"vitamins" poems
washed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook
out again
I write from the bed
as I did last
year.
will see the doctor,
Monday.
"yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head-
aches and my back
hurts."
"are you drinking?" he will ask.
"are you getting your
exercise, your
vitamins?"
I think that I am just ill
with life, the same stale yet
fluctuating
factors.
even at the track
I watch the horses run by
and it seems
meaningless.
I leave early after buying tickets on the
remaining races.
"taking off?" asks the motel
clerk.
"yes, it's boring,"
I tell him.
"If you think it's boring
out there," he tells me, "you oughta be
back here."
so here I am
propped up against my pillows
again
just an old guy
just an old writer
with a yellow
notebook.
something is
walking across the
floor
toward
me.
oh, it's just
my cat
this
time.
38.5k
ANG BABOY by John Iremil E. Teodoro
Sugot takin nga mangin baboy
Kon ang tangkal ko mga butkun mk.
Basta damogan mo lang ako
Kang imo nga yuhum kab haruk
Aga, hapon.
Dali man lang ako payambukun.
Ang pangako mo man lang
Nga indi ako pagpabay-an
Amo ang bitamina nga akun
Ginatomar.
Kag kon gabii gani
Ang mga apuhap mo man lang
Sa akun likod kag dughan
Anb makapahuraguk kanakun.
THE PIG translated by Leoncio P. Deriada
I am willing to be a pig
Provided your pen is my arms.
As long as you feed me
With your smile and kiss
Morning, afternoom.
It is easy to make me fat.
Your promise
Not to abandon me
Is the vitamins
I take.
And during nighttime
It's your touch
On my back and breast
That can make me snore.
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 9:31 PM UTC
big sweaters, ghibli, acrylic paint, cafes, knit blankets and unplanned afternoon naps on the couch, gardens, bananas, vanilla almond milk, soft yarn to crochet into ****** scarves, candles after midnight, the big trees with bulky roots, patio furniture, pianos in random buildings, the internet, manatees, the boundless colours of nail polish, peanut butter & honey, rubber boots, pens that write well, fresh new notebooks, skylights, american netflix, mothers that understand, tête à têtes, one glass of sweet white wine, awkward eye contact that turns into comfortable kissing, airplanes, fresh air, baseball caps, the female collective, the really good dark chocolate, flowers, pumpkin spice lattes and ***** chai lattes, candid laughter, yoga, oceans, high waisted shorts, striped t-shirts, docile cats, playful pups, french presses, integrity, sunscreen, meerkats, penguins, chameleons, autumn leaves, fall fashion, ruby woo mac lipstick, osho, dynamic meditation, compassion, siblings, scrambled eggs, smart phones, garageband, metronomes, hot glue guns, quinoa, ferry boats, soft hands, bicycles, real people, fat snowflakes in ample, graceful ********** backpacks that don't hurt your shoulders, hair conditioner, multi-vitamins, soft sand under bare feet, people that own up to lies, clarity, samsara, satori, samasati, visions, echinacea, lavender oil and frankincense, ambrosia apples and ripe avocados, authenticity, Morgan Freeman's voice, good kissers, ******* iced tea on a hot day, curtains, the smell of beeswax, art galleries, hand massages and foot massages, reiki, plums, mild thunderstorms, soccer ***** good surprises, when birds don't **** on your head.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 7:24 AM UTC
Crafty, they say, He's getting crafty
crafty with my lies and my made-up meals
crafty with my sound-blocking tactics
crafty with hiding the burning lines of white and red.
Baking, they say, He's getting into baking
baking my binges
baking my restriction
baking my omad
baking my sad-looking low-cal low-fat low-sugar low-carb high-protein
'meal'.
Crochet, they say, He's getting into crochet
crocheting ankle warmers to make my legs look skinny
half-finger gloves in an attempt to curb the permafrost that has begun to
knit itself around my bones.
Healthy, they say, He's getting healthy
as i workout until i faint
and do sit-ups until i have bruises on my spine.
fruit and veg and vitamins take priority
and suddenly i have taken an interest in running.
Sep 18, 2022
Sep 18, 2022 at 12:40 PM UTC
I contemplate
I buy it on aromatic instinct
The fight emerges
Don't eat it!
You're not even hungry!
I sit in my head
While the words debate
The palate ultimately wins
My hands follow orders
The sweet melting chew
Savory icing
Made for my mouth
I close my eyes
Taste buds dance
Pure enjoyment
A moment has escaped me
In my candy land
Until it's gone
A guilty pleasure
Plagued stomach
Churning to
Disappointed intestines
An alien
They don't quite understand
As it has no nutrients or vitamins to absorb
Sending the lipids and sugars
Away to live as fat
Surrounding areas I dislike most
I look in the mirror
And I imagine where that regretful donut went.
© Jl 2016
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 6:16 AM UTC
“every time i feel my stomach convulse it’s a new wave of tears
take vitamins, she says
you should just eat, she says
you got skinnier, another says
“eat! eat! haven’t you been eating!? and this bandaid! quit cutting yourself, kalena”
and for a moment i think it’s truth
i think it’s honest
i shout “i do eat! they’re just cat scratches”
and if she would have lifted up that bandaid
she would have learned it was honest
it was truth
but it was melted away flesh that she would have found, not torn
but melted
and in the highlight of this moment i see all of my dreams come true
finally, someone notices!
finally, someone cares!
but yet she’s willing to stop eating. to make sure that i do.
my little thing. an entire 98 pounds, not by choice.
so unhealthy, so sick. all the time. so **** tired.
she would stop eating for me.
and though it doesn’t help, the thought is comforting. it should be disturbing.
it is. in the way that if she stopped eating…
she would lose weight.
and then i would fight harder and harder until my rib bones were sticking out so far they were larger than my chest.
emaciated.
bony fingers that boys don’t want to hold and girls don’t want to kiss.
hair that slides out with the slightest tug.
no one wants that.
except me, of course.
i want that.
i want to weigh 85 pounds.
i want to die.
i want to be so high on the emptiness that i die.
i faint. and they cannot wake me up.
eternal sleep. forever peace. and the best part of all?
I would be horrifically tiny in even the smallest coffin. “
Oct 23, 2012
Oct 23, 2012 at 9:01 PM UTC
V-is for vowing to never drink *****
While on our voluntary vacation.
We have voiced our verification
In a high voltage volcano
While playing volleyball
And checking our voicemail.
While in this void,
A terrifyingly vivid *****
Who was a model for vogue
In which she wore a V-neck dress,
And ate all her vitamins
Vocabulized with much volume,
Her vow
To always,
Drink *****
May 11, 2010
May 11, 2010 at 10:16 AM UTC
Given up smoking
now doing one of them there
vaping things
e-cigarettes
keeping smoke clean
for all the rest of you
that complained
yes cherries in my head
are you all getting your vitamins
did not want to bring that up
but is your waste slimmer than mine
smiling here
sorry but just words.
Oct 10, 2015
Oct 10, 2015 at 4:31 PM UTC
we always want to re-invent ourselves when we feel
rejected, unwanted, left to the side.
we dye our hair or cut our hair or style our hair
so differently, so drastically, so unrecognizable.
we pack on make-up or strip our make-up
or pierce our faces, belly buttons, get tattoos, choose a permanent mark
to remind us of something solid;
something that represents
self-sufficiency or this too shall pass,
because we know we are gonna feel
rejected, unwanted, left to the side again
(and again, and again).
we buy new clothes, give away old ones to our friends,
new shoes, new bags, new look.
and we’re always picking up new vices, new habits, new addictions.
cigarettes, alcohol, razors,
all the late night reckless binges on wine, narcotics, food, cutting ourselves.
sometimes we pick up healthy ones too,
like running, swimming, dancing, yoga, meditating, resetting sleep patterns, taking vitamins, treating ourselves to the spa, eating regularly, getting out of the house to see friends.
we either avoid intimacy at all costs because we can’t fathom
the concept of trust anymore
or we dive into it with practically anyone, just to feel something real
because we are so ******* lonely,
but we never really feel anything real at all.
we make resolutions, goals, plans for our next relationships
so that they won’t follow the same patterns as our last crumbling ones
(they usually still do).
some of us change what we like, what we want, what we need
to impress people so that they
fall in love with us and will never leave us.
we begin disregarding ourselves for another person,
or disregarding everyone else for ourselves,
both because we don’t want to get hurt again.
and then somewhere, somehow after weeks, months, maybe even years of
the full fledged wavering of
destruction meeting recovering meeting ignorance meeting shyness meeting loneliness meeting accepting meeting fear,
we start to see the intricacies of the pattern much clearer -
we make all of these sudden changes because
we just want to feel better,
we just want to be better;
that’s all.
it’s taking charge, which is healthy.
it’s also making fact and point that we need to change to deserve love,
which is unhealthy.
all of it is like learning algebra for the first time,
some of us take a bit longer to understand it all; the formulas, the variables, the balance.
and once we understand the formula, the variables and the balance,
then we can welcome back the beautiful,
real version
of ourselves we’ve been trying to
cover up.
Sep 21, 2012
Sep 21, 2012 at 5:22 PM UTC
C
is confused, so a little complex
I mean, one moment it’s top of the range
glowing
in the hierarchy of vitamins
but next it’s a little abashed and low
in a student’s report card –
you know, C is not as good as an A
And so can you blame C for its mood swings?
Its agony continues:
one instant C is Calm, in another it’s a Curse
And you know it also feels a little wanting
a little under-stretched, not fulfilled
like not being able to complete
all the stretching exercises
its fitness trainer metes out
“O, if only I could be a little more yogic,”
C intones
“I’d be as composed as an O” -
but O no, that’s not to be
And don’t you start
on the indignant possibilities
of the letter C, for C has always aspired
you see
to be genteel, cultured and debonair
and curls with disgust if the uncouth
should use the letter
to refer to any body parts,
be it that of male or of female
So, dear mortals, C should be left in celestial spheres
And so, in conclusion,
one Commandment I give unto you:
*Never drag C to ****** shallows*
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 10:44 PM UTC
Ask the Channel to his Promised Heart's Best
And Glad you shared his Spirit with your Song
Closer, then keep your Cherries fresh with Zest
So both can Savour each Flavours for long
How Fair you took his Living Supplement
Where these Vitamins need your Fresh Support
But Remind him; Of Minerals and Nourishment
Are what is Needed for his Best Report
Then the Grandfather whose Wise Hands will tell,
Strike the Gong to when their Wrapped Hands hold fast
But knowing his Flute which charms your Bell,
His Pickfold Numbers win your Lots at last.
Tally him Softly; And he makes you Proud
To harvest Best Fruits whilst singing out loud.
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 11:35 PM UTC
Biology TED talk, Ken Burns WWII
Multiple choice plus open response =
Teacher cares, out there among the English
Mathematics, fractions to imaginary i
Anything can happen any time, I mean
Mass killing--public school, movie theater,
Post office when every mother wears a gun
Yet happiness permeates like CO2 + sunlight
Photosynthesis + electricity = burning bush
Hot tea, hot shower pleasure perfect rest
Early to bed, no more lies, complexity
Poetry about history, i.e. Wolfowitz
As for non-fiction, most things qualify to know
Astrobiology, search for LUCA, FLO
Minerals on Titan, organisms on Enceladus
Divination on Iapetus, peace on Earth and Tethys
Volcanoes and tsunamis, Big Red One and Private Ryan
Don't stay up late, take your vitamins
Sin and crime being nothing more than
Mental malaise, imbalance. Love and compromise
Tolerance, practice worksheets, brilliance
Prejudice and superstition, Tha's a wrap
Nothin doin, ain't gonna happen, freedom's when
Yes is mostly a blessing and No is always an option
Feb 3, 2019
Feb 3, 2019 at 8:14 AM UTC
OR
The Child Is Father Of The Man, But Not For Quite A While
So Thomas Edison
Never drank his medicine;
So Blackstone and Hoyle
Refused cod-liver oil;
So Sir Thomas Malory
Never heard of a calory;
So the Earl of Lennox
Murdered Rizzio without the aid of vitamins or calisthenox;
So Socrates and Plato
Ate dessert without finishing their potato;
So spinach was too spinachy
For Leonardo da Vinaci;
Well, it's all immaterial,
So eat your nice cereal,
And if you want to name your ration,
First go get a reputation.
3.8k
When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,
She looked so limp and bedraggled,
So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,
Or a wizened aster in late September,
I brought her back in again
For a new routine--
Vitamins, water, and whatever
Sustenance seemed sensible
At the time: she'd lived
So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,
Her shriveled petals falling
On the faded carpet, the stale
Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.
(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)
The things she endured!--
The dumb dames shrieking half the night
Or the two of us, alone, both seedy,
Me breathing ***** at her,
She leaning out of her *** toward the window.
Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me--
And that was scary--
So when that snuffling ****** of a maid
Threw her, *** and all, into the trash-can,
I said nothing.
But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,
I was that lonely.
3.9k
Behind the building,
a one hundred percent green certified building
an amazing feat of engineering-science-forward thinking
fabulously energy efficient cutting edge building
sit solar panels in the sweltering heat,
extra heat from the toxic clouds in the sky
which now envelop the Earth
There, under the panels sit a small band of sheep, who represent the
last little bit of progressive wonderfulness
visionary design and research based and proven
and the future because they eat the grass
and there is no need to use toxic fume producing
loud unnatural unsustainable lawn mower
But the grass is long dead.
It is just white and yellow and there are lambs
baby sheep who sit and pant underneath the
sustainable solar panels without a decent meal
in sight. Only stalks and yellow deadness
I suggest vitamins or supplements
after all there is no grass, only grass out
that is watered sustainably and is carefully fenced off
from the living sheep underneath the dead panels
behind the dead building.
Outrage from the forward thinking cutting edge
Wi-Fi custodians of the cement and metal building and panels,
panels that emit a high pitched hum
from a hot metal box and regulate the CO2 in each room automatically
The sheep are there to eat the grass
if you feed them, even to make them healthier
so that they may get up out of their hot suffering
and eat some stalks in addition to a little bit of supplemental feed
they will not eat the dead grass, and they are there to eat the grass
they are not there to be comfortable or healthy they are just sheep
But sheep are only living non human feeling beings
and not part of the forward thinking cutting edge metal and cement
technology that is worth a lot of money and was written up
in the paper and got the custodians attention and recognition.
And they are just suffering, hot, miserable animals
and despite all of our technology, Mars landing
solar panels to electricity advance thinking technological wonders
our compassion and empathy remain tight and selfish
and the dead things, not the living ones, are what we value
Aug 9, 2012
Aug 9, 2012 at 9:43 PM UTC
I don't need a necktie-
I don't need a wallet-
I don't need a thingamajig-
or a whatchamacallit!
I have what I want,
a wonderful son, daughter-in-law,
and the two most powerful vitamins
known to mankind---my grandchildren.
AND, last, but not least, my "Guardian Angel",
Brie!(as in cheese)--(my cat!!! :):):)
for they make everyday, Father's Day!
copyright: richard riddle: June 21, 2015
Jun 21, 2015
Jun 21, 2015 at 6:08 AM UTC
The Breakfast Fairies (a humorous treatise)
Summoned for to break the fast
of sleep-and-dreams that can no longer last,
As the clock to noon draws nigh,
I happily paddle off to the cabinet
Where the cereals that I CHOSE,
Since I am now a grownup,
faithfully await, calm and in repose.
The refrigerator, in nearby proximity,
sources a Stony-field yogurt,,
A yogurt that I CHOSE,
light and sweet with processed fruit,
due to the miracle of Aspartame.
Distracted, back to the kitchen for
Some multi-grain slices to hail and toast,
Which I prefer dry (no butter)
and ready for anointing with oils of
Strawberry jelly.
To the table return ready to sound
The horn of plenty,
When I see the ****
Breakfast Fairies have struck yet again!
Cousins first to those that reside in nearby dishwasher*
The nefarious fairies guard my health
tho nobody asked them too!
My Crispix, with its malty sweetness,
And the ***** aftertaste of sprayed-on "enriched vitamins,"
has been smothered neath layers of
Granola, with cranberries and nuts,
Contaminated with a hint of cinnamon.
My processed yogurt,
vanished, without a trace,
replaced by their bacterial cousins from Thrace,
which is in Greece,
who, tho white, taste like plain yogurt sourpusses,
Even when littered with blueberries,
Nothing can replace the taste of my
Artificial Sweetener!
Dry toast has been sheeted and shined neath
A tribute of fattening butter,
rationalized by a commonality,
"Everything is better with butter..."
The last indignity is that my coffee,
Not the light brown I cherish
When kissed by whole milk,
Now muddled and muddied by skim milk, so named,
Cause they skim off all the taste.
Because they are fairies,
With fluttering wings,
Hasty retreat they beat,
But I know where they hide.
The next time it be for the morning meal,
I will eat it in bed,
far from their kitchen hiding places,
And celebrate my heroics with original
Frosted Flakes and milk,
And extra sugar just for spite!
The bedroom fairies, living under the pillow,
Emerge to beg in iambic pentameter,
Won't get nary a bite,
Until they they return the poems they stole
From my midnight dreams.
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 12:08 PM UTC
For free, but hardly costless,
for you big lollipop suckers,
c a u s e,
every time I breathe in some atmosphere,
outcome these up chucked integers and alphabets to poll-
-ute the remaining "good air," which isn't i know very fait fair,
but would you rather this thin poesy lighter-than-whipped cream and
jello shaking handshaking easy eating than all that other stuff I obsess
about in no particular order, like life and death, counting my re-main-
lining breaths, love 'n like, awesome vs. trite, hot love and cold po-
-tatoe mustardy salad, punch and paunch, my endless declination into febrile old age and the wasting away processes most unfortunate,
that fuels a trillion dollar healthcare IN-dustry (midwest pro-nun-she-ate-sean), vitamins and supplements, manufactured in contaminated
factories in the farout east, that are not usda grade A, unless mixed with good **** and to hell with this graffiti wordley ***** even i'm
fed up from writing all this serious stuff, and Brother Leonard,
who is always very ****** says
fkinA, halle-lou-y'all
the end is near***
Sep 6, 2025
Sep 6, 2025 at 10:17 PM UTC
girlworm, you grab a wrist like you've known modesty in the shyness of a bare feeling gripped tight on the one offering it
tightrope fingers falling into the spaces of unspoken territory, slipping into familiar qualms like the worn lipsticks that fits the grooves of my lips like an object of my affection
knowing the contour of what i'm never aware of
anxieties creep like an overgrown lawn
these fears personifying into antsy women invading my kitchen telling me that there's not enough ventilation and the stove is on leaking gas into the baby lungs of a young smoker
and when i begin to argue they give both a look of sympathy and disgust as they say "oh child you drown so easily"
so i sit chewing my nails as i count the birds outside flying back and forth from their post as if they can't remember where they're going towards or if there's something that could possibly pull them elsewhere
my mind swirls in the smoothie of a plastic cup that sticks to the coffee table, the rings of different bottles painting circles for me to memorize again
my paradise sits with the roughness of his knuckles and the ambiguity of eyes that could know everything and i would set fire to the stars inside because of the jealousy that grows from pretty things being smoldered under skin
when i begin to lose my person, pale and shivering i go towards it
empty stomached and ready to be buried in the clothes of her
that i can imagine becoming the consistency of yogurt in my lap
kissing back my tremors as i lift up her hair from curious shoulders
dry-heaving the importance of the cheeks that feel warmer as they settle on hands that are brought together as if in deep prayer and i know i will collect myself again one day
girlworm, you're a swarm in my chest and i am me
Nov 5, 2018
Nov 5, 2018 at 11:50 PM UTC
Another Sunday, time to recover
From all the drugs, my only lover
Take my B vitamins to start the circulation
With some fish oils to reduce inflammation
Most importantly, are my amino acids
Because of that I've been flushed
So now I replenish these masses
The benzos are the only drugs that get touched
So addicted to them, so I know it's a must
If a doctor read this, he'd understand my logic
But if a doctor read this, he'd command me to stop it
As I continue my day with my normal acting mind
I realize I'm a slave to drugs, all the time
But I'm financially flourished
The whole family I nourish
And after reading these poems, I feel some people get jealous
Who would follow me? They know my soul I had sold it
I always follow back, I'm not a bad guy
Now sit on top of that, I'm not living a lie
I could really care less about it
It's just an alias, and a therapeutic outlet
Just another Sunday
Glad you read about it
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 1:28 PM UTC
Unmotivated Tears
I used to criticize
The eyes
Of those I knew
Who, at
Drops of a hat
Shed tears of ardor: God-knows-what.
Ascribing it
To vitamins and lack thereof,
Past, present and/or too much ‘love’.
Too something/something out of balance;
Nothing but a prevalence
Of yin or yang
Ganging up
On both those ducts.
Uncaring and unfeelingly – I used to be.
Now, at eighty-three it’s me.
I may need hormone therapy.
Or is it age sagacity -
Unmotivated tears
Based on a grasp of life’s chimere
That takes in all -
An all which makes one engineered
By tears
One must defer to.
Unmotivated Tears 4.24.2018 I Is Always You Is We; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Aging; Arlene Corwin
Apr 24, 2018
Apr 24, 2018 at 8:10 AM UTC
peach cobbler, that's what you remind of
the sweet, southern staple that everyone loves
but when the pom-poms fell from your hands
you told the girls in the van on the way to fun mountain
"I can't do those stunts anymore."
I still laugh at myself for my inappropriate and abrupt,
"WHAT!?!?"
but your collected calmness collected me
until i saw in the back of your eyes the collected fear
and realized the daunting fact,
that even though you were nearly 9 months my younger
in 9 months
you were going to have to be years older than me
we were raised to plan
but planning doesn't determine how life occurs
cause you never really plan to fall down
i know there were those who showed you love
but i'm sure being named "pastor's daughter" and labeled "cliche"
didn't do you any favors in the judgement days
and i'm sorry i only made you a dress to hide the bump
when you deserved a cape
to soar over that injustice
that no one has the right to serve
what its like to inhabit a body that is growing beauty
i don't know, but watching you
i have seen it can be ... a change
which, i'm sure, that doesn't even remotely explain ... does it?
no it's ... a Life Alteration of Volcanic Proportions
cause I'm sure, at times, you feel as if standing in the wake of an explosion
and sometimes the earth spews fiery filth at you
but i believe mothers are fire proof
cause they know they have beauty that grew inside
and when you look at that doe eyed, preschooler son
remember that love strengthens you
heaven is powerful
and you are both beautiful
Jul 23, 2012
Jul 23, 2012 at 2:59 PM UTC