"watermelons" poems
Mark A. Williams
SEPTEMBER 14, 1962 – JULY 23, 2018
___________________________________________________________
Wow Mark,
Was so, so saddened to hear this news. I haven't seen you in over ten years, but as kids, we had some amazing adventures, didn't we? Partying, camping and swimming at the Hudson lime pits. Mowing down on Pizza and pitchers of Pepsi (and as we grew up, BEER!) at Pizza Hut. (We knew the numbers to ALL the songs on that jukebox by heart!) Hanging out and looking at the stars through Budvido's telescope, listening to Doctor Demento. Laughing hysterically as we ran through Monty Python skits as everyone looked on in total puzzlement because THEY wouldn't discover them until YEARS later!
Building underground forts in the North Woods. You, Budvido, Zeke and I playing pinball at 7-11 for hours and hours. Watching Bands, chasing girls and playing Foosball or Pool at the Touch of Class Teen Club. You gave me my first Imported beer . . . a Lowenbrau. I will always owe my passion for those German beers to you and it was fitting that Budvido bestowed you with that moniker.
All through Jr. High, sharing a seat on the school bus. You, Matt, Tom, Buddy and I cruising around late night on our bikes for hours. Hanging around in the Jasmine Lakes sign with hijacked beer or getting free bags of Burgers from Burger Queen when they closed at night! Jousting with shopping carts on our bikes in the Winn-Dixie parking lot. Sitting up all night in Jimi's room after climbing in through the window or going on endless space cruises with him and Raymond in the Toyota.
(RIP Jimi Carlsen)
Sneaking into the nudest Colony and skinny dipping! Always cracking up at the school lunch table. Swimming in my pool and terrorizing my sister and her friends. (Allegedly) Trashing that crook Fast Eddie's produce stand after he refused to pay us for a full day of picking watermelons!
Good times, indeed . . . Some of my most precious memories.
I can only pray that you know that I wouldn't trade my youth or you in it for anything in the world and you will be sadly missed, Lowenbrau, my old friend.
I hope that where you are, your beers are ice cold and that you and Jimi aren't having to glue the Hookah back together.
Jeff Gaines
July 28, 2018
Aug 2, 2018
Aug 2, 2018 at 7:00 AM UTC
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whit-
man, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees
with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images,
I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of
your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole fam-
ilies shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives
in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you,
Garcнa Lorca, what were you doing down by the
watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old
grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator
and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed
the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my
Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of
cans following you, and followed in my imagination
by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in
our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every
frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors
close in an hour. Which way does your beard point
tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets?
The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses,
we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming ofthe lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent
cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-
teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit
poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank
and stood watching the boat disappear on the black
waters of Lethe?
Berkeley 1955
8.4k
There's cheese and watermelons everywhere....and a picket fence on all the houses down the street.
"Let's come out and play!" he said to her. "Just this once, I promise!"
But she refused, she walked down the street- with her head held high and said to him:
"Can't you see I'm busy? I'm trying to find my thoughts!"
"Just this once!" He repeated, excited. "We never think together anymore..."
(Don't we?)
But she just kept walking, now past the picket fences and the watermelon trees.
She was wandering where they went to. She saw them last week sitting at her left side- but never again since.
He tried to catch up with her and hold her hand. But she roughly removed it and said:
"Let me find my thoughts alone, please."
And so the street, not so long came to an end and she had not found an idea- not one, not a lonesome thought.
But the watermelon trees were growing, faster and faster every time.
"Hey! Come help me! I need you, where have you gone?"
(I'm here)
But the poor boy left, mistreated and all- she wanted her space, that's all.
"Come on! Help me! I need you now, more than ever! I'm sorry! I don't need to think, there's no need to think. Thinking is fool's game!"
But there was no more boy. He had walked back already. Crossed to the other street and found a person to greet him happily.
A giant watermelon came from the picked, giant tree and took her by the shirt and lifted her up high and held her up and opened up its giant mouth and got a grip of her by the waist with its giant leaves and big black seeds came as it screamed and in she went while she cried and wept.
There now, they have their space. Maybe later their paths will cross again and if they do it will be love and if its love then it is real and if its real- there’s no watermelon trees at all.
Aug 7, 2011
Aug 7, 2011 at 12:28 PM UTC
BOX cars run by a mile long.
And I wonder what they say to each other
When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack.
Maybe their chatter goes:
I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line.
I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered my boards.
I came from Detroit heavy with a load of flivvers.
I carried apples from the Hood river last year and this year bunches of bananas from Florida; they look for me with watermelons from Mississippi next year.
Hammers and shovels of work gangs sleep in shop corners
when the dark stars come on the sky and the night watchmen walk and look.
Then the hammer heads talk to the handles,
then the scoops of the shovels talk,
how the day's work nicked and trimmed them,
how they swung and lifted all day,
how the hands of the work gangs smelled of hope.
In the night of the dark stars
when the curve of the sky is a work gang handle,
in the night on the mile long sidetracks,
in the night where the hammers and shovels sleep in corners,
the night watchmen stuff their pipes with dreams-
and sometimes they doze and don't care for nothin',
and sometimes they search their heads for meanings, stories, stars.
The stuff of it runs like this:
A long way we come; a long way to go; long rests and long deep sniffs for our lungs on the way.
Sleep is a belonging of all; even if all songs are old songs and the singing heart is snuffed out like a switchman's lantern with the oil gone, even if we forget our names and houses in the finish, the secret of sleep is left us, sleep belongs to all, sleep is the first and last and best of all.
People singing; people with song mouths connecting with song hearts; people who must sing or die; people whose song hearts break if there is no song mouth; these are my people.
3.6k
When you look at me without
speaking like some doe-eyed
Guatemalan selling watermelons
on the corner of Forest Hill
and Military Trail, your
disbelief triggering in the hinges
of your jaw like a hairpin turn,
reaction time looming
as endlessly as a broken synthesizer,
I begin to need you, darling,
like the axe needs the turkey.
Jan 23, 2011
Jan 23, 2011 at 2:15 PM UTC
JESUS emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob.
The sheep on the hills of Australia, blundering fourfooted in the sunset mist to the dark, they go one way, they hunt one sleep, they find one pocket of grass for all.
Karnak? Pyramids? Sphinx paws tall as a coolie? Tombs kept for kings and sacred cows? A mob.
Young roast pigs and naked dancing girls of Belshazzar, the room where a thousand sat guzzling when a hand wrote: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin? A mob.
The honeycomb of green that won the sun as the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh, flew to its shape at the hands of a mob that followed the fingers of Nebuchadnezzar: a mob of one hand and one plan.
Stones of a circle of hills at Athens, staircases of a mountain in Peru, scattered clans of marble dragons in China: each a mob on the rim of a sunrise: hammers and wagons have them now.
Locks and gates of Panama? The Union Pacific crossing deserts and tunneling mountains? The Woolworth on land and the Titanic at sea? Lighthouses blinking a coast line from Labrador to Key West? Pigiron bars piled on a barge whistling in a fog off Sheboygan? A mob: hammers and wagons have them to-morrow.
The mob? A typhoon tearing loose an island from thousand-year moorings and bastions, shooting a volcanic ash with a fire tongue that licks up cities and peoples. Layers of worms eating rocks and forming loam and valley floors for potatoes, wheat, watermelons.
The mob? A jag of lightning, a geyser, a gravel mass loosening...
The mob ... kills or builds ... the mob is Attila or Ghengis Khan, the mob is Napoleon, Lincoln.
I am born in the mob-I die in the mob-the same goes for you-I don't care who you are.
I cross the sheets of fire in No Man's land for you, my brother-I slip a steel tooth into your throat, you my brother-I die for you and I **** you-It is a twisted and gnarled thing, a crimson wool:
One more arch of stars,
In the night of our mist,
In the night of our tears.
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I miss the boy who sells fruit in a place where people say no good comes out of. I miss his shorts that look like fields ripe with harvest and his ocean of a t-shirt.
I miss his little mop of wavy black hair, his green eyes that become crystals in the sunlight and deepen in its absence.
Is your name Garik? Or is it Garo? Or am I getting you mixed up with someone else? I may have forgotten the symbols for which represent you but I will never forget what made you you to me, here:
Your smile as wide as the watermelons you sell. Your heart warmer than the strong coffee your mother makes. Your scrawny legs that always made their way a little closer to me no matter what time of the day it was and your voice that crossed oceans with a melody that sang "We are here."
And we were.
We were two people-- you of pomegranates and fresh sunflower seeds and I of mangoes and mangosteens, two entirely different shades of earth, you with your snow flakes and I with my sun rays, you with your black robed monks and I with my white clothed priests, yet there we were.
Oh brave little boy, I love how different doesn’t scare you.
My slanted eyes did not seem strange you, nor did you question why my skin looks like the browned sides of baked bread compared to the floury white of your arms. You did not find it funny that I must be at least five years older than you are yet must be at least half a head shorter. It did not matter to you that the only words we had to give each other in the same tongue were “Hello!”, “How are you?”, “What is your name?”, “Where are you from?” because sometimes those words are all it takes to make your way into someone’s heart and stay.
As for mine, stay you did. Language, cultural, socio-economic barriers were nothing to you.
Instead, you simply played the boy who wanted to know the girl. And so I played the girl who responded, the girl who saw the boy's clouds of smoke in the sky spelling out "We are here.”
And we were.
And it’s been three months.
Now you are there.
And I am here.
But to you, it's the other way around. Because here is a matter of who is telling the story. Maybe we will never again be characters in the same chapter. Or maybe we will be. And maybe I am counting the pages until for us, here is right where we both are.
Oct 16, 2015
Oct 16, 2015 at 12:10 PM UTC
You smell like laundry detergent, mongrel, and marijuana
wrapped in strawberry cigar papers. The way
the couch smells warm of people
prior to the heat and sweat we produced
on its rough synthetic fibers
that left me brush burns. Of French fries
and cheesy steak hoagies caked
to your apron as big golden
grease stains. You smell
of a soft shower, the nothingness
smell of water, that is still a smell.
Of loofah drenched with cobalt body wash
that your mother bought, not quite
feminine enough, but nothing you picked out yourself.
Of turquoise Listerine, the first and last time I had to wash
you out. Pineapples and watermelons, latex
and the salty smell that could be sweat
or ***** When the air is mixed with gasoline
and ***** ground winter snow,
filled with rock salt. That’s what you smell like,
in case you were wondering, her jacket
smells of you.
Aug 11, 2011
Aug 11, 2011 at 8:01 PM UTC
*every life is unique and connected
no one understands
all or even
most of
human existence
sometimes you need
encouragement
sometimes god really
does cut you
a break
sometimes idols crack
asking whom do i serve
when i try to create
a little celebrity
out of a soul which is
too precious
to be reduced to numbers
what is a world
whose creatures
hide inside machines
fear of humans
is enough of
a prison
fear of thoughts
they probably aren't even thinking
but who knows
in this world
at least the brothers tell the truth
whom shall i fear and what
control is an illusion
when the tsunami
almost comes
i see we all
must go to
the calling
only
like you taught me
if you're going to believe something
believe it
everyone has to come out
about something, i had
to come out about cannabis
it's true there's two sides to everything
if i judge you
i condemn myself
i don't know
where those tears
have been
rhino pi and i by the fireplace tonight
rhino gives me his soft stripe sweatshirt
purple black white red i say i'll wear it
and think of you all over the world
and bring it back full of
stories and
mice and
fire
i was writing into the abyss
when i was in the abyss,
when the abyss
was me,
no longer
who jesus bless no man curse
born again
into a rhythm of
waves and reggae
hey hey hey
it's you
i've been waiting for
no one remembers the reunions
of those who came before,
what they did or them at all
except the Creator
who transcends lies and clocks
who creates in wisdom acacias and watermelons and whales
who keeps our tears in his bottles
i bow my head at the door of his hut
i stand by the light of his fire
my bread i accept from his hand
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 2:05 AM UTC
i will write simply
like a snow melt in the spring
water brings music
and our feet are washed clean
remind the stars that we named them
even if they take our souls
we will forge them again in the fireplace
and breathe life back into them
soon we can rest in the music
but first let us use them
just like we were meant to
now is the space
to give your heart its grace
so we feed the lakes
their icy beverage
and make the songs that melt the frost
i arrived like fire
when rain was your only hope
our souls washed in the burning sun
the conundrums of love
somebody escaped with our watermelons
sundrops upon the lake
feelings we can never shake
our ecstasy is awake
and we have outgrown our shallows
swallowed by the hand of fate
our lives we did partake in
yes we have reached further
into the thick of it
into the blackest night
i walked into my own dismay
and displayed upon the sky
was the light that caught your eye
like threads of shredded rope
as darkness could never
cope with the worst of it
i sold all of our hope
for you should never
have to ***** for emptiness
send me the wisdom
to unleash you from this prison
so please give me another kiss
and fill me with your stories
for now we will forever know
that dreams are only allegories
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 23, 2018 at 2:37 PM UTC
i call my ambition, sergeant giggs... don't ask; i also call my left foot lady cantona, it's just regarding the manchester united dream team from the mid 90s.
oi! oi! that strange perfume in my garden
has come back!
i don't like it! i know i'm growing garlic
and rosemary & mint & jasmine in it,
but i'm not liking the eerie honey ****
of it, that i might liken to female genitals,
no!
**** off!
get these gnats away from me!
feed em to the bankers!
point being, if i were ever an islamic
martyr, and i'd get to the "sacred" gardens,
much akin to the hanging gardens of babylon
and i'd be like...
wait a minute, i didn't ask for solomon's
gym routine, i didn't ask for *******
gym membership scheme!
i said, i said that i wanted 72 watermelons!
who said that 72 virgins is a reward?
where are my 72 watermelons?!
i want my ******* 72 watermelons!
1 woman is enough! enough as in:
one too much!
yes, i know nature it cruel, and it proved
that by providing more women than men,
and that when an ****** hits their egos
and shatters them all hell breaks loose...
no! i didn't sign up for a gym membership!
i want my 72 watermelons!
take your virgins and shove them
into fairy-airy stories, or up my ***
how could 72 virgins ever be so appealing
as to take the lives of others?
i asked for heaven, not a gym membership...
idiots are going to be hating the notion
after a few hours:
well... gotta **** 'em all...
otherwise the ones not ****** will go straight
to king solomon, with his permanent
****** **** fusion...
just give me the 72 watermelons and ****
off with your "promises"...
i wasn't promised **** all upon
birth in this world,
but the promises of 72 virgins in the "next" world
seems more like a curse, than honey-dew;
i'd rather worm through
a library of books worth-the-reading,
than a bunch of girls: "worth-the-fuck";
well yeah, "the" oops;
muslims: monkey mentality, even after death;
me? i was imagining it as:
a brain in a pickle jar;
then again, i'd love to chat with 72 prostitutes,
gone down the train ride of waggle waggle...
plus the drinking helps...
less gym orientation mind you:
the already exhausted ***** 'elp a 'ittle.
Aug 30, 2017
Aug 30, 2017 at 9:09 PM UTC
When I was a watermelon
I thought I was pink
Now I see watermelons;
They are all green --
Maybe I am not as pink as i think
Maybe I will never be
Mar 18, 2018
Mar 18, 2018 at 12:29 PM UTC
the garden verdent green
held a trio of stone Buddhas
vacationary souveniers kept on
the basis of memories of the
time when our love bore sweet fruit
before anger and rage took the stand
from when we were we
and we chose to eat
angry words before the
days of the plastic facile smile
the fruitless discussion and
inevitble dummy spit
then it all came out
and thus, the begining of the end of the
jealously green tightly gritted teeth.
...and in the garden, the three stone bhuddas
watched with smiles, benign
and bellies round and sun warmed like watermelons.
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 12:34 PM UTC
For example: the frogs
find a dinner plate, and an acorn
makes funny gestures from beneath the dirt.
And the string twangs, as was expected.
How simple, how unlikely to happen to us.
Only a misplaced vector connects
the pine tree’s yowl to the sandbox,
which, if you don’t think about it, is alright.
I get confused so many times
before I stop and train my thoughts.
And again: the sound I hear
is either walnuts cracking or red birds
splashing into windows. But
the movements have been extinguished
and the two are so dissimilar they may as well
be the same. Or watermelons
stomping insects underfoot. In
the other room of this house is a man
walloping a rooster with a broom,
but the rooster is too scared
to tell him just how effective
positive thinking is, just as oceans
are too murky to provide freethinkers
with a useful metaphor.
Of course not, said a man
lifting his cat from pool. But then
it was too late, and something
was pulling whimpers through the air.
Jan 11, 2010
Jan 11, 2010 at 11:28 AM UTC
This story I am about to unfold,
is a favorite about my Grandfather.
In which he starts out acting very bold,
yet, ends running up a painful lather.
Down the dirt road, from where he lived, when young,
was a farmer growing watermelons.
Ripe, ready to eat, on the vines they hung.
From this patch, the farmer then, did sell 'em.
Being a boy with several brothers,
who were always doing as boys will do,
didn't take long, for one to dare the other,
to steal them a watermelon, or two.
Lo and behold, there went my young grandpa,
climbing through the barbed wire fence.
While his older brothers all watched in awe,
as he crawled through the tangled vines, so dense.
He looked around until he found the one,
that was the biggest that he could carry.
Cutting the vine, he hefted the melon up,
running towards the fence, in a hurry.
Well, that old farmer was wise to boys
and had watched my grandpa crawl through the field.
With his double barrel shotgun, he was poised,
to make sure, no more melons, he'd steal.
The farmer had loaded his own brand of shot,
filled with rock salt instead of lead.
Grandpa's backside got peppered while he did trot.
I think nothing more need be said.
Jun 27, 2010
Jun 27, 2010 at 5:24 AM UTC
***pleaidian dreamers eek out a living
in impossible waters
they pursue only meaning
grieve for the days
and cry out for the nights
speak of the wind
and how often it bites
our souls are alight
our minds are fireflies
tied to cherry trees
wearing disguises
as watermelons rumble
and apples fall
our ankles are tangled
and so are our curls
show me the face
you like to hide
in green pastures
and fields of rye
a porcupine iris
promises its life
if you were to kiss him
he’d probably die
so much persistence
in existence we try
to give up our habits
and addiction to self
surrender our power
and hang out in the breeze
but upon the crescendo
we fell asleep in the trees***
Nov 3, 2017
Nov 3, 2017 at 12:10 PM UTC
Demand the climate obeys orders.
seek vengeance on the scientists if it declines.
turn over the redwoods to the firing squad
for taking a stand.
shake a fist at the sky till it blushes.
request the clams to clam up till you're done talking.
hide the fish in the sea
because everyone needs one.
Expect the mule to make up its mind.
tempt the desert with some water.
torture the water with some desert.
attack the salt flats for being too dry.
file a complaint against the rattlesnakes
for causing such a ruckus.
question the cactus till they give up their values.
Force the leaves to show their true colors.
slaughter the weeds 'cause they don't belong here.
silence the wind till it agrees to stop singing.
moon the moon for serving moonshine.
sentence squirrels to a life without acorns.
terrorize the trees to do your ***** work.
Infringe on the kumquat's rights.
bury the berries, uproot the roots,
ravage the cabbage, spoil the soil.
arrange the oranges to reflect the sun.
lecture the watermelons on how
you scalped more natives than anyone.
declare war on the avocados to prove your point.
Nag the children to bear the weight on their shoulders.
rifle through the planets to find what you want.
crack open a book and read a poem
that defines this all as the
End.
Nov 15, 2011
Nov 15, 2011 at 11:41 AM UTC
The sky is dip-dyed in gray
Worn at the edges by pulling little hands
Opaque; no light shines through
No pinpricks of the crossweaves of this satin
Only the shadows of stars seen by darting eyes
Below,
A contained rainforest nestled in a suburb
heard but not seen,
separate sounds aligning.
This mingles with the clink of car tools and occasional laughter
soft, a murmur, like rain in the dark
not meant to be witness, only listened
a moment of peace,
undisturbed,
alone but not lonely.
Assuming a Corona
resting on the still-warm curb,
dripping a cold summer sweat.
Assuming a pickup
A red Ford? Too cliche.
Hood open, leaned over or slid under
Grease stains and a wifebeater
Everything is swelled and lazy and happy
like sun-grown watermelons
everything falls away to this sweltering peace
narrated by AC and bicycle chains.
Jun 26, 2010
Jun 26, 2010 at 11:10 PM UTC
Boldly, bold balding,
going mad at the buzz of cynic critic--
busting friendships like comic watermelons
atop bloodstained ceramics,
the vultures remain--
always do;
I can see it all boldly while balding, sipping
tomato juice without gin due the doctor's call--
always do;
I can see it all boldly while scraping dirt under nails,
scattering my words at a heel'd walk-in and siren's call.
Boldly, bold balding,
flipping off motorist and through magazine pages--
repairing family ties with thank you notes, faux kind eyes,
never hurt to try,
for the vultures remain -- they won't give their name--
never do;
I can see it all boldly while balding, they ask me
to give two ***** -- when did I give one?
Never do;
I can see it all mostly and smearing, watercoloring
through the floorboards up to the ceiling;
the telephone sings, I answer and receive,
"stay the hell away from me",
and I will.
I will.
I really, really will.
Aug 11, 2011
Aug 11, 2011 at 6:24 PM UTC
Trying hard to keep my head
On tight so not to float off
I take these nights with nothin' to do
And write things down so not to feel blue
There is a fight in us all
A fight to block out the silence we all rarely talk about
To hear the crack of the crow outside this window
Is the only stinging blow I've grown to know
To be born in this time is to be born in any other
With the flushing meadows wide with green flashing pride
And the cunning river roaring for all to know and carry
With mother nature smiling all the while admiring
Working through the hours, the minutes, the seconds
Knowing that the open road will soon shout to beckon
Sendin' me out to the great dying unknown
No use to imagine the sights, wouldn't be right
In these forms of high art, high living, all expensively feelin' ******
Where promises of a God were said to be lingering here
But all I'm feeling in these lonesome parts of town
Is nothing but the drop of pin that makes no sound
Take me to a place where I wear no face
To live a life that will die at mid tomorrow night
Take these hours from me and I'll fight for the light
With bloodied knuckles clenching flirty nickels
Tonight these walls are lonesome, ***** and stranded
I'm feeling the touch of what it means to be branded
Tucked in a corner with all the rest of the world
With a head held up but a soul hanging low
Father listen hard when I start speaking to you
What are your next steps in life, what are you gonna do?
There ain't much time for making money in this worried world
You always told me to pick up the heels, fake to be real
Trains exhale their gases screaming screeches outlandish
The sides of my head are tilting as my sides are roundish
Feet are swelling to the size of ripping watermelons
And the eyes are rolling back never wanted to achieve millions
But the tears that smell of whiskey rye
And the breath that wreaks of ashy lies
Has always been the love I've been searching for
Slowly leading my life to a quiet rippling lore
Apr 14, 2011
Apr 14, 2011 at 6:40 PM UTC
i just came here for the whiskey and music,
the rest is zoology formerly known as darwinism, i.e.
logically me monkey you you monkey me
was going to be a rainforest and not a cage,
but the purring in o# gravitated us to
the stratosphere of talkative dinosaurs:
you know... no rain for millennia... then volcanic eruptions
and to the bone tattoos... i almost clapped with the t-rex
concerning our fate without theology; but god it was funny,
runny ***** too, i told the reptilian rejects (crocodiles and snakes and
leather boots) - ‘mind ‘em monkeys, they’ll start to juggle
a single sound into many and discover the steam engine and scalpel!
and depilate for the obsessiveness of ********* *** with politicians
singing - pinky pinky fold into knuckle, floyd my barber whisked up nirvana!’
yep... you just caught me with two watermelons and four flamingos
lodged in my armpits while i pursed my lips waiting for applied lipstick.
it's not that i think evolutionary biology is incorrect...
but for god's sake, i need the word for fluidity and the friday night cinematic stretching of legs knowing that no one made a career from talking crap
imitating a choir of gorillas hoping for a beatbox in the chest of the hidden seal’s applause.
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 9:49 AM UTC
Large and unburdened
these hands show my true weakness--
spread across silken sheets
and the gentle touch will feel
as if desert sands were
wedged between the threading--
those threads do not breath as easy
as these hands of mine do.
They look and feel
as privileged as my ghostly appearance
would lead the World to believe--
even watermelons harden in the sun,
but these hands of mine
are closer to being ballet dancers
except they've never
had to learn to dance.
They've never had to be successful
and I've been led to believe
failure was optional--
that with each attempt the World
will give me a do-over.
Sometimes or maybe always
people eventually run out
of opportunity,
and instead they are left
with
...better luck next time.
Jul 7, 2017
Jul 7, 2017 at 5:19 AM UTC
you taste like the fizzy sodas,
watermelons in summer,
the afternoons i spend daydreaming,
clear skies inside milk cartoons.
we meet in between the lines,
touch sparks like fireworks
and heat melting off our walls,
we're two lines crisscrossed
into several points,
constellations and corners.
first kisses,
shy touches,
getting to know.
you taste like the strawberry lip balm
you put on before dinner,
bucketfuls of cotton candy,
midnights that sound like gentle waves,
middays that promise fondness.
let me catch your bottom tier
between both of mine,
catch your hand under the table,
catch you when you fall.
i am no traveller or adventurer,
but i'd be eager to map out
your every nooks and crannies.
fill in your edges as you caress my curves,
finish where you start and
end when you begin,
meet you every time i dream
of the cloudless nights and the stars
above your rooftop, inside your eyes.
i am not big on promises
but set again another date,
let's do this again
and i won't be late.
Jun 2, 2018
Jun 2, 2018 at 11:46 AM UTC
My first kiss tasted of soy sauce.
Not literally tasted! We didn’t go that far,
but the bitter saltiness of it
only enhanced the sweetness of the moment.
He had never had Chinese food,
And I had never been kissed.
That’s right! At the age of 17
My lips had never met another boy’s
And for the first time, in my car
Outside the band room, I swear I could
have heard music floating in the air
in the small space between my face
and his as he leaned In for a second peck.
We dated for a while, but eventually
We broke up because we were too similar, I guess.
I liked men, and, uh, so did he…
I began to think I missed my chance I that kiss
And the validity of it was brought into question.
Maybe I had missed my chance
Way back on the playground
Because I never stole kisses behind the slide
Or teased the boys with my third grade girlish charm
Like all my other friends.
Maybe, deep down, I knew I could only settle
On true love.
Not just a fling that was only a thing
For a week of “pure bliss”
Because when I find love, I want Full House perfection.
I want a Tanner family connection.
Something that when I go grocery shopping
I can proudly say, “Those kids climbing the walls
And that man knocking on all the watermelons.
Yeah, I’m with them.”
And people will have no other choice
But to understand the perfection I am in.
I hold onto the hope that someday
The strings connecting all the living things
Will tie me together with someone I can love
And who will love me
And one day I will find a man who
Doesn’t have the dreaded cootie disease.
Because for every Adam,
there must be an Eve or where else would we be?
Someday and one day can seem so far way
If you get anxious,
But I will let things fall in place
For me to fall in love.
I just have to remember
Not to be afraid to taste the soy sauce.
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013 at 10:45 PM UTC
The waterlogged lands have long gone dry
The soil is lying cracked and parched
The frogs that crocked in shallow pools,
Nowhere on land or water to be seen
The once full river has thinned and narrowed
Into a greasy smudge of faded stain
On the long yard of brown earth
The road is a burning stretch of black
Sure it can make the water steam and sizzle
Quicker than in an electric ***
The sun is seen a flaming ball in the sky
Darting down spears of smarting beams
Heat like a spiteful scorpion’s sting
Burns the flesh and the bared scalp
Watermelons or chilled buttermilk
Cannot douse the midday heat
The fiery tongue of humid summer
Licks up the last residue of green
The woods dread the fall of a spark
That can ignite an inferno, anytime
The cattle stay still with frothy foam
Dripping down from their drooping tongues
A thirsty crow beside a dried up pond
Looks around for a drop of water
(But alas, not as lucky as the parable crow
That finds a jar of half filled elixir)
A line of black ants carry a carcass
Clambering up the cracked stump of a tree
The brown grass sings
And the Etna seethes!
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 12:33 AM UTC