"velocity" poems
For my cousin, Chris Goldrick
Lacing my skates
after walking two miles
in girl-strictured delight
Mom's stories of Sonja Henie--
No, not ever
Lacing my skates
with snow-ball pompoms
felt skirt
and nylon tights
Cute little hat with matching scarf
My thighs and fingers
already freezing
icy burn
from miles on foot
to get there
the lake where--
I must get out
I must get OUT!
Knowing what
to expect from my body
the quick-twitch of muscle
Could always sense
specific--
gravity of water
at 22 degrees
Desiring to feel
the motion between ice and steel
Read speed's vibrations through my body
The brain registers relation
to weather's effect
Tell of velocity
possibility of fall
Feel the slash of the blades beneath me
Throw my weight sideways, sudden
to hear that furious hiss
An object in motion tending, dire
to stay in motion
Threatening to stay there
always
in its heights-- of speed
away--
from the crowds of skaters
swirling distant in the lights
Seeking instead
the farthest reaches of Porter Lake
speed and speed and more
to overcome
inertia
of what it is to become
undone
at the outer edges, of humanity
A force
centrifugal unto myself
Avoiding
Pregnant and slow
with years and babes....
The best
must be broken and tamed
of what it takes to stay free
catching the edges with every stride
catching my toe in the quick
180
spray of frost
to the sudden still
Listen to the frigid chill
and the heave of my breath
tumbling into evidence
Gliding
Once
Forever--
on, into darkness
of woods on frozen water
The wildness of it all
So infatuated with flight
so full of grace
I forgot Sonja
The moon rose
from her seat in the treetops
and applauded
Jul 17, 2018
Jul 17, 2018 at 3:54 PM UTC
Route 84 would not lend me
the light of a star last night
Radio blazing at 75 mph
nonsense noise to chew gum by
Crackling political commentary
Static of distance and thick clouds
Invisible mountains blocking
Memories seeping through the cracks
coating the music in a film
I rub my eyes
watch myself punch alert buttons
But it’s the angels’ jukebox tonight
Roll down the window
Watch the heat escape
Summer again
I am building a castle of ancient stones
pulverized by relentless tides
Dragged across maps by mastodons
and mammoth glaciers
The scouring hiss
the ocean sighs
Time has lulled these smoothly
rolling them in the softest hands of sand
and gels of life’s comings and goings
tenderly tumbling
in the millionth moonrise—
Time deposits them here
wet and glistening
For the girl with the plaid two-piece to gather
Shoulders sun-burnt barely say
one week only,
one week of the fifty two
“It’s the time of the season…”
and daddies on the beach are watching….
She has chosen yet another stone
And the castle continues—
in oblivion to all but her legend…
The queen will be safe here
from the rabble
The disgraced Tristan will surely seek her
Among these lofty cliffs
Between the raging circuit of the tide
Here winds forbid the vengeful mob
Here lovers learn
the debt of love’s bad timing
“Drink ye all of it!”
--the potion that assigns our sorrow….
She will not sleep—
while I chew this gum-- GUM?
Roll down the window!
Angels escape with the heat
Waking me with the brush of their wings
As that eighteen-wheeler hugs my flank
And leans on the horn
Lights flashing
Rude rumbling under right tires
Tantrum of snow
In the draft of mass and velocity
…and the angels?
They’ve chosen another good one!
They must’ve liked the 80’s
Their wings slapping the windshield madly
Their hands steady the wheel
Sep 13, 2016
Sep 13, 2016 at 1:20 PM UTC
Like flipped coin midair
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle
Two ends of a spectrum, Möbius strip
In a room together,
Maxwell’s demon, revolving door
Cancer and chemo
Like life and death
Only one can be
The next is inevitable
Like an election
Only one figurehead may speak for a governing body
Like the seasons
Change is expected
Like a cat left to its own devices
Guaranteed to scare itself after a given time
Man tries to conquer for comforts sake
Mercurial reactions
Like elements under catalyst
Electron orbitals
Exchange positive core
Theory of relativity
A choice of determining
Accuracy of position or velocity
Hermes, deity of mine
Masculine and feminine
Ruler of I
Relieve the war of the immortal twins
Gemini
Battling my heart and mind
Jul 27, 2014
Jul 27, 2014 at 6:06 PM UTC
dear chemistry,
you are a detective
you hold scientists
in an enchantment
of protons and neutrons
you dissect me
identifying the components
that allow me to waltz
across light and holy ground
while you are bound
to seek solace
in what my atoms
cannot give you
i cannot give you motion
or allow you speed past me
that is my task
my task is to entrance
philosophers in the "whys"
and "hows" of my force and energy
and i'm sorry that
you are bound to be prose
when you seek to be poetry
i'm sorry that if you were a musician
you'd have all the words
and i'd be the melody
we'd be the song
that could never meet
i'll meet you in between the horizons
when my masters
speak to yours
pondering on what allows
the why to occur and
how does the event happen
i'll meet you in between
question marks and white coats
i'll meet you in the next life
when maybe the future
will allow us to be trees
instead of branches
my arms will spread
to reach out to your matter
past the artifices
and your atoms will
race towards me
all force, energy and velocity
and i will ask the "whats" and "hows"
and maybe you will answer the why
and maybe the answer
will be a discovery
a phenomena of sentences
all questions already answered
always yours, physics
Mar 18, 2016
Mar 18, 2016 at 8:12 AM UTC
If
my velocity is negative on
paper, am I going the wrong
direction? If I am accelerating in the
opposite direction of my destination, (if
I slow down I mean), is it good
or bad?
How about when a train is positively speeding at a high
velocity towards
me accelerating positively
in my direction Do
I run?
Dec 21, 2015
Dec 21, 2015 at 11:21 AM UTC
Goddess of virility suckles me
to ******
Her legs stiffen…
to acute angles.
Toes, ballerina firm
make her
body—
levitate from the bed.
A smile reveals…fangs
the tips of which
are barely…touching
my ear.
The lizard tongue hisses in ecstasy
revealing ancient—spiritual…bliss
mystics could only
speculate of.
Her anaconda legs
wrap—
around my back
as her fingernails
embed into
my spine.
When I yank
Her hair
Her eyes
Scream inside out.
Our bodies—
Swimming in
An ocean of ravenous
Liquids pulsating from our pores.
Sopping hair clings
to our foreheads
we suddenly realize—
A new shape is invented.
We make a sound so primal
inside each other’s mouth
as her jaws snap down
to my neck—
both bodies rigor-mortis stiffen
as the mountains collapse around us
and the sky is ripped open as a tsunami
billows down into a wave of exhaustion.
The wind cradles us,
Back to the earth
We split,
Admiring a new continent
We created.
Our limp bodies—
numb from the velocity and suggestions
resign to the crater
we call a bed.
We smile, simultaneously,
looking past
our brains,
realizing…
in this moment
we, are one.
Jul 23, 2011
Jul 23, 2011 at 7:18 AM UTC
Sometimes I miss you so much that I forget things about myself,
like, what my smile looks like or the sound of my own laughter.
But still my mind is filled with all of these useless facts
like, Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin look-a-like contest and came in third place
The Empire State building was the first man made structure you could jump off of and reach terminal velocity before you hit the ground
The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
Females' hearts beat faster than males'.
Dogs can make ten noise while cats can make nearly 100.
There are approximately 9,000 taste buds on the human tongue.
You hate thunderstorms, I am a thunderstorm.
I know its impossible to die from a broken heart.
But lately when I look in the mirror I can't even recognize myself
and reaching terminal velocity sounds sweeter and sweeter each day
At night I can not fall asleep because I am haunted by the thought of you.
My heart has almost stopped beating in your absence.
If you called me on the phone I would not know what to say,
but still your lips are the only thing my taste buds recognize as happiness
You hate thunderstorms, I am a thunderstorm
I know that you left me, so why won't you leave me?
I know that you left me, so why won't you leave me?
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 12:22 AM UTC
The sun bakes down heavily on a plastic micro planet in Orlando, Florida
where crowded trams drop American bushels of tourists into an alien world.
Quickly fantasy comes alive
through a corporation of disguise.
The workers mask themselves in a drapery of familiar life
-like costumes to charm little children’s hearts.
They smile wildly, carving a clear dimple line on the but of their cheeks. Walt’s Disney World
must have driven every one of America’s circuses out of business.
The flying trapeze is too elegant,
people now want to be strapped in,
buckled up and whipped around
to forcibly experience the true velocity of entertainment.
Even the participant’s attire is geared for this third world oblivion. Neon ***** packs rest like bloated kangaroo pouches
on fat sweaty old lady’s round hips, their plump fingers
holding on to leashed harnesses reined to their child’s small chest.
This is vacation,
strangers of people in massive conglomerations
with confused expressions and burnt faces.
Even the food seems wickedly unnatural,
like an artificial order of burning plastic and sour dough surprise.
Waiting is the enthusiast’s pastime as parades
of anxious voyeurs are captivated by a trance
fixation of lights and whistles.
They line up like schools of lemming,
plunging on rides,
one by one.
This is the place
Where memories are made
And dreams come true
Sep 25, 2010
Sep 25, 2010 at 12:25 PM UTC
I’m obsessed
with counting.
Even the 47 steps
to my English class.
When that became
boring I created a way
to document, not
time, but distance.
And 47 turned to 54.
681 days since I
cut 11 inches
off my hair.
359 days since he
said Keep in touch
when the last
thing I wanted
to do was touch him.
319 days since she
didn’t text back and
then 294 days later
moved 1,731 miles
away and by now I
wouldn’t even know
where to send a letter.
One day
I decided to get
another haircut,
but I no longer bother
to know the measurements
of the pieces that
are only going to be
swept away.
Oct 11, 2014
Oct 11, 2014 at 9:41 PM UTC
Live in your bubble
By all means
But everyone has a bubble
And everyone has dreams
A kick of curiosity
Can send a mind speeding
With a screaming ferocious velocity
And you realise everyone has a bubble.
You sonder.
Over 7 billion bubbles. You will never access them all
But each struggle and hardship
Will be made easier if you fall
To sonder, such a beautiful feeling,
Will send that fall right back into healing.
So please, sonder, sonder and wander and expose your bubble.
In the hope that someone else is sondering too,
And will experience the world,
Just like you.
Feb 7, 2014
Feb 7, 2014 at 5:40 PM UTC
these tempting and tumultuous times,
when the insect bite of attraction nibbles
your cheek, and first blood thickens with
intrigued,
the blood heated by, with a bewildering new sun's glow,
then bubbling boiling
over
with phantasmagorical fantasies,
and one endeavors to coax, to tease,
to preen, to adduce how best to ******
this persona, imagined or imaginary to be,
whispers a silent "no thankee''
and first bloom curls into a deathly brown doom,
you,
chastened by amorous hastening so quick evolving,
and the hither in come here, withers to a ghostly silencing,
one wonders, reminisces, and sadly recalls then forgets
the entreaties so eagerly received, how one wants to be
deceived,
for the once lay-buried-arousals now well recalled,
and quick to appear, faster to dismiss disappear,
and disaster cones and goes with light-speed velocity,
having fling,
now flung,
having crushed,
now crushing,
you caught laughing at your self,
still evolving long past the time
for youthful deceptions and silly indiscretions,
but not unhappily, for it was an acknowledgement
that good love poetry yet within resides, alas, alas,
it reciprocity seeds need replanting, and that notion
is quite pleasing...
Sep 13, 2025
Sep 13, 2025 at 9:00 AM UTC
Zeus and Amphitrite
edge of the sea
reflecting down
looking up
god or goddess
reflecting the same
draped in gold
Hercules Coronal Borealis Great Wall
superstructure feathered on the shoulders
skyward brilliance reflecting
shaking future stars
comets meteors meteoroids asteroids meteorites
rain down around
deafening sound of the greatest thunder bolt
hear me
hear her
**** this
**** that
roll good times
patience is virtue
zero point
generosity kindness affection pleasantness
waiting on the ecliptic plane
sun and heavens
where
hummingbirds dragonflies soaring creatures
rise out of the abyss
propelled and lifted
seahorse air bubbles octopuses chant
straight ******* propulsion ****** velocity
magic of the darkness
ready set giddy up
Oct 28, 2018
Oct 28, 2018 at 5:08 PM UTC
1295
Two Lengths has every Day—
Its absolute extent
And Area superior
By Hope or Horror lent—
Eternity will be
Velocity or Pause
At Fundamental Signals
From Fundamental Laws.
To die is not to go—
On Doom’s consummate Chart
No Territory new is staked—
Remain thou as thou art.
4.3k
"It scares me
how much I don't care
about the consequences
of falling for you,
when I know it's skydiving
without a parachute."
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 3:14 AM UTC
in the icy swirl
of deep-inhale
I reach down inside
to darkest
heated flesh-fabric
removing the clothing
of my soul,
feeling the layers
slowly undone
the flay
of my own fleece
the peeling
of my own pelt
penetrating
through tissue,
a journey to the
deep heart of me,
cut in one clean move
and yet, like a miracle
there is
no pain
just magnet-connect
beyond the cusp
of words
that curl from our
tongues
rising up in
latticed affirmations
a cleansing in frost
a constant, aquamarine renewal
and there is no past
no future
just this prism
of crystal liquid jewels
flowing in
gentle,
cellular music
straight into the strands
of our veins
and I miss you
like you have gone
on the long winter hunt
my longing splayed out
like an animal skin on
four poles
its tendons stretched
beyond measure
yet holding fast
with a roof over my head,
I acknowledge
my restlessness
I am my own
hunter-forager,
both searching and found,
gathering up bits
of velocity
stroking the ribbons
of passion
stoking the fires of my
heart and hearth
protecting what is us
like a lioness
for we are overflowing
with both strength
and tenderness
our own bones
ingredients of the wild soup
of our feral union
of our constant rebirth
our very dna
weaving itself
like heartstrings
in the rush
of
time
Dec 9, 2017
Dec 9, 2017 at 6:35 PM UTC
You float through air that doesn't care
The air you share that isn't fair
The air that makes me think we're a pair
I wound up in your wind tunnel
Not understanding it's singular funnel
When you were there
I glided through air
But then you had to fly
As I fell from the sky
Cursing your absent kind
You swept me off my feet
With your tornado broom
Until you were complete
In sealing my doom
Your wind carries loneliness
With a scent of love
I recognized the phoniness
In the flight of doves
Your hypnotic breeze
Put my mind at ease
Until you began to tease
Whispering wild winds into my ears
My hurricane head hammered with fears
Of the intensity of the high velocity
Of your elemental wind monstrosity
For it brings powerful gusts of sorrow
When it's your oxygen I must borrow
If I hope to see tomorrow
Your air is cold
My heart's not bold
And begins to fold
Under the weight of your wind
My mind is giving in
And my eyes start to make clouds form
When your absence creates a lonely storm
Sep 11, 2017
Sep 11, 2017 at 5:51 AM UTC
_[northern hemisphere: on a beach above the 50th latitude at the end of winter]_
_(Winter-export)_, the beach frosted by fingers of polar constellations. It’s too cold to walk without huddling, but we do it nonetheless, because we only have one more night together. Your frothy hydro-rhythm spears into pith, irradiance; I breathe again, deeply. _(Thick lips; quick still-hunt.)_ I rivet fronds of dependence into the seams of your boreal palms, never planning to return the floating colony of barnacles I promised I’d throw back; you, never planning to catch the sun bored through salt spray, clasping crisp foreheads, stitching on glistered lips and froze-shut lashes. And on a day when you didn’t rise early enough, I was left out in the water until my chest was steeped deep in ice over the thought of losing you. _(Glimmering isle)_; my hair disheveled in sea-foam. Annular light. You pushed me in, and I relented. My isotherm sent chthonically. But you, in your legendary mantle, adapted my eyes to see the light hidden deep within your belt; such pinks and fuchsias I have never seen before, suddenly inverted. At absolute velocity, I cut my foot on sea-glass, bleeding blueshift, aligning to the colours of the zenith. You take me back to the starry house and we struggle with your parallax, a nadir inseminated on the celestial pole. _(Parsecs quaking.)_ You whisper, I’ll heal you. I’ll heal you, only if you let me. Only if… you let me… Over and over and over until it’s as mundane as the crashing coast, and unrivaled, I concede to everything and wake up deep in redshift, the whole universe escaping, warmth-ribbons suffocating the abyss: without you, alone on the ecliptic at last. In the spring-sinking, you order me a silver sword, sharp in starlight; to remember you. You stand a guardian, beyond the sun, flinging tiny ice-hot rocks _(freighting gemstones)_; King of the Heavens. I submerge myself into the bathic depths, skulking in aestival despair, as you trade the night for day. Little do you know, my resurgence is also in your hands.
_[i watched Orion slip from view every night this spring. No doubt he’ll return next winter... it’s sad losing a friend like that, for so long]_
May 25, 2014
May 25, 2014 at 3:07 AM UTC
illusions of
escape velocity
for us became
placebos like
a gentle darkness
gumshoes into
disarray.
© Ben Ditmars 2014
Jul 31, 2014
Jul 31, 2014 at 2:11 PM UTC
It is easy to think me a fool,
the foolish boy whose foolish dreams
melted his wings and
broke his father’s heart.
What is harder to see:
I knew the math of it all,
remembered the geometry of
wax and feathers
so well I could taste it on my tongue
scraping like cardamom
and sour sweet like tangerines
on the roof of my mouth.
Height and wind speed,
melting points and velocity,
lift and ******
bird wings turned to equations
I held in my heart.
But oh,
to fly is nothing at all like math.
It is nothing at all like diagrams of
birds and insects and cloud formations.
To see the sun, The Sun, oh,
to spread your fingers through it’s warmth
as the air becomes tangible like the sea,
oh, there was no room in this heart for
the coldness of figures,
they were melted long long before my wings.
So judge, though the sky has never loved you
and I will yearn for the sun, The Sun,
oh,
from the bottom of the sea.
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 6:02 PM UTC
So primitive that it should be criminal
like a limited pyramid of minimal
innocent citizen, inhabitant, or denizen
infinite vision and mission subliminal
principled, committed and disciplined
addicted to the privileged derivative
affirmative velocity, motive inquisitive
inhabiting, uninhibited, where prohibited
Feb 6, 2014
Feb 6, 2014 at 1:47 AM UTC
I have never met one, who spoke,
with such a velocity as this one did,
with storms flying from his lips.
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 1:27 AM UTC
I could call you Molly
With the way you came into my presence
as an orchestra that played the melancholy lullaby of a cello and the sweet pings of a piano
with the velocity of sound waves filling up my head
But as the grains of sand fell and the seasons brushed along our skin
you became a drowned out child’s rhyme
A whisper in the eve
Truth is all perspective
As is friend and foe
But to say,
at best,
your words could be perceived as anything less than the hot air of an air balloon would be a stretch a contortionist would struggle to achieve.
(C) Tiffanie Doro
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 9:56 PM UTC