"vining" poems
You who have lifted up your sunburned face,
Long-told of peasant warmth and the forest tableaux.
Barefoot, you brought the book of hours upon dusty roads,
Ungoverned, little flower from Jeanne to Lourdes to Lisieux.
Our Lady, osculum pacis, the kiss of peace in wood and stone.
Burned out to those dusty eyes,
Now-empty look of rosework from the forest-fall of sunlight.
Medieval prayer, earthly-dim to its rafters of oak,
Come un-cinctured in ashen cloud of amice and alb,
And the murine blackness of plague-like smoke.
Birds that sit blinking at the winged fossil of intrados,
Pipe air through your own ribbed vaults, organum pulse.
Let the city rise in your vining voices—and hold the note.
The great ***** intones from the runs and pedal stops,
Along the turbid streets of the rue de la Cité to the empire of catacombs.
Beside his candle, the monk in sadness knows
All loveliness of heaven except his own.
Our Lady, every sunset is your faded candle hour of peace, for us to know.
Holy Father, so passes worldly glory,
Over the roofs of Paris like fire-scorned and leaden wings.
Apr 24, 2019
Apr 24, 2019 at 1:47 PM UTC
There are places you exist
in a flowing green dress
that kneads against your body
with every passing breeze
and sand nips at your heels
as you curt by tonned blocks
of cement that smother grass
just off the sidewalk.
They nuzzle киоск stand,
and long to lift self up
to a sea-blue, backdrop dream
that dissolves for years (and years)
and erodes to sewers beneath
with every Charlotte rain
and crumble once again;
a gray-eyed contrast true
of beauty vining through
a city that snuffs roots.
You, and there you go.
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 12:41 PM UTC
so you write a lot,
pouring entire waking existences,
current n' prior,
into a long and crafted 'pistles,
and pixels
and you got jive pride
and then, the poem,
you worked so hard for,
ups and dies
gets a few middling fingers of reads,
dying on a vining of
Juliet's pseudo poisoning elixir,
no big deal, happens all the time
but here's what's wielding & weirdly wilding:
***A poetpourri.
of newly found co-inhabitors,
from around the universe,
from places unpronounceable,
unlike Venus & Mars, (very poet-popular)
and from previously places were
never or seldom was heard a
discouraging word, igniting a
rewarded mutuality of a
following up embracing***
par example;
Tirunelveli
Poland
Lisbon
Cyprus
Bihar
Uruguay
Ankara
Vienna
Albania
Tanzania
India
Bangladesh
New Zealand/Australia
Soldotna (Alaska)
plus Texas, West Va., Ohio, and other exotica, like
Nowhere
what a blessing!
Blessed art Thou o Lord,
that permits the miracle that my integers
of 0 & 1
can be translated into such
varied exotica, in harmony,
thus permitting this discovery of
never visited oceans and landfalls
of poetry never heretofore to join as
one.
Aman.
<>
nml
Aug 30, 2025
Aug 30, 2025 at 6:31 AM UTC
she’s sweet like wasabi
and wicked like cinnamon.
she sleeps alone and she lives alone,
but she has the trees and the dirt and the birds,
so she isn’t really alone.
there’s ivy vining its way up her legs,
and cobwebs collecting around her chest,
but she holds hope like an amulet,
like someday someone will brush them away.
breathing isn't always easy for her
because she still carries the moon in her chest,
so she's got a heartbeat like a hex.
she’ll spider her way into your heart,
but before you know it she’ll disappear.
she’ll be here as long as she can,
but she’s dangerously human.
Sep 6, 2013
Sep 6, 2013 at 12:47 AM UTC
there’s a boy I love,
the boy doesn’t speak,
the boy is pale, a body full of bones.
his **** limp
his eyes, weeping
his form, skeletal and twined.
i want to dissolve him into body wash,
clean my body with his.
there’s a boy,
a touch of 25 to his grace.
the boy kisses like he’s carving gold into cement.
he makes art out of willowing branches of thighs,
out of dove-necked wrists,
out of a sloped, vining neck.
there’s a boy,
mute; but as loud as roaring packs of waves.
there’s a boy i love,
even when i swore love was what I was most afraid of.
Aug 31, 2017
Aug 31, 2017 at 9:09 PM UTC
He pieces her together: eggshells
She pulls him apart: saltwater
And outside it is always rose-light
And paper boats and some sweet breeze that nobody asked for
Outside it's all honeysuckle vining up the pasture fence
She falls asleep small against his tallness
He sleeps like a dog in the sun
If the truck keeps running
It's a metaphor for their relationship
If the truck stops it's foreboding
She loves him: pins and needles
He loves her: turquoise jewelry
And they're forever burning like
Matches on fingertips
Forever noticing new wrinkles in their reflections
As the mirror stays the same with age
"Do you still think you're going to marry me?"
"I won't let you get away again," he says,
Knowing she's young and she's fast
She smiles like pawn shop diamonds
Knowing he's lucky to have her
And having never felt so stupid
In her wicked wayward life
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 9:26 PM UTC
bronze model of my truth
worn golden from so many touching attempts at holding
never cupped in heavy hands
just brushed
a stone in river sinking
fills me warm in sunrise spectrum to know it go
standing publicly cemented
to the city center
always
forests encroach in slow motion
take me as I leave
up from the roots
that statue overgrown
none too soon
to be the base
of vining blooms
and shining worn back to brass
discovery
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 3:40 PM UTC
Underneath my chest,
She digs her ears letting herself in.
Every skip of my heart,
She's said,
Is a life she would ever breathe.
She's got her hand entwined
With mine
And her body wrapped
With my grip vining around.
Trust me,
It's a night to remember.
I let myself lost
To the pulses of her wrists,
To the bloodstream
Flowing back to her heart.
I couldn't put to mind
The last time
I've gotten in a home I belong,
To me, she's both tears and hugs,
Arguments and kisses--
the love and pain.
She's my home.
Feb 24, 2016
Feb 24, 2016 at 12:04 AM UTC
paining, pining
i am refusing to branch
onto your spokes i am vining
touch me soft—prick your hand
Dec 8, 2017
Dec 8, 2017 at 7:57 AM UTC
And I'm alone in the ruins of the jungle.
The probing grasp of vining plants
twists questions out of dirt
and threads together disparate trees
whose trunks are full of centuries.
The ancient pyramids herald the sky
as darkened clouds return.
I do not fear the coming rain.
The rainfall used to be consoling,
like I'd hear the rhythm of your voice,
the cadence of your metered step,
inside the pit-pat play around my head.
Now there's only atonal dissonance
although I've seen the muses dance
to the static between my ears,
and I've seen the nymphs run wild
through forgotten foliage of time.
I don't know where else to look, love.
I think I've finally lost your track.
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 10:14 PM UTC
Vining fear comes creeping
In so late at night.
Hissing that I’m Not enough
That all the friends will leave us
I have enough love
to face this night
Out with doubt
All will be well once more.
Feb 19, 2019
Feb 19, 2019 at 5:05 AM UTC
She always hated her hair
How the sheet of gold would shackle her down
Like a fly in a trap
Sticking to the shine of her lips
Getting lost between the valleys of her arms
Burning her scalp as she tried to yank herself free
From her flaxen prison
I always loved her hair
How it would fall over the slope of my arm
Like a waterfall
Vining its way around my limbs
Teasing my chin and then my lips
Fluttering against my nose
Asphyxiating me with her scent
Sweet peach Heaven
I think I miss her hair the most.
May 19, 2018
May 19, 2018 at 3:40 PM UTC