"vignettes" poems
dedicated to all the better poets here...
don't know much about a quatrain
don't know how to write a refrain,
surely could not compose a
courtyard elegy
maybe after
and still untilled,
I been buried,
'n checked out
the neighborhood competition...
as for limerick,
that is Dr. Seuss
and Ogden Nash's shtick
with whom, eye,
a believed descendant,
cannot compete...
Oh dear me,
no ode node-ed within,
as for a pastoral,
kinda hard to feat,
where I live,
a pastoral is grass cracks
surviving under,
breaking through to the other side
of concrete and blacktop rulers
Maybe one of you
will haiku,
send us a senryu,
send off, see ya!
the doc once diagnosed
a severe case of inflamed iambic pentametery,
with antibiotics and a diet of Hamletery,
was cured most satisfactorily
this silly pen-man-sinking-ship
ain't capable of dat,
boy how 'bout
an epitaph
for a graveyard stone,
should be plenty of room...
as it will be plenty short...
all eye see and all eye know
is vignettes that birth in me
walking down the street,
that's my bread and butter,
my soul's delicacies...
and moments that recorded
here, for a posteriored posterity,
as noted in my all my living
testaments,
drinking and spilling the vin,
from the uninvented igniting vignettes
that consecrate and connect our
knowing each other though odds are
we will never meet...we can yet
drink together
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Don't know much about the French I took.
But I do know that I love you,
And I know that if you love me, too,
What a wonderful world this would be."
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 7:50 AM UTC
Once again a still sunrise,
Quite too much to my surprise;
Now no longer the same reprise,
Never believing in fate's demise.
Once again awaits the sun,
Otherworldly; waits for none;
Terrestrial battles with wars unsung,
The time is now, and has begun.
Once waves of calamity striking the coast,
Now sinking caravels with swift riposte;
This paves the insanity to roads of most,
No graves on marvels without a host.
My ambiguous ocean, bounds not to the throes,
An effluent river asks not where it goes;
But through frigid winters it finally froze,
Yet two rigid reasons -- it once again flows.
Your guess is as mine, for nobody knows,
This mess is divine, and to us it bestows;
Thrown into disaster, yet much room for prose,
We are the ship-masters -- and everyone rows.
So set my oars down, and go for the sails,
Open your eyes, ears & mind; there is no trail;
Wandering didactic wisp you will find, futility of 'fail',
Galactic inhale, cosmic exhale, maybe then will the true path unveil.
So leave nasty mates; abandon the ship,
No mutiny required, just let the wreck tip,
As though through spread fingers they suddenly slip,
Though red feelings linger, you find your own grip.
Then leave folly habits -- straight at the shore,
Shut it & lock it, and close the **** door;
There always are options -- endless possibilities to explore,
Just activate your wings, open wide--soar.
Glad once again, for another sunset,
What you pursue is what you will get;
So forget calumet, anisette & cigarettes,
Simply don't fret -- paint vignettes with no regrets.
Oct 20, 2012
Oct 20, 2012 at 1:17 AM UTC
True Stories #1
This is the first of what will be a series of little vignettes.
When I was fourteen,
I was the alienate hipster rebel
In a private school hellhole.
Hair long, tie knot never pushed up,
Unbuttoned button-down shirts,
Camus lover,
Siddhartha disciple,
Small acts of disdain,
Expressions of teenage hell-pain.
One day, the principal
Threw me out to get a haircut.
Went to the nearby barbershop,
Which was in the underground,
Subway stop.
Returned to school where It was
Pronounced unacceptable.
Twice more this charade-escapade,
Went on, till the barber cried and would not
Charge me anymore.
Shorn like a lamb,
My mother roared like a lion.
The next day, the man in charge,
Who would marry my second son,
Three decades later,
Called me in and sort-of-apologized.
From that day, I never respected authority,
Only learned to fear tyranny.
See photo of my latest protest!
Oct 5, 2013
Oct 5, 2013 at 7:40 AM UTC
1 4
she offers me, a spot of dust
she raises me under the couch,
on platitudes and warm bread I know it’s
in return for my devotion there
she loves me like the boats today, I start spring-cleaning,
she keeps out on the ocean (this alone
she loves me to be molded, should receive
not to be unfolded more recognition than it will)
I pull out the couch
she bore me bones the vacuum doesn’t quite
the lacrimal bone reach the dust lying
the breastbone on unused carpet,
all the cervical vertebrae the head
I use them to simulate keeps hitting the wall
her expectations unproductive
I put the furniture back
2 in place
I have names, no one will see the lack
I wear them like badges of progress
inspired by something not quite
earned yet 5
while lucid dreaming
I assigned constellations were on
each name my skin
a compartment and freckles in
of me the night sky
If I name them maybe
they will become pollution drowned out
real, not just necessary two thirds
even if most imploded
before they were seen
3 6
with enough necessity were it not for shadows
anyone can tell a lie I would surely learn to
hate the light
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 6:43 PM UTC
I
Dawn
The greenish sky glows up in misty reds,
The purple shadows turn to brick and stone,
The dreams wear thin, men turn upon their beds,
And hear the milk-cart jangle by alone.
II
Dusk
The city’s street, a roaring blackened stream
Walled in by granite, thro’ whose thousand eyes
A thousand yellow lights begin to gleam,
And over all the pale untroubled skies.
III
Rain at Night
The street-lamps shine in a yellow line
Down the splashy, gleaming street,
And the rain is heard now loud now blurred
By the tread of homing feet.
3.2k
Purkyně lux lit lunatics conjure vignettes of geomancy.
There is mischief enchanting the wake: xenophagists fiending tricks.
For invokers, who bathe in moonlight, death is a good nights sleep.
Dec 22, 2014
Dec 22, 2014 at 1:28 AM UTC
Some say
she is lost to writing poems
snippets, little vignettes of beauty
so much nature inspired, obsessed
with green, botany driven desires
forever in skies, blue, or black with stars
meteor showers, falling, melting
like the liquid silver, red sea of mars
crashing waves, her days
tossed, tumbled, stumbling onto poetry
there is no fault, in words
no shame to be made
would be a sorrowful price to pay
she is writing to find
some truths, a sleuth, a seeker
of going within, without doubt
writing to find herself
most days searching out signs of life
to feel what it would be like, to be
in trees, in leaves, to sleep in green towers
of garden lily bowers
to finally dream in lucid colors, surreal
climbing invisible ladders
in orchards of apple blossom Springs
to sing, sing, sing
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 12:15 PM UTC
Words are made of thoughts.
I wish they'd intrude. I am lonely,
unemployed with a nine to seven routine
of various activities.
A malignant trend courses through the head.
Broadcasting it outside in the realm of trust
where I am blank but set to go, it would have
the appearance of a finely ambient glass of chocolate milk.
Sometimes I'm asked why the relevance hinges on me.
If I had to say, it's because I keep getting vignettes, like something
out of a beggar's bowl, a wooden saltiness
that becomes increasingly less involved. And, like, everytime
I think about it, it's something similar to trying to walk
on John Carter's Mars; and all of this trivial, like, asinine
things can never match up to the draw, the pull of
whatever has been dropped, whatever has been shorn
unevenly like a badly eaten candy-bar. Or something.
I don't know why it has to be about me.
I don't, pull my weight, and recently I feel cold in the summer;
I have slept under a bedsheet since June.
That's not what this is about, or what I, want to project.
This isn't a prerogative, a jarring hiss of due-dates
incoming inevitably. I just **** Which is not a surprise,
like organic web shooters is a surprise, or, thinking up
something like a dead polemic of a sewer draining
the sordid leftovers of a consciousness.
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 2:00 PM UTC
when you only
see the world
through the prism
of an Instagram filter,
the spectrum's
overshadowed
by black and white
vignettes.
brick-by-brick
you build that wall
around yourself,
closed off to the plight
of every one else.
who needs borders
when you refuse to see
beyond the periphery
of your iPhone's screen?
refugees? border patrol?
endless war?
merely fragmentary
snapshots
in off-kilter
snapchats
casting grim light
on contemporary
outcasts, rebels
built to outlast
the vitriol leveled
at modern-day martyrs
by tyrants and overlords.
'cause when you neglect
to read the passages
of history, you scapegoat
the brave, can't see
the forest for the trees,
reduce the complex
to Manichean binaries
of Good vs. Evil,
Left vs. Right,
an infinite etcetera
of demagoguery.
noses glued
to illuminated screens,
ignoring the visionaries
for illusionary fantasies:
one-click—purchased
happiness, bread
and circus.
advertising
has us chasing
a feeling fleeting
as a riptide when we
ought to be rallying
on the front lines,
punching Nazis.
a black bloc
tossing bricks into
storefront windows.
Apr 1, 2017
Apr 1, 2017 at 12:46 AM UTC
In the fog
streetlight glow:
Will-o-the-Wisps
Embers wrapped in gauze
harsh yellow light
spills into grey monotony
The world has shrunk
confined
to the pools cast by floating lamps
All else
is a faded
grey blur
A stagnant breeze
stokes the down air
into writhing ethereal vines
Vision clouded
permeated by whisper
mist caressing
Everything is painted mute
a drear uneasy blanket
cast into the valley
I drift
strung along
by the luminous spectral splashes
Unseen
Unnoticed
a smudge in a world of vapor
Am I
anymore definite
than the intangible fog?
March today
despite being January
At least a good day for a walk
Ice in sepia speckled with black
wilted under
the Water’s surface
Ridges and islands
of white ice protrude
from the murk
Delicate ripples
roil from
inky black wells
Drab and tattered
the snow trodden grass
sways in the wind
Murk
Murk
The color of tea
steaming
Chai
In a floral mug
A warm up from
the chill
walk
I drink down
to the dregs
satisfied
It’s still March
as if January resigned early
and February forgot to come
Forty Degrees
clad in shorts
and sweatshirt, I walk
Air perfumed by thawing soil
and melted pond pools
painted robin’s egg blue
Ice bent trees
bow towards the road
like children’s hands
Reaching towards
pothole puddles with trickles
trailing like balloon strings
Reflecting the sky
inverted vignettes
Caste in brown
Framing the trees
skeletal fractal fingers
reaching across the tableaux
Peering through the clouds
the Sun silhouettes
black bottle brush pines
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 6:24 PM UTC
I
My five-five-fingers of my hands
Zestfully lived In serenity.
The three thrill fingers of my right hand:
Thumb, index finger and middle finger
Stoutly lived civilly and gleefully
Amongst her BROTHERS:
They rested gleefully upon the placid,
SHARP-SABLE-POINTED-DART.
II
Sharp sable pointed-dart;
Perched in the midst of the three thrill fingers
And laid rest upon the hungry,
****** DUSKY-SHEET, which sprawled
Bear flat on the glossy desk.
The glossy desk accompanying the earth
The earth accompanying its depth.
III
The other two fingers of my right hand:
Ring finger and little finger
Calmly leisure, plopped on the hungry,
****** dusky-sheet
And lent ears to the Sharp-sable-pointed-dart,
Sharp-sable-pointed-dart,
Muttering vignettes of yesterday
Muttering vignettes of today
Muttering vegnettes of tomorrow.
Upon the glossy desk
My five fingers of my left hand too
Laid rest, and eyeballed the sharp-sable-pointed-dart,
Muttering deep thoughts.
IV
Look,
All you who waded through lines:
All you who unearth the heart
Of this earth, hunting for treasures
Pore over my ten fingers.
My ten fingers,
As pure as a full ****** moon.
I have dunked deep my five fingers
Of my right hand with my progenitors
In a bowl of sweet dishes
And nibbled singed YAMS amidst
The thriving vegetables.
V
But my forefinger of my left hand
Never been raised above
To curse the heavens
Never been raised up to pinpoint
My progenitors' homeland
Never had it tasted any depravity
And never will it be licked
Or bit by the savage butchers of Meat
Who loved to fatten themselves on ******
And gratified their heart with
Juicy cup of blood and gore.
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 4:34 AM UTC
i.
the stars do not shine
loneliness presses the air
into a tangle of last years withered
leaves,
loneliness in summer leaves
that whisper to a grey moon
a song of regret.
ii.
dreams of midnight,
cool rain,
songs more alive
than this low-roofed night.
iii.
teardrops like the ghostly moon, lost
against the heart that
flutters like a dark sky
breathing stars.
iv.
the mottled horizon
pools into greys,
tender eyed with
soft sadness,
in these dim hours when silence
cloaks the woods and
human laughter disappears
we sink against the softer sky
and the slow fade of moon and
long for dream, for everything
to reawaken and unwind.
v.
we are swimmers heading as far
out as we can get. surreal silver
stars, opening like flowers,
refusing to drown.
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 10:45 AM UTC
He is ancient steadfast
I am sure he was here when the world was created
I am sure he will be here when it ends
His gentle face carved with hard lines
He poured forth knowledge in his native Persian tongue
He called me Shohre
I learned it was his sister's name
He looked at me like a granddaughter and treated me just as sweet
“Ghabl az enghalab...”
Before the revolution...
After which would follow painful reminiscing of
The days before the current regime
When wine bubbled out from Shiraz
Men and women danced late into the night
And soft voices wove love songs in street cafes
“Ghabl az enghalab moalem dar daneshgah boodam.”
Before the revolution I was a university professor.
“Yeki az daneshjooyanam Ahmedinejad bood.”
One of my students was Ahmedinejad.
And in English, clear as hate,
“He was a *******
One night I stayed back for extra lessons
We ate cherries from Costco and
Read excerpts from his autobiography
Pages crafted from right to left, vignettes of
His military service in Mashhad
And consequent teaching career
“Ba'ad az enghalab...”
After the revolution...
Was always followed with war stories
Political dissidents lost to Evin prison
Sharia law imposed on moderate minds
Escaping Iran by night with a phony visa
“Ba'ad az enghalab dar ketabkhane bayad kar konam”
After the revolution I had to work in the library.
“Khoastam yad bedahm, pas man o zanam be Amrika raftim.”
I wanted to teach, so my wife and I came to America.
He has not been home since 1981.
On December third of 2009 he walked smugly into the classroom
Setting a tape player happily on a desk.
He opened a folder from right to left
Produced a well-worn cassette
And played Happy Birthday, in Persian, for me.
He smiled at me with hands folded throughout the song
As I’d imagine he had smiled at
All the other special women in his life named Shohre.
He never played Happy Birthday for any of the other students.
Or gave them cherries,
Or went to their weddings,
Or held them while they cried when their grandfather died.
I do not know what he saw in me
But in each other we found family years and miles away from home.
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 5:37 PM UTC
The eccentricities of nature
Leaving us at its mercy
Sun and rain are taking turns
To play with us, caught unaware
Mood swings of nature
Blatantly leaving us perplexed
Sometimes raging with fury
Or its calming nature acts as a balm
Another moment tornadoes
Ripping across the hearts of habitats
Leaving us bare and unsheltered
Earthquakes depriving the ground beneath
Leaving us with open chasms of darkness
Erupting volcanoes, burning away
Glowing rivers of lava, taking its own course
Not showing any mercy, drowning dreams
Icy cold glaciers melting away the past
To drown away the future of our existence
And the vast seas encroaching shorelines
So many vignettes of nature
We can only be mere spectators
To the eccentricities of nature
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 8:32 AM UTC
The Contra jour man hid his grimace,
watching the Punch and Judy show
with vignettes of spectators in like denial,
he clenched his fists
fearful of the spotlight
yet he could not surrender pain
Eventually he try to break the rules
and heal underneath.
Yet his crucifix a new seaside town
with a floodlit vaudeville
presenting songs of belied memories
to which he can only raise a mug
of out of season white burgundy
apparently leading the dance nowhere.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 2:58 PM UTC
Step one is waking up
and writing about your day.
I want to talk about language,
your mothers cheapest wine and worst blueberry jam
staining all your best clothes with verses.
Vignettes appearing all over
the rented tuxedo from the wedding.
Dark ink and oil separates in a margarita glass
soaking into the cuts on your dry lips,
dusting your hair and the spaces
between each individual vertebrae.
Syllables dripping from the tip of your nose
and fingernails
leave novels on the linoleum and
books of sentence fragments on the hardwood.
Poets bleed into cracks on fine china
pooling into poems.
Space heaters emit quotes from dead people
I sign each word when
the analogue clock ticks,
each poem adding another minute to the day.
I’m always hoping I can squeeze in a few more hours
so I can watch the ****** orange sky
with grass in my shirt,
the Pixies mumbling in the background
leaving lyrics trapped in my teeth.
Anthologies of letters
between man and his dog
hidden onomatopoeias in every backyard.
I'll write you 364 days of the year
too many paragraphs to fill the barbecue.
Burn through pages with paper matches
making enough poems to last a decade.
Transfer phrases into the soles of my shoes,
I want to walk on water,
the "W" curled up beside my baby toe.
Every inch of the fabric we call skin,
stamps and ink pads,
turn everything to poetry.
Despite seas of fog
where breathing stops the words
from forming in your throat,
the only way to express is by experience
and frantic fountain pens.
Smoke on the balcony
writes starry sonnets about the girl in your bed
lining the waxing moon with poetry,
a **** homage to Shakespeare himself.
Serendipity;
finding something good without looking for it.
A feeling I have encountered
keeping my breathing sporadic,
rarely setting me on fire.
Living Chinese finger traps
burning blue poems on my palms
splotching the back of my neck
licking up my thigh and hips.
Let me throw away my common sense,
the final step of becoming a poet.
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 10:59 PM UTC
Don't be discreet
Be my equal
sing like the winged ones
toward frightened woes
There we were
(posed in the right).
We are no longer
(shrouded in discontent).
vignettes of our past
still crowd thoughts,
like kids in
concert halls.
Jan 31, 2011
Jan 31, 2011 at 11:46 AM UTC
i.
the grass in the meadows
has grown high,
it melts like an emerald
sea under the sun.
ii.
summer stretches
robotic and angular
everything larger than life
sunshine and the childish rains
pouring stormy drops
on the window.
iii.
the sky is perfectly white
the cloud is an unbroken
line, no dots or dashs,
no hyphens or metaphors.
iv.
i dress in the morning and
undress at night let the
pools of the night tether me
to the sky.
Aug 20, 2016
Aug 20, 2016 at 11:12 AM UTC
I feel the answer to approaching adulthood gracefully
is to chronicle your life in Stuart McLean vignettes.
Spoken like Bach. Rubato. Cadential.
Lovingly. With humor.
Because you will notice, you see,
that job burnout, the belly fat,
and the dent in your bike are all crispy
slices of burnt toast
on the warm Christmas radio sound of
Saturday morning CBC.
They don't matter.
And that's exactly what makes
these stories beautiful.
Nov 17, 2012
Nov 17, 2012 at 11:28 AM UTC
a shredded bath mat, a Dead Sea salted bath, and a cold root beer
you want vino veritas vignettes,
color commentary, stray dog thoughts
time lapsed into a ****** single poem wood,
ha ha ha you can't handle the falsified lies
that constitute a sad man's disfigured truths
nobody cares that failure contretemps
inhabit every other thought,
his own sounds of silence sung repetitiously,
every severed second a new verse
coughed up and cursed,
emptying your verbal purse,
snorting with disgust
at your own claptrap vetted pomposity,
who gives a ****
what I got is the ability
if you can call it that,
to cerebralize verbalize
every eye picture, inputted impulse,
knowing in the fullness of the unwell
that hash for breakfast ain't
suitable for mass consumption
a shredded bath mat,
a Dead Sea salted bath,
and a cold root beer
begat a poem of knowing nowing
a pretend poet meowing what he seen,
what he got temple pounding
Fogelberg sings Auld Lang Syne,
swig down the root beer,
thinking that is one freaking good song,
a life reviewed on the HP stage,
his lyrics modified
with only a tune he can hear
no one will like this,
as it should be,
don't like it me neither,
double negatives for rule busting emphasis,
the only point, ending circumscribed,
curcumsized by children who don't love,
an ex wife hateful ***** man-enslaver,
this close || to losing your job,
*** is the new ***
ain't it pc
to singalong
standing on a shredded bath mat,
fresh from a Dead Sea salted bath,
and having drunk a cold root beer,
Crosby Stills & Nash chiming in
*teach the children well
their father's hell
will slowly go bye*
and this is a poem
that I didn't write,
just reported the here and the there,
and the nothing in between
Feb 14, 2015
Feb 14, 2015 at 7:47 AM UTC
"where day is.... dreams of a summer sky."
i.
the sky floats up,
gazing out with lips
of steel, a
shiny branch
surrendering
to summer’s sigh,
her iris a cats
eye, marble blue,
her pupil a dark
wand.
ii.
play with me,
draw me out of the
dark,
let me sing to
you a sea-song
where the waves
somersault and
crash to the shore,
where the wind, wild
as wild, faints to breathe
the wakening sky.
iii.
see how i write in passages,
faint-waves of
summer’s mists where
the rain dips her pen in
the grey-ink cloud.
iv.
searching for your ghosts,
the deep whirling of the streamy sea
with its wine-red roses like
coloured glass
dance as i gather
whispers of strangeness
and sun, blossoming,
shrink-edged like an
opalescent pool, all
of it, you.
v.
days of watery rags and rubber
tyres, red snake of
summer’s ribs, the
stones of the stormy sun,
gathering the landscape
where tonight the
moon will rise for love
you will loosen my hair
and i will kiss your throat.
Aug 12, 2017
Aug 12, 2017 at 1:55 PM UTC
Moon winds brush across naked skin;
Undo my logic, undo my fear…
A faint eyelash flutter,
A foreplay of glimmers through lids sewn shut;
Resting now, upon faded horizons, where oceans pool,
Along the soft-focus curve of nostalgia;
She loved him....loved him....
Timeless...the liquid silver of his lips;
Soft speaking patterns of his voice, an art form,
Lucid from lips, resting in upturned palms;
She reached for him... reached for him...
He came to her wrapped in poetic words,
A slow flame, igniting the darkness of her mind;
And while whispers gathered on the breeze;
Knew her biblically....
How powerless......distance...
Her body a sparkle shine upon wind swept storms,
Kiss to iris, sun to moon, bathed by
His silken facade, a heavenly release,
Pressed hard against her veins;
Muted prayers upon her tongue...
Led willingly across lush landscapes;
She knelt,
A sacrificial lamb; ivory flesh caressed,
Sweet sensuality, remembered, deep;
Like a kite rising on a sea breeze...
Love...the tender membrane,
A colour brush, shrouded in granite notes and steel chords,
A consummation of prophecy, vignettes of 'forever'
Written between flesh and need;
Loss, has no sound....Only a backwards glance...
She whispered his music,
A memory, a whispered echo, filled with mute pleas
Bitten into prayer pillows,
Marks of teeth left to tell the tale;
She stirs....
To fragile rose stem ribs and the splay
Of "might have been"
Her name carved upon moon winds.........
Aug 8, 2012
Aug 8, 2012 at 5:44 AM UTC
i.
autumn’s leaves
scattered in pools,
a cloud of fine gold.
ivy scented skies
break free.
ii.
trees conjure dreams,
flow like a night breeze.
iii.
the sun is remote,
the fires of a wild sea,
damask shores
where we sink
to the floor....
iv.
sink further,
where quiet walls and skies
pierce our yearnings,
uncover a naked flame.
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 1:36 PM UTC
Some say
she is lost to writing poems
snippets, little vignettes of beauty
so much nature inspired, obsessed
with green, botany driven desires
forever in skies, blue, or black with stars
meteor showers, falling, melting
like the liquid silver, red sea of mars
crashing waves, her days
tossed, tumbled, stumbling onto poetry
there is no fault, in words
no shame to be made
would be a sorrowful price to pay
she is writing to find
some truths, a sleuth, a seeker
of going within, without doubt
writing to find herself
most days searching out signs of life
to feel what it would be like, to be
in trees, in leaves, to sleep in green towers
of garden lily bowers
to finally dream in lucid colors, surreal
climbing invisible ladders
in orchards of apple blossom Springs
to sing, sing, sing
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 11:31 AM UTC