so freeing
5
Breathing
Most verdant meadows
Wild in flowers of her hair
First spring of Eden
6
Vox Populi
Zombie ego shouts
Among bloodless dead columns
That I once had lived*
Nov 2, 2016
Nov 2, 2016 at 8:49 PM UTC
Making sense of it all…
our grandest myth
Wisdom born of age,
bleeds from youth’s betrayal
Questions drying unvarnished,
naked meanings
Darker darks reface the cliff,
edges sharper cut
Two images, clearer than before,
preying in deadly contrast
As wonder divides the day,
—fear stalks the night
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 11:31 AM UTC