Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Damian Acosta Apr 2010
Far below the watermark, it’s really all the same…
A Youth screams in truth—Bloated tongue and footloose—for her father, underwater;
While her mother lifeless too, floats along the Grimy hue, face disguised with ****** blue, down the bank-- about a mile or two…
But these words are all in vain, because it’s really all insane, that

Far Below the watermark, it’s really all the same…
Names next to X’s, Signed by anyone of your nagging Exes, haunt your dreams like shapeless hexes--
Reminding you that to succeed, you need to feed from their luscious Platinum ****-- which you learn to love by, first, ******* on their feet.
So, climb that money ladder! Gadgets! Gizmos, all galore! Stab this back with small “e-chatter”, and raise your wallet up one soulless person more…

Because these words are all in vain, and it’s really not all insane, that
Levees break, Truths are fake, and X’s, Exes, Fears and Hexes on their own, do write your fate.
So worry not! All your dreams make sure you maim, for
Far Below the watermark, it’s really all the same.
2009
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
So this is the watermark
The stranding after the deluge
Tidal storms recede
And I am wreckage on your shore
Gulls hover
Strident cries they scrabble
For cast off sparkling trinkets
Dead flesh
Winging requiem for a life unlived
Slip the yellow tape boundary
Drape daisy chains and platitudes
Across my fractured hull

Would you find wild beauty
In weathered wood
Barnacle scars
And the echo of measured surf
Set this longship by the sunstone
Radiant light when skies are heavy
Sullen with winter chill
Would you cleave to the beat
Aegir’s heavy hand on your prow
The moon pull of open water
The tease of salt spray
On full lips whisper my name
One more time
Quiet
Voice across the deep
And I will breathe

Will you simply wreath
My memory
“ see the line of my people back to the beginning
Lo, They do call to me”
Cast the fire and plot the stone ship
Pebbles skipped cross brackish water
My legacy sinks
Little rippled terminus
Wont shred butterfly wings
Or froth the wild tides
To the maelstrom
So this is the watermark
Strand my heart
With one spilled tear
TL Boehm
09/03/2014
Aegir is a norse sea god
the sun stone was a viking navigational tool - a stone that reflected light even in cloudy weather
The quote is from a Viking Burial Prayer. Contrary to myth - vikings were often buried in the earth with the grave outlined in stones in the shape of a ship.
I don't write pretty poetry - and this is a lamentation of sorts for my lack of ability to write something beautiful.
imai Apr 2018
I love you
only in ways
I am allowed to.

I admire you
only from afar,
where I cannot touch you.

I dream of you
only in the deepest of nights,
an unconscious rendezvous.

I wish for you
only in silence,
not one desire, untrue.

I love you
only in the dark,
‘cause under the sunlight,
I’d be reminded of your
watermark—

you are not mine,
though I am yours.

I love you
alone
it is the only love
I’ve ever known.
SøułSurvivør Oct 2014
<><><><♡><><><>



as i lay here in the dark
i held your letter
white and stark
a lover you were
flame and spark
your kiss It was
a watermark

though on the page
no writing sweet
that kiss was burned there
warm and deep
as i pressed it to my cheek
i began to sob and weep
what i sow i do not reap
i can talk, but talk is cheap.

a reminder of my pain
the watermark becomes a stain
how i wish that you'd remained
the friend who i
at first had claimed
now my heart is
torn and maimed
i listen to it's
sad refrain

now in the morning
comes and hark!
I hear the sweet sound
of the lark
the sun is rising
o'r the park

the stain of
tears now
my own mark

now with the page
in morning light
i sit down

that's right

i write


soulsurvivor
catherine jarvis
(C) october 5, 2014
A writer always needs
Blank pages!
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2017
~for lovejunkie~

"a watermark is a faint design made in some paper
during manufacture, which is visible when held
against the light and typically identifies the maker"

<•>

But you knew that...

in each, and *every
poem,
intentional stains faint revealed

Here,
a 2:03am watermark,
a time stamping of time, place,
a self-notification of "you were here,"
hid under the writing wrist,
or in a favorite verse,
(invisibly interspersed, blinking a winking,)
the very now of this poems
incanting, decanting formation,
by the neo natal baby warmers,
heating filaments of glowing incandescence

Perhaps this one, to be completed, come the sabbath,
when the eastern suns rising glow
over the North Fork must, demands it,
de jure, by natural law,
provoke and parole my soul
unto confession,
ordering a performance review of my
yellowed journalism revelations,
by the halo's fresh sunlight,
revealing all the watermarks
of the scrivener

These words, these toyed crumbs,
these human droppings, what is remaindered,
post ablutions, pre-morning prayers
the washing away of the mid-of-night
cappuccino-colored night frights

To new day light,
hold up my skin to any and all effervescent sources,
even the electronic red light, low resolution room dots,
all to see if still yet,
the coursing river run red beneath the
blue veined body's arterial roadmap,
exposing the rents, the cracks,
where, yes, Rebecca,
"the light gets in,"
fresh tracks, new watermarks

This then,
best viewing time of the
impermeable, impermanent, perpetual moving
below and above watermarked inscriptions,
eclipsing, barely just visible
above the eye lined brow,
etchings upon the forehead,
like my Cousin Cain,
standing out outstandingly,
imprimis:

ex libris (from the library of)
the eyes now reading these verses


One of you a-muse-ds,
gave me this title,
one of you used by me,
you gave me the inspiration,
you undid me into this doing
of my undoing

Connecting the unworthy audience,
that's me,
to the masters of my poor souls survival,
that's you, all,
into admitting, rinsing, repeating,
for have I not once before
affirmed
my scores, my marks,
way back in '13

The heretofore
of all my flaws,
you call them scars,
I call them
my prima facie
needled watermarks,
my poems

When once I wrote:

I am both,
and nothing but,
addict and dealer,
a ****** poet...
a ****** poet ******


<•>
8/17/17 1:49am ~ 9/4/17 5:56am
Manhattan Isle ~ North Fork L.I.

<•>
https://hellopoetry.com/lovejunkie/read


https://hellopoetry.com/poem/392109/yo-yo-my-drug-of-choice-****-poets/
<•>

the sabbath comes
<•>
some members on the site,
give such visceral. detailed, and poetic reactions to my writings that it almost always
provokes, seeds, the next new poem.
This crosses many lives,
the survivors.
LJ- I hope your daughter does read your work someday; on that day, give her this one as a preface, so to speak...<•>
Terry O'Leary Sep 2013
MORNING HAS BROKEN
The men, in lines, ***** two by two,
forgetting all the women who
indulged them through a night of tricks
(their lips designed with crimson sticks,
their eyes a wild mascara mix)

and think instead on times ahead
when they’ll be gone, their bodies dead
(some rotting slow’, some mummified)
though once they were their mummy’s pride.

Attired bright in uniforms,
they strew their bombs in desert storms -
like melting sands, the sky deforms
with darkness, death - and doomsday swarms
through ravished lands where fires warm
the corpses, cold and puriform.

Their eyes flash forward towards the backs
of lucky ones who have the knack
of never being in the way
of bursts of bullets as they stray
(effacing phantoms faraway)
and dodging doom’s Redemption Day.

They’re wishing for a foggy morn
or best of all to be unborn,
and peering down to mark the sway
of wings in webs while spiders prey,

they wonder when their time will come
and they can cease their fleeing from
the sights they’ve seen, the deeds they’ve done,
the life they’ve lost, the death they’ve won,

then muse a while upon the child
they killed today when they went wild,
and when they’re finally reconciled
with broken bodies stacked and piled,

they ponder, does she have a kin
to curse them for their burning sin?

And if she does, will god reply
with tooth for tooth and eye for eye?

Or will her clan be mild and meek
and simply turn the other cheek?

2. MIDDAY MUSINGS
They’re counting steps to pass the time
and puzzle if they’ll reach their prime
or if instead they’ll serve the worm
their carnal flesh and aching *****

when soon, perhaps, they sleep in berth
provided by the chilling earth,
and fret about the fate they’ll find
below the stones that slowly grind.

And once or twice will come to mind
a sultry smile they left behind
(the distant past - a tepid trace –
another time, another place),
reflected in the gray grimace
that paints a frightened fading face.

And on they trek through guilt and gloom
to track their own and others' doom
and soon they’ll  grace another pool
with blood of other beings who’ll

inhale no more the evening airs,
unlike the wily Functionaires
who brutalize the fighting men
and send them far away and then

(relaxed, unwound, with victories made)
confer with sword an accolade
on those who’ve lopped bowed heads, with blade,
so someone bent must turn a *****

to hack a hole which then is filled
with all the cloven bodies killed
then cloaked with clay or loamy dirt,
as if to hide the pain and hurt.

3. TEATIME INTROSPECTION
Amongst the many are the few
who maim and **** and think it’s true
that purple war’s a parlour game
when really they’re submerged in shame
for crimes for which they are to blame
and can’t expunge with searing flame

while plodding through an endless time,
or pealing bells with holy chime,
or posing in a paradigm
where paradox and riddle rhyme.

And when they die (as die they must),
forevermore their putrid dust,
still soaked with gore and carmine lust,
will conjure thoughts of cold disgust.

And even though torrential rain
(which tastes at times like cool champagne)
can wash away the scarlet stain
which soaks the sands of god’s terrain,

it cannot ever cleanse the hands
that work the guns and burning brands,
or purge the throats that give commands
to him who never understands.

Nor can the raging hurricane
from blackened souls the white regain,
rescind the sins or void the banes
or loose the ****** from Satan’s chains
who line the pits of hell’s domains.

4. EVENING REFLECTIONS
When through the day to night they pass,
their eyes avoid the looking glass
displaying dim a pale phantasm
plunging deeper down a chasm,
surging through a blood ******,
smiling thin unveiled sarcasm

for the chances lost to taste
the many fruits that went to waste
when each was still a joyous lad,
who went to school and learned to add
and danced in rivers, barefoot clad,

attended church with mom and dad
(which tends the poor and cheers the sad),
to pray for good and curse the bad,
before, in war insanely mad,
he fought the fight (no Galahad)

by flinging flames and slashing throats,
immersing bods in  midnight moats
between the broken battered boats
where babes and booted bodies float,

and leaving bags of bones to bloat
in bullet-ridden overcoats,
and wondered if the goblins gloat
or spot (behind his eyes, the motes),

then strode away without a thought
that mortal lives had come to naught,
sedated by his conscience brought
to nothing more than dripping snot,
while Others sit upon a yacht
and pluck the eyes of fish They’ve caught,

for, when they die, fish seem to see
The Ones behind the tyranny
(with bellies round from gluttony)
in future dangling from a tree
(with leaves as black as ebony),
for that’s, They fear, Their destiny.

5. MIDNIGHT DREAMS**
At night the soldiers sometimes dream
of many things which make them scream,
like
                      floating down a gelid stream
             with burning flesh and cold ice cream
             upon their lips, which makes it seem
             as though their salt they can’t redeem
             when looking back at bold extremes
             of valiant warriors’ victory schemes.

Or ofter yet,
                      they sometimes meet
             a broken skull upon the street
             with gaping eyes, its mouth replete
             with swollen tongue that can’t repeat
             mere words of joy when lovers greet,
             or yell aloud or indiscreet’,

             or talk about the grand deceit
             of Those Who live on Easy Street,
             Who plot, destroy and overeat,
             while others bide beneath a sheet
             on bed of steely cold concrete,

             with final gift a flag or wreath
             that soon will wither like their teeth
             when once they’re settled underneath
             a mound of muck on mouldy heath,
             to lurk in Limbo Land beneath.

And ever more before they wake,
appear quaint dreams not quite opaque,  
like
                      upside down upon a lake
             keeps popping up a pregnant Drake
             who says “there must be some mistake,
             I only have a bellyache”,
             while high above’s a flying Snake,
             (a sight to make a killer quake).

             She cries aloud “for mercy’s sake
             your foresight’s blind, your wisdom’s fake
             the fragile bodies that you break,
             impale or burn upon a stake,
             then stack in layers like a cake,
             reflect a lust that death can’t slake”.

             And turquoise Turtles on the make
             (though taking time to overtake,
             each slurping down a chocolate shake)
             rev up to plead “let us explain,
             we think you men are all insane
            with morals thin as cellophane;

             for, peering through god’s window pane,
             we see quite clearly those you’ve slain,
             enough to fill the Dim Domain
             with blood and guts and tears and pain,
             Chimeras of a frenzied brain.”

             A worn and weary weather vane
             announces floods of claret rain
             that forty days and nights sustain,
             submerging mountains, raising Cain,
             while flushing mankind’s acid reign
             down nature’s evolution drain.

             The Serpent hails a hydroplane
             “because”, she hissed, “we can’t remain;
             behind the hill, the atom’s spark
             has vaporized the palace park,
             reduced to dust the Meadowlark
             and nullified the Rainbow’s arc”.

             And while the others hush and hark,
             a feline Toad begins to bark
             “This plane is certainly Boa’s Ark.

             Let’s flee the Human hierarch,
             forsake all Men to sate the Shark
             which swim within the Waters Dark,
             and purge all traces of the Mark
             in Eden when we disembark.”

             The beasts, in lines, by twos embark.

The dreamers wake, they’re staring, stark,
behind their eyes, a watermark.
Hannah Southard Sep 2012
The tides have fallen,
but the waters keep rising,
choking out the remaining few who struggled to retain their homes.
Shotgun houses,
long abandoned when the levees broke,
and the ocean crashed through the streets,
leaving a wake of more than just sand.

X's
marks on doors,
spray-painted numbers depicting the body count,
telling you if it was safe to go inside,
if you will be poisoned by gases,
or memories.

Volunteers,
thousands of them,
rushed to the scene,
quick, for their moment in the spotlight,
while the house were still damp,
helpful only in the attraction they brought with them,
where are they now?
Now that the houses and the people have dried themselves off,
where are they?
Those who lost nothing,
those who have everything,
where are they?

Out of sight,
out of mind,
out of the way,
locked away,
a secret,
kept tight,
except for the occasional whisper of the waves.

New Orleans,
a broken city,
still fractured,
held together by hope,
and help,
from the few who still venture down
to help put the pieces back together.
The select few
who still care
about the forgotten city,
the cracked town,
a city that's been down on its knees for seven years.
J Ames Feb 2017
The time we grant each other is like that of a  
   syndicated movie
Not that anyone is watching
Might catch the end of it
For old time sake

   It's no mystery why there's this feeling on a
   Tuesday
Just like any other day
It all runs together
A watermark on a watercolor

    And with the way things are going who    
    knows
I might find a way out
If it pans out
If my luck doesn't
Doesn't run out

    So on that note I might see you at next years
    ball
Maybe watch it drop
Maybe midnight
Maybe I won't drop the ball
https://youtu.be/FWAnCFpFynw
Pagan Paul Oct 2018
.
Like a watermark through crisp white vellum
a face appears through the veil of dreams,
to colour wash away a montage of image
and decorate a mosaic of sleep dust seams.

As halcyon lakes waterfall into prism nebulae
and the courtesan face evades its emotions,
inevitably slipping between the chasms of space
like golden dolphins through plasmic oceans.



© Pagan Paul (01/09/17)
.
Old poem, rewrite. PPx
Sunlight

There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed

in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall

of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard,
the reddening stove

sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.

Now she dusts the board
with a goose's wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails

and measling shins:
here is a space
again, the scone rising
to the tick of two clocks.

And here is love
like a tinsmith's scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.

2. The Seed Cutters

They seem hundreds of years away. Brueghel,
You'll know them if I can get them true.
They kneel under the hedge in a half-circle
Behind a windbreak wind is breaking through.
They are the seed cutters. The tuck and frill
Of leaf-sprout is on the seed potates
Buried under that straw. With time to ****,
They are taking their time. Each sharp knife goes
Lazily halving each root that falls apart
In the palm of the hand: a milky gleam,
And, at the centre, a dark watermark.
Oh, calendar customs! Under the broom
Yellowing over them, compose the frieze
With all of us there, our anonymities.
Keith J Collard Dec 2013
Hey *******, I  like what you did
Just not what you do,
Hey *******, dropping tears
On letter " its me not you"
clever letters, clever watermark,
Still smitten whats written ,
signed with a fake teardrop on top,
Oh I clutch and claw,and still you part.

Hey boy all play, playing your life away,
I like what you do, not what you did,
He plays like you, you should see,
he makes then rakes his sandbox family
And not too far from that ****** tree,
Oh *******,
Your words and smile,
Make me hope for a breeze that took your apple far,
But it took you away from me.

Hey player, playing in your own play,
thought you would perform everyday,
driving and paying to see it,
you will never know the feeling,
When the curtain went to the ceiling,
Family, friends....your play I rave,
I CURSE THE DAY I STARED INTO YOUR DARK DESERTED STAGE.

Hey *******, hey actor of "everafter,"
Busy writing a new play?
I like your acting--playing is laughing,
but he has a future and fortune,
My **** man I knew that nothing was after,
but I need to see you one more time,
you make future and fortune not matter.


Will the show return one day?
I understand,
The thrill and never still changing name playbill
Assures a girl, it never will.

"Ahh, the charm, laughing, acting--
The searching strobes from the overhead tracking,
Minute ripples in the curtain upon the stage?
The violins warming up that will never play,
the curtain ascends,
the lonely echos of your nervous clapping,
Now the future they warned would happen,
Real tears well up,  
Ushered out by my saline sadness."
Written from phone, cannot find apostrophe and dash.
AJ Feb 2014
Stupid white girl.
We are not allowed to do anything.
We're prim and proper, white girls.
We are not allowed to fight back.
Put us in our place, white girls.
We are not allowed real work.
We still want our twenty three cents back.

The child of fair skin and blue eyes.
But with all my female privilege,
Came a nasty stamp on my body.
Like a watermark.
FEMALE.
I have heard that when a woman looks in the mirror, she sees a woman.
But when a man looks in the mirror, he sees a human.

Even with that watermark, our pale skin is used as a canvas.
And everyone else has been handed the tools to color in our curves.
Covering us in blue and black and purple and red.
Redrawing our minds so they cannot process the discrimination,
Painting over our tears so our feelings can be buried,
Manufacturing open legs when you want them,
Closed when you don't.
Erasing the lips we use to speak out,
Erasing the eyes we use to see all of this.

You think just because you held the brush,
Just because you created this monstrosity of a "masterpiece"
You get to claim ownership of this piece of artwork
That you blatantly disregard
Is my BODY.

The "fe" you tack onto "male"
Does not stand for Free Entry.
The "wo" you tack onto "man"
Does not stand for Wipe Out.

Women are barely able hold a pencil.
I was lucky to hold one long enough to draw myself
A conscience, a backbone, legs to stand on, and a mind.
We were only taught how to use the back end of that pencil
To erase our mouth and keep the secrets.
But these days the secrets are keeping themselves.

I will not be put in a glass case
You will not charge admission
To have people come and analyze me.
Buy me.
Give me value.
Categorize me.
Preserve me the way you created.

You are no artists.
You are vandals.
harlon rivers Jun 2018
I saw the sun steep
into the seascape ―
lonely as a drowning
    wave
         on still-waters

the dimming of the day
rescinding evanescent daylight                                                         ­         .
fading with the slack tide
         lost at sea ―
a gloaming moment
         let fall from
the remains of the day,
like some other passing
sea bird's molted feather
drifts away untamed

I sit silent as the driftwood
lingering at the watermark,
watching a random gust
    erase the footprints
of another recurring day, 
bearing abandoned memories
    and vacant heartbeats,
atrophied in the drifting sands

    and I see you walking
    towards the abating  
    midnight sunset ―
         but I know
    you're just a mirage;    
like the dimming afterglow
of so many waning moons
            elapsed
         
ever-changing tides grow low  
and promises made lightly  
         do ebb away
          
Scanning the distant horizon ―    
    a blindfold heart    
    mooning all at sea;
parsing a deserted shoreline,
    wondering if love
          is too late ,..
    to stem the tide ―


        harlon rivers

      30   May   2018
Note:   apologies for the inconsistent reading, posts and replies.  Internet access comes and goes out here off the grid.   Thank you for taking a look through the words― h.a. rivers

Chronological TRAVELOGUE collection:
9 of some more here; published & unlisted

https://hellopoetry.com/collection/27104/travelogue/
                                                                                                                     .
Sarah Aug 2015
Take my hand &
I'll show you the
sky.
I'll show you how to
coax the
sunset's green.
I'll open you to
every touch of
fire,
every gentle hand against
your heart,
against
your traveller's soul.

Take my hand &
follow me.

Follow me up to the charcoal sky where
I'll
show you every
star
that I'm
destined to follow-

I won't leave you behind.

Take my hand, you
witching musician
& follow my
dancer's
plight, my swallow's
flight,
up to the deepest, starstruck
heaven to where
we'll watermark
the sky
in ornamental
fashion.
Keiko Larrieux Dec 2009
Slushy, grungy, muddy
Plaster wall
Smashing plates
Demolition.
States fall

Branched anger
Tearing fear
Leafy goals
Plaster wall
Experience molds.

Lights out
I began to shout

Lit by ignition
Methane speaks
Losing cognition
I feel weak.

Luckily, blind
I knew you could see
Water leaked
Imaginary guarantee

I am safe.
Swallowing debris
Like a hero without a cape

I decided to run for ages
Under leafy dreams
Everything burned
Now it’s my turn

I decided to run for ages
I looked back .
I see burned pages

Leafy branches withdrawn
My whole life wasted.
My whole life is gone.
I instigated the most soporific cephalic act, An Argonaut sailing within your strange eyes of others pointed retina membranes, An unsaid exodus wishes to browse your meridians sunsets tainted of that meridian, As evening falls back upon you bathed the earthly mud, Nymph Ninfuceanicus sheltering your labours of bird waste in galactic extinction and creation...

For soft aromatic worlds, you went by your house ruined Zodiac
Blurring the lost romance policy profiles, threading peat spinning the metafhysist think of his tabernacle.

The ship in question was the beautiful delicacy of numbness primary Sun, Lost Halo where one day there was countless number age, to get lost in the cold of your trellis resigned and touching your going through the watery landscape of your soul cornered iron., Spark fleeing evaporated...

How many times my Ninfoceanicus very thin you migrated with your frosty, almost scary legs traveling in a foreign-owned bird…?, Where migrating is hard to see his crosses snowy mountain plants.

What if you. Ninfoceánicas lines will plan my rickety Saturn's own trapeze degraded never stood the lofty life of the living present all this happened? Divided scratchy body plowing all unexplored fountain.


Among several of them, thousands of them managed to be among others, but one of them, violated any protocol as beautiful geese and ducks in the window of my sky, coming to ask for my company, just on the threshold of spring, next to the threshold of my window and yours…, adopted eternal brother.

She mimics the snowy Nymph the feet of all the courts of the world freely, Dancing in tight spaces where sounds beautiful my favorite track other stragglers lost images of my beautiful bird of beautiful threshold of my window as timeless dances belfry rusty sounds.
For the dark wall between your gene, which will open the whistle of your detachment, every time your commander demolition subdued light and energy to take my humble mischief…
by the way, your eyes and mine, in the vigor of sepals loved everlasting flowers insults.

Together unfairly they united as dim flowers in the air,
Divided separately exile scattered your garden,
My chronic bad inside my hundred chronically ill
I will see  Nymph hiperoceánicus, hyper rusty
By iron hanging over the mask gestures cold weather martial iron watering soil and branded satin mask stays plebeian worms my ruined face of phases of my face closet and wardrobe.


The upward castle by fierce hillsides, notify more rasterize
Your morning visit.

Among many castles many seas gang signs of femininity,
As a sliding plushy receiving a Nymph Satardia;
The first and most powerful inhabitant of the ascending Ninfuocenicus castle.

When I'm alone,
I am on the side of the broth augury sling,
Holding my application
Almost like a plumber object in the hands of a blind astronomer.

Only three steps income
Where three steps have to meet me on the runaway shadows
Of my ancestors, right neighbor pine crafty,
That hid my totemic animality...
As the blood currents green,
I lost myself…

As a front polygon,
As a front wormy adventure story demolished
In the densest darkness of your house arcane absence ashes
The cadaverous presence of the wind of my roles in pain and ossuary  of that princely that emotional solstice who anchored in your flowery landscape of love,
Spinning wheel to square steps
As contraindication to love, then need you more.


You jump on my doorstep, plain unlicensed...
So the propaedeutic of Ninfaoceánicus begins,
You write my signs and my losses as prescribed
The loneliest adage constantly fading green robes.

I often feel sad as all times outside the elapsed time,
When I feel the absence of your webbed feet oily,
Aligning by walking wearing my sun off you,
With foreign attire migrating my sunshine clothing doze...
As a gale of tulle for the South Seas who died in the wreckage of a pirate ship Pliocene…

And your sea south sorry awakening as between species
Jungle, eater vampire  as the swirl start your being lost in my
Desert be... want to be mummy augur…
Lips worst evils of unrestrained fantasy tribal worse,
They concluded entirely confined irritability.
As the bipolar lost hope,

The graft of your nomadic existence and entrepreneurial ship traveling
settled that the bipolar economy of your means of anti-life,
Closing my eyes... black aniline,
Black lost roads dancing notch watermark,
Of the hypertensive empty string, as the rope pulls and
Solves the crescent of your face depressed ocher rain.


When river, and watch your lips precursors,
I watch the surf offshore devouring my joint,
In search of  nymph Titania, your age who live with me,
My Perfect for you and my image, my imperfect picture of you and me, silky movement shores of my soul looking for you,
When I sit at the knee I bend my knee for you,
I sit on the bank remains with you.
My codex collected from you, only you...

When the cave steppe fear rages,
Tongues of fire gigantic move me by your rivers adventure
I park in your loud voice drawled from the acute bonfire
In the wooded rested than ever, it grew on your side close.

Your life was almost a straight bipolar errors,
I am now businessman making your life nearby,
Hit blowing winds greater...
And at your life in my financial life,
If you think with your hands clasped over your face
know that almost live together with you,
unbecoming my libertarian release of master your flight
hell, beastly dessert.

Most hellish ******* lastly zain,
Of the greatest forces of your body eater the myth king, fabulous race The disabled senior verse confined treaty,
Confined you that is farthest from you **** nymph Ninfuoceánica,
requalification boiling in behaviors you to exist in the relief of your abysmal way but your gooey body resting on you..., rests meditating  Do not get tired, you do not pretend to be the ruin of your prey voice sound muffled, only animals that disturb you bring your pursue days true…

Your lovers sulfur knew your colors and smells of the most pestilential entity, that overshoot and tone your threefold, as a roar of the soul that comes from your soul, do not let mental baseness mimics with anemic,
lower hostile masts your anti angels have to ride on gold gatekeepers... For the spot, if mythomania and your alcoholic schizophrenia infinity, ...

hulks  of alcohol vapors in the pulmonary vessels by butterfly flocks,
They roam the reins of collecting and rasterized your weakness sudden death, As well as the sudden resurrection of my body.
And rebukes the storm, rebuke thy right entity endowed *****'s nerve
That's where I have to pursue your side embraces more hug me,
More than your own warmth, rather than your own bravery, unbridled carriage.


I often repeat a million times,
The times I did not hear your perpendicular attentive pauses, stutters hurry ****** your frequent alcoholism, not to distinguish only slicing nonsensical attitudes sometimes slow thinking agility of a lover, Thinking that ****** and reduces that sinister and discouraging, that scrape thin that limits who want to be and not dominate.


Mapping by hiding places unusual materials,
Brochures polished of the scruffy codex and guide you an  unguided
By the groves close views as telescopic sights that are lost.


I know, my biggest Ninfuoceánica death may not be reborn on the third day…!!, But if it is not to lose lost when the day ends.
Wise ancestry and slavery will govern the pale fronts
Your hidden and mobile lives on an olive orchard,
Hiper meditate funny without feeling any known gene passed ******, nor read past experience in your prodigious map of oblivion.

Satardia; He lit a match just as night fell,
Sea and sky colours compressing regrets that burned their matches

It burned his blessed same figure as the little pair of gifts
That remained on hold as senior Ninfuoceanica,
Only his dark side Petric windmill stone...


Someday reborn to confuse his disciples confused gentlemen,
And their abandoned phrases that he dominates.

Feverish ardor,
Feverish torpor
Every living illusion is extinguished...
Go to your coward stampede
Of gatekeepers on buffalo between bloodthirsty goats...


Jose Luis Carreño Troncoso Copyright 2015
Related  August 2006
NeuroBio Poetry Essay -  analysing human behavioural depressed,  at the same time fantastic forest voyage  into the Nymph's World
Carlo C Gomez Apr 2021
~
From the initial dawning

lithium sky met infernal waters

and it all went awry

the light of happiness

constituted halos

leaving intimate words

paperclipped, tongue-tied

and love bruises

upon inner thigh

the wellspring enveloped

char and holm

with faint kissed alkali

abating the stormy umbrage

as if a softly whispered lullaby

and suddenly along this watermark

only you, me

and the need to multiply

~
Savannah N Nov 2014
perfectly soft, cascading hair
crest of a neck so real
stripped of all innocence laying bare
words could never heal
on her sleeves, emotions to wear
silence of the night thick to feel
never would she be the same
only loneliness -herself remain

walking through the halls
facing all her peers
no one would ever know at all
her watermark of tears
couldn't tell she'd built a wall
to keep inside her fears
would never let one break it down
comfortable inside her frown

looking now inside to face herself at last
she's battling demons now, demons all her own
rising triumph threatens to destroy her happy past
tearing ripping swallowing up what was once her home
emptiness consumes her, left in a field so vast
why me now this? all questions left unknown

never would she be the same
only loneliness -herself remain
JL Jul 2012
Stone deaf
Youre walking down the street
Drowning in the puddles
The people
You meet speak about
How you look just like a ghost
Who would break a heart so pretty
Neon
Glow and flicker on and off as you pass
The places that you used to haunt
But you just cant go there anymore
Right there through that door
You had your first kiss
So you go back
A stones throw down to Fifth street
Thinking of
How you'll forget those better days
You don't hurt anyways
Feel nothing at all
Numb now
The rain comes down in sheets
But youre covered

As your purple heart beats on
You think you hear your favorite song
As you're stepping off the curb
Who could have the nerve

To bring tears to those eyes again
Avixxi Oct 2013
I saw myself standing on a riverbank,
standing still
looking far in the distance.
Wondering,
pondering.

The wind blowing on my face,
slowly singing its hymn
as I look down
upon the still waters before me,
I saw your face.

Etched forever
by an invisible mark,
the billowing prints from the water.

Copyright 2009
Vicki Watson Jan 2014
This house was washed away weeks ago.
Freak storm or tidal wave or something;
One of those natural disasters.
I was sleeping, so I didn’t notice.

Look out of the window and you’ll see I’m right.
We’re mid-Atlantic now perhaps,
Not beyond help, yet too far to be seen,
The visible invisible.

I’ve gotten to love these waves,
The lap, lapping sway and the cabin headache,
The bluster of wind and spume, flung against cold glass
Like snow from a gun.

It floats, obviously, this house,
And the watermark is lower than the letterbox,
So everything’s fine, just fine,
And there’s not the slightest chance of drowning.

‘Solid construction, energy efficient, built to last’ –
Those builders knew their stuff inside out,
And I have enough supplies to last until tomorrow,
Which is all that matters, isn’t it?

Do you fancy a cuppa? I’ll put the kettle on.
I’ve thought of everything, you see.
It’s just as well I turned the house inside out
Before the weather changed.

Vicki Watson © 2014
harlon rivers Oct 2017
Coyote’s mournful howl echoed
in the new moon’s enchanting sultry ether;
breathing the living harmony of the wilderness rhythm

He seemed to sense a soul reincarnation
      within a pervasive spirit light
      an oft misunderstood
      common thread shared
      this hallowed land’s night

An uncommon Zen stirring from within,
              stifling apathy ..,
. . . of rumble deep beneath
      a dormant volcano reawakening ;
      that which lies undiscovered
      just before the ruptured moment ..,
      liberation of release ―
      dust and ashes taking flight

Through open window              insomnia churns
                          fifty shades of blue ..,
      cast in shadowed hues of broken silence

Coyote stirred the stillness
      with a hauntingly familiar cry
      reading the ridge-top echoes
      like the book of my mind

" YIP YIP   A ―W O O H !!! " . . . the somber plea

For it is in these final hours chosen chore
      the recurring torn
      these chains and things

Coyote was going there ―
      to stand these watermark crossroads
      this hour of need

Accepting brother has always been lonely
      sometimes anything
      means something - -
and so it goes ..,

Coyote communes in pulse
      from ancient realms
      this sacred blood ..,
                Om
         the lost chord

      wounded healers ,
. . . one mutual spirit
      runs marrow deep
      where dogs run free

The moan of doves whisper to the impending dawn
. . . always known these days
      too soon do come and gone

What once was a life well lived ,
      s l o w l y     e v a n e s c i n g
      like the summer river’s flow

some say ..." you never miss the water
      'til the well runs dry "
. . . regrets a waste of time - -

Rumination, a loathsome silent reverie
      a taunting unsolved koan

      an unplanned oxymoron ,  
      beget of a deafening silence
. . . dust sleeps with indifference
      veiling a beautiful handmade
      unstrung guitar
      muted - - abandoned,
      tone poems, unsung

and so "re-begins" the task ...
      come what may rise up
      into the dark star's light ...

Coyote was going there - -
      a dawning metamorphosis
      under another nebulous sky

. . . refreshed by Luna's potent alchemy bestrewn
      in her spellbinding lambent moonlight elixir of life ...


harlon rivers  ... 5. 21. 2015
Notes: This poem is republished from my original
harlon rivers account for the friend that commented on October 5th:"I hope the maestro Coyote’s howls yet again"  
BTW my sage ol'  great grandpa, that passed at 99, always reminded me I was born under a Coyote Moon ― some things never change

sub-entry:

all roads lead to all roads..,
poetic pathways do cross
seeds of heart and soul sown ... nurtured
birth tendrils of a thousand flowers
nascent buds to blossoming fruition
do come to wilt like the last winter rose,
full circle in seasons ever changing light…

just because the blossom dgoes not last forever
does not pale the impassioned light of its poetry

be remembered by your life's poetry ..,
believe a poem can make a difference - - -

Thank you for reading of many rivers ―
peace on the shoreline ...

Written by:  h.a. rivers
Marri Dec 2019
God made a masterpiece,
God made a masterpiece,
God made a masterpiece when he made me.

I don't need your watermark,
Or your method of strokes.
I've got it all.

I don't need honey pastels to drip down me,
I'm already twice as sweet.

I don't need diamonds to coat my neck,
I already shine as bright as the stars.

I don't need a crown upon my head,
I already know my worth.

I am the daughter of a king.

I've got angel wings buried in my shoulder blades.
I've got halos hidden in my hair.
God made me perfect.

Don't you dare try to color me in,
Don't you dare try to rearrange my pieces,
Because God made a woman out of me.

I've got grace,
Beauty, and
A word filled tongue.
What more can I need?

I've got lavender lily hips,
I've got rose bud budding lips,
I've got a thorn-filled heart as well.
What else can I be blessed with?

Woman is beautiful,
God gave me beauty.

Woman is smart,
God gave me brains.

Woman is strong,
God gave me bravery.

He made me vivacious,
Curvy, curly,
And passionate.

God gave me everything,
Why would I need you?

He made me a Woman.
He made me a masterpiece.
So, why change that?
Jonathan Moya Sep 2019
Our marriage is old enough to vote now
and on this our porcelain anniversary
I vote “Yes, I do,”  over and over again.

A score of fine filigree plates I will gift us,
two broken to match the fragile times,
the eighteen days past the towers fall
when we married amidst grief and joy.

Our Noritake sacraments survives the bombings
of a blasted world, the cracking, fractures,
the buffing of our mistakes to a translucent
perfection, all frozen details rimmed with gold.

Cancer is etched on the lip, but so
is cure, joy, longevity, beauty, respect,
and the watermark underneath, our keepsake
forever, irreplaceable love.
Kristen is my second wife. We got married  eighteen days after 9-11, when the twin towers of the World Trade Center fell in a terrorist attack on September 11,  2001. Thus if you do the math of the second stanza you get one score. (20) minus two = 18. Eighteen days past 9/11 makes the date September 29, 2001.

  It is also our eighteenth anniversary.  The irony of that number in our lives today was too good to leave out of the  Poem.  

The typical gift for an 18th wedding anniversary is porcelain.  Thus China and Noritake reference.  

For those aware of history the Noritake factory was bombed and destroyed by Allied planes in WOrld War Two.  Only the China it produced survived the bombing. © 9 hours ago,
i
no less than two hundred souls lie
        clustered along the shoreline
        lowland they call a town.
there where the hilltops look
        below, where salty waves
        in unending sequence
        lap the rocks.
the foam floating still is fading
        and the icy gloom of night is gone.
the tug-tug of the diesel engine
        interrupts the balmy silence
        of the sleeping town.
perchance,
        here is a variant
        (or is it?)
        on new island soil
        tread one another foot.

       ii
away now from the busy hum of
        factory, from the hurrying trucks,
        daredevil drivers, the unwelcomed
        whistle of the morning train,
        from the strained scream of the
        lumpia vendor, from the sophisticated
        melody of nightclub music, from the
        alms-begging cries in crowded sidewalks,
        from pretending graded glasses seeking
        sheep-skin, high-pressured ticket seller.
        away form the honk-honk of waiting
        limousines, the haste of presses
        accommodating headlines, the cackle
        of the radio announcer.
        it takes a sea to part the two,
                and many others more, yet the
                watery distance do mend the broken
                piece-part of the broken whole.

      iii
broken by the water barrier, part of
        the broken scheme – a stray mass
        the grown untamed.
blame it on the ills of war, a frenzied
        sickness, a cancer-growth.
        a callousness undisguised
the city’s pleasure is a farmlife’s
        leisure and these
        in different garbs exist.
not even mindful of the worms
        that eat up the human heart,
        like a rotting fruit.
with colored goggles
        the hue is blood-red and shady black.

  iv
o city of pain,
vineyard of desire
o burial ground
        where lay bedfellows
        they who came, stayed, gone,
where stumps and leafless trunks
        are bare to the sun,
        breathless and devoid.
while fingers are busy
        counting metallic coins.

  v
no, not a flood shall cleanse
        this wild and wanton fleshliness,
        nor upturn the barren farrows,
        not the rise of the tides
        nor the fury of the winds
        not even the whiplash of a strong hand.
the deluge in every clayey figure
        in the farm and furnace.
the going up beyond the worldly
        watermark of the passing tide
        that is man.
the man
        the self
                is the starting point
                from which the line
                        of the circle revolves.
                        and in our chambered brief hours
                                of aloneness, shall speak
                                a shrill deep-seated voice
                                to which we shall be all ears
                                        and shall tremble.
harlon rivers Nov 2017
.          Seized by the moment,
          the gravity of a memory
           lay closed the window
             to the outside world

               Eyelids surrender
            in the breath of a sigh,
         the silent pacing footsteps
unable to walk beyond their shadow
       nor their footprints left behind,

      never needing to turn around
               to look back to feel
      the weight of every laden step
         across the old Arch Bridge
        spanning the river far below

             The cold wet sidewalk
         rumbles like the throbbing
              heartbeat still echoes ,..
                     resoundingly,
           through the muted voices
          of a past buried away alive

                 Halted footsteps
           become a blacker silence
                  at the precipice
     of the Arch Bridge railing ties;
   revisited deeply with eyes closed,
         wide open so many times
                 before  and  after
  that  long abhorred day since past

   Reliving an old noir silent movie,
       tarnished time and the river
              coursing through it,
    remaining unable to wash away
    the stains of that watermark tide

                 Standing   frozen
      as a weatherworn bridge tower,
  high above raging waters far below
feeling a cold chill, empty as a pocket,
            perpetual teardrops flow
  filling an empty thimbleful with love

           A thimble seems so small;
               just a pitted silver cup
       to shield from a piercing pang,
              and yet  a welling  love
             uncommonly  overflows ―
        tossed over the bridge railing
             toward the river below
       to see if hope really does float

            Seized by the moment,
          a random act of kindness
            and a thimbleful of love,..
                    lay open again
            a pensive soul's window
                to the outside world ...


                 rivers ... 11/06/2017
Notes:   nothing put away
alive,  within, ever dies ―
it can reawaken like a dormant volcano,..
ruptured in the blink of an eye

Thank you for reading
... Thimbleful of Love

I forgive it all...Tom Petty & Mudcrutch
https://youtu.be/jezqNxQ8mb0
Emily Pancoast Oct 2012
The only her I know is

trapped

in glass panes

throwing back

sun spun hair

and smouldering ember eyes

pomegranate seed lips

and watermark cheeks


One is enough

she said

staring into her own grey-blue pools

hungering for words handed back

and pressure applied

to long festering cracked wounds
Jeremy Bean May 2017
Staying in character
playing the charade
disparaging inheritor
of decisions that were made
Sticking to the act
keep up the appearance
less and less intact
searching for coherence
As a strong minded exterior
veils a war torn landscape within
all motives seem ulterior
in a game not meant to win
Trying to drown demons
clawing at the back of my mind
between dreaming and seething
middle ground is hard to find
above the watermark
where the fluid
seeps through the cracks
of this overused shell
a little bit of heaven
above a vast infinite hell
Third Eye Candy Jul 2014
your cell phone vibrates like a pixie on a train.
smooth as a glass baby's
loose Blue Tooth
in Vaseline
you were miles away from my empty pail of rain
a watermark on the moon, maybe
you knew every
thing ?
maybe you do, maybe i'm drinking my lunch.
you amuse the air i breathe through my skin
like a pearl soothes an oyster
in a bed of nails
and spring.

your ******* are amazing.

you are vishnu at harrods. an airy gorgeous.
a gourd of palpable kiss.
you are the meaning of senseless joy
and the engines
of yes.
Kotodama Sep 2014
I love it when you type letters
with your fingertips
on my skin
backspacing my faults
and joining my freckles
letter by letter
until you’ve created a new word.
Sometimes,
you discover a new universe in the obscure abyss
and mark that with an asterisk.
In the morning,
you would press kisses
between the parenthesis of my smile
and bite ellipsis
on the crook of my neck
so that I would wake with your watermark.
I still remember that day
when you assured me
you are just a space bar away and
I am a story you will never finish writing.

"I promise,darling
that you will be filled with caesuras but no period.”
Andrew T May 2016
Every morning I went
to the coffee shop across the street
from my house,
because I didn’t work.

For every resume I typed out,
I wrote a poem,
in order to keep me from
sending you a text marked with a white flag.

A skull was concealed in the flag,
as a watermark. The sun made
love to a cluster of clouds,
while I rolled a cigarette using strands of your brown hair.

I opened my wallet
and took out a photograph
of me and you from the booth
that one night when you made a fire out of caskets.

Your face had been glowing with warmth,
as if you had drained all the light out of the sun,
and had taken a shower in its yellow glow.
Your eyes were bright with a hopeful future.

Then you grew your hair longer,
and pulled it over your eyes,
like twin pirate eye-patches.
But you’d said you weren’t blind, just indifferent.

Today I wrote another poem on a countertop,
in the coffee shop,
and bandaged the wounds you gave me
when you told me you never cared about me.

One of the baristas wearing a brown apron
and a blue baseball cap, gave me poems
from James Tate. And as I read
“The Lost Pilot” it started to drizzle from the ceiling.

I wasn’t sure if it was rain pouring on my head,
and on my poems, or if it were melted ice-cream,
rich and thick in its texture,
Our first date we stole vanilla ice-cream from a Giant.

You stuffed it in your golden purse,
and ran through the doors, as a fat security guard
chased after you. Then, you hopped
into my blue Volkswagen and we sped off.

I was perfectly fine with being the getaway driver,
you dipped a bent spoon
into the plastic container and scooped out
the ice-cream. You ate it hungrily.

And after I took a bite,
we went to the park and swung on the swings,
coasting up and down in the air,
vanilla stained on the front of our black shirts.

Back at the coffee shop, I played the keyboard
in the bathroom because I was shy,
shy of you finding out,
because you love piano melodies.

And I guessed I wanted to play
for myself for a change. I played
“My Cherri Amour,” and drank gin
from a flask, until every key looked like a playing card.

After I played the song,
I left the coffee shop
,went home, and painted our last conversation,
using words from a newspaper.

“It’s over.”
“You were never right for me.”
“You’re not mature enough for a relationship.”
“I never want to see your face at Peets.”

Peets was the coffee shop we would always go to,
every morning, rain or shine,
rested or exhausted, and
I remember you would read my poems.

You read my poems as if they were
Daphne Loves Derby song-lyrics. Last night
you texted me that my poems
sounded like rushed and convoluted emails.

After that I blocked you on everything,
from social media to your number.
I hoped we would grow weak with joy,
and grey with age.

Words, whether from your lips,
or a text shattered the trust
I gave you, as if it were
my social security code.

In front of the bathroom mirror,
I took a pink eraser and rubbed it
against my foreheard,
to remove the wrinkles.

Each wrinkle represented a time
when you had failed me, or
when I had failed you. Our failures
were weights that I had balanced in my memory.

Kaufman would be pleased
of my progress. I wrote a sculpture
with glass and tears
at my desk, alone in my clean, well-lighted room.  

And then I took the sculpture,
and buried it
in my backyard, right next to the grave
of my old and weak self.

I smoked a cigarette using
sad memories as rolling papers.
As the paper burned slowly, I
let the smoke fill my heart.

Because my lungs were tired,
tired from breathing, tired from
living for you. Because you
are not the only thing that matters anymore.
harlon rivers Dec 2018
Silence speaks —
its say beheld in its
own truth laid bare

Its voice is deeply felt
but rarely revealed
in the tight economy
of considered words
it quietly whispers —

The reality it bares,
soundlessly eroding with a
shameless emotional deluge
that rivers through
the poet's heart

When you feel alone
in a crowded room,
you overhear the drone
a racing heartbeat ...

    When you're
going down the road
feeling bad,  chasing
    the centerline,
reckoning some kind
a life passing by
out the rolled down
       window ;
hearken in nature's
     tone poems
blowin' in the wind
                                                            ­    ­
    It  was  thence
    i came to know
my sum of simple truth:
Organically self-wrought
Environmentally  molded
    from the clay of life
    a survivor of many
    a passing storm

    Season's change,
water seeks its own level
The silt does not get to say
how far down stream
   the river carries it

and we still wind up
in the same old place
parsing the watermark 
       stains of time

and a poet — is not a word
i'll longer use to describe
   who i've become


harlon rivers ... December 7th, 2018
blessings,
Harlon Rivers
Sean C Johnson Oct 2013
I find myself tormented at night
eyes bloodshot staring at the light
pupils drying out, attempting to remove your image so perfectly painted on my eyelids every evening
no matter how many tears rush out, your watermark isn't leaving
dreams destined for nightmarish turns
as the light dries and burns
the windows to my soul
that you seem to have taken hold
claimed stake
in the dreams I create
tainted every release I find in these sheets
with altered memories and distorted perceptions
I let my mind's projection
paint the perfect image of your essence
yet time and time again I fail to see my presence
I see the hands of a man
running along the skin that I once embraced so dearly
the image blurred at first, comes together so clearly
as you draw near to me
his hands defiling the trust
between us
as you utter his name in the same sacred tone
you used for mine in our home
I feel myself tormented at night, destroying the image of you all alone
only to find myself in the same struggle, when the moon comes around and the night draws silent
hoping and dreaming to remove you from my eyelids

— The End —