"whitewashed" poems
I want you, but I'm okay with your essence
Basking in your scent long after your presence
The pursuit of my happiness
Seems to wrapped up in your arms
Yet I'm wrapped up
And you seem to be gone
Our fate is as good as whitewashed
Unwritten history in the making
Sanitized love
I give and you're taking
I should never be ok with half
When whole is available
I was ok with your essence
Until it became untraceable
Nov 22, 2015
Nov 22, 2015 at 4:56 AM UTC
Letter, letter born to return to sender--
extra-marital, maritime, marine, mercy, mercy mine--
two drinks in; four from home,
letter, letter born to return to sender--
.38 special, sexless, spiteful, spitting, spitting rites--
three drinks in; three from home,
letter, letter born to return to sender--
double-decker, drugged, dangerous, daggers, daggers dried--
four drinks in; two from home,
letter, letter born to return to sender--
clusterfucked, fancy-free, foreign, fine, fine unwind,
five drinks in; one from home,
letter, letter born to return to sender--
ether cloud, Evelyn, earthware, everyday, everyday signs--
six drinks in; on the carpeted floor,
letter, letter born to return to sender,
whitewashed, weakly, wounded, wishing, wishing for home.
Dec 17, 2011
Dec 17, 2011 at 3:24 AM UTC
What is the versatile autobiography
of this bountiful of rice
boiling in my American kitchen?
This crop of microscopic slabs of grain
that was the one edible source
of preventing my ancestors' emaciation
One of such few things
connecting me
to my roots,
those things I can't help but bleach
in whitewashed and rebellious peroxide.
I will valiantly hang my head down low in shame
at the examples of my flesh and earth,
"those National Geographic cavemen,"
all the time being the zoo animal,
being blindfolded and caged by
these "secular, American liberals."
I love this food
that I consume like a vacuum,
this merengue and bachata
that I so happily shake my *** to;
but nowhere did I sign up
for these commandments
that I was appointed
based on the location
that I popped out onto.
Apr 29, 2010
Apr 29, 2010 at 10:51 AM UTC
Lipstick cigarettes and the empty soul of modern rock n' roll
laid in ruin amongst my collection of black soul addictions and sultry benedictions.
MIDI saxophones and an ex-girlfriend on the telephone
directing me to find my home, to rebuild the comb, to banish the bartender and the Reverend ******
Alamo idiot stand and a neon Jesus
waving newcomers into the whitewashed port town known as "Cuba North".
At the Caged Gorilla, Linda, the waitress,
laughs through yellowed teeth, while my bloodshot eyes crawl up her red gums.
Binge'd and my brain keeps parallel with the ceiling fan
while a plain clothes cop tries to give me the reprimand for nostalgic mischiefs.
Handcuffed and looking for that old fiend, Freedom,
while Miranda spews on the back of my skull, slides down my shoulders, dots the cement.
Out the door and tourists with cameras looking for evil behind my irises,
but I can assure my handshakes feel the same, I'm front pew tame, and I blend with the parade.
Jan 12, 2012
Jan 12, 2012 at 7:13 PM UTC
Peter Pan said Wendy -
There's something I want to tell you.
I am neither straight nor bent
But what you might call bendy
Captain Hook stopped reading his e-book and eavesdropped more intently.
Peter knew what his flexible friend meant and spoke to her quite innocently.
Wendy - I am as vanilla as Manilla envelopes in a creamery with whitewashed walls
And identical twin albino Godzillas fighting snow leopards with cue *****
No gimp suit in fifty shades of grey for me.
I am pretty much hormone-free,
More than happy with asexuality,
Playing pirated computer games on one hand
And others' loves that dare not speak their names which fewer understand.
In my world of dreamery certain flights of fancy pass me by.
I love to fly and you Wendy.
And I love you too Peter - Not Everygirl's Ideal of A Real Man.
But I can understand the attraction of Lost Boys and their toys in Neverland.
We've known each other for all these years,
Shared too many troubles, thoughts and fears
To be anything other than in each other's hearts.
If I never visit Neverland again
I know you will always be my closest friend,
What, where, whenever happens
To the bittersweet end.
May we both be dying for an Excellent Adventure,
If not together then separately.
There is nothing better than to know
That you will always be there for me
No matter how we might grow
Into this 21st century.
And one day I may straighten out
But
That's
Not
What
Life's
About.
Captain Hook put down his e-book and Facebooked a friend...............
And that is where our story will end.
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 5:47 PM UTC
I see through that deathly daze of yours.
I see the opportunity,
The regret, the heartache, the gratefulness.
You told me that you weren't sure,
If you are happy you get another chance,
Or sorrow-filled because it isn't over.
Those words broke my heart.
So I left this whitewashed room,
Of demonic devices,
And went to my car.
I wasn't sure what I was doing,
So I sparked this cigarette,
Put it to my lips,
And let everything go.
I looked crazy, I could tell.
Punching my steering wheel,
Crying like you were in a meeting,
With the coroner.
I opened my glove box,
Saw my antidote,
And swallowed.
I dried my sorrows,
Picked up my hope,
Locked my insanity in my car,
And slapped this smile back upon my face.
I couldn't let you see me like this.
I couldn't let you see how upset I am,
Not with you, but with your decision.
You have enough on your mind.
I return back to Hope's deathbed,
Give her a smile to assure her I am fine,
And crawl into the bed next to her.
Back to reality, I sink.
Only to be stolen from sobriety.
It's easier this way.
I feel nothing.
I'm numb.
Numb as usual.
But this time, body matches soul.
And not another tear shall be shed,
For the worst is over...
And for us all,
Recovery commences.
Nov 10, 2012
Nov 10, 2012 at 3:17 AM UTC
Whitewashed four walls
Silence and total recalls
Ticking clock on the wall
My mind begging for a curtain call
Flashbacks in my cerebral theatre
Complimenting the rainy weather
Raindrop falls as my insides wither
As I lay on my bed where we were last together
4 months gone and I still remember
Your scent from my shirt down to my sweater
Your voice I recall and every laughter
Became history now that you found another
So much done in this apartment room
So much wrong ended it so soon
River of tears flow as I vacate the room
Another chapter ends, a new story resumes
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 7:51 AM UTC
My phone drops from my hands,
All my body's strength ebbs away.
I have to lie down so I don't fall down
Because my legs can't support my body weight.
And then I'm staring
At the whitewashed walls and ceiling
Of my furniture-filled bedroom
And suddenly the panic sets in.
Everything is too tight, too close, too much.
I need to get out of here.
I need to breathe
But I can't because all I can think about
Is you.
Your words.
Your life.
Your choices.
And as I lay there sweating cold bullets of fear,
I wonder why I'm panicking.
It was just another email.
A general update to no one in particular.
One of the ones you always send out
To everyone because you still think we care.
You didn't say a single word about anyone else.
Four whole pages of you.
And I guess that's why I'm struggling to breathe.
It's like I never existed to you.
It's like you never cared about me.
And suddenly the need to see you
To talk to you
To hold you
To laugh, to cry, to just simply be
With you
Overwhelms me.
Not the you who wrote that email.
Not the you who you think you are now.
The you who doesn't even acknowledge her own offspring.
No, I'm desperate to touch the you
Who I know is locked away in a part
So deeply hidden in your soul
That you've forgotten about her.
The you who still knows a mother's love
For her daughter.
I want to see the unclouded eyes,
Hear the unselfish voice,
Touch the compassionate soul
Of the amazing woman who birthed me.
But I'm so afraid that you've finally done it.
That you've finally killed off
The last vestiges of her soul
With the darkness of your own.
I panic with the truth that faces me:
I'll really never be able to see her again.
Jul 31, 2014
Jul 31, 2014 at 12:34 PM UTC
Sprinkling crystals dipped in glass
ray of prisms breeze my eye
sunshine rhythms hide in grass
floating sugar on the pie
Neon lights pass to scroll
while purple midnight breathes
jacket goosebumps stockings stole
four-wheeled lion grumbly seethes
Honey nectar slumbers my eyes
whitewashed lace tangle my face
gentle buzzings of pastel sky
as cotton candy sank with grace
Open heart box standing in the rain
cries diamonds for to call her name
the poetry train caught riding to Spain
set carnival dewdrops on red flames
Oct 26, 2018
Oct 26, 2018 at 10:07 AM UTC
I am worth being valued for existing
Not only in the moments
That I become relevant, necessary, or useful
For lustful, celebratory or inspirational insanity
I am not a lollipop or an exotic destination
Stop exploring me *************
Because you salivate over this Hispaniola
Beautiful island desecrated and decimated
How many beautiful spirits will you make savages
How many pure rivers will you **** blood on
How many conquests will you claim a stake in
How much balance will you disturb and subjugate
to the trauma of your transitory exploration
There's no impunity for conquerors
Who taste, plunder, disguise disapproval in their apologies and move on
There's no impunity for conquerors
Who pick and choose who's worth
Of validation, when, & how
There's no impunity for conquerors
Who play with men and women
Hierarchize their prey
But fail to acknowledge
Their man-child whitewashed
Hidden agendas & rigged market values
Conquerors haunted by the trauma they've caused
Will not be absolved by the revolution
Neither will the revolution be the breast
That heals conquers who are traumatized
By the realization of their own fuckery
Apr 22, 2015
Apr 22, 2015 at 5:29 AM UTC
#
From an ornate podium
the orator spoke words--
..extraordinarily elaborate ones..
as if,
as if
But those who know..
we who have laid low,
down in to the trenches
as grunts, both outside
and inside
of the wire..
Those who have quietly
done their legwork..
who have accepted their
difficult fate as that borne of
and in to, a training.. an equipping;
lay low,
lay low
. . . .
The throngs
at the foot of the podium--
mesmerized by their own need
to be mesmerized, never even
noticed the children
who in their innocence, peered
out from under the crowd's legs
to better see the 'magnificent' podium..
The oldest of which, ran back to trenches
trying to describe what they saw.
Two of the quiet, unassuming-ones
made their way back to the podium,
and in blocking out the orator's voice,
(which to the knowing,
was as that of a clanging bell..)
Now observed up close, the inner-workings
of the elaborate podium
and sat in wonder of its expenditures--
wrapped around such slipshod, weak
and hastily assembled framework..
And in having become interested in the
structure's groundedness to what one
would hope would be a solid-built
foundation, placed onto solid, earthen ground
They instead gasped as they saw its
legs floating upon nothing..
*"What the **** is holding this thing up..?"*
War-trained and battle-hardened,
they remembered their superiors speaking
in hushed tones that even ****** with all
of his blowhard oratorical ******** at least
had a semblance of the podium's fastenings..
Albeit, partially assembled by our own country's
stupidity within certain provisions brought forth
in the Treaty of Versailles,
but this
but this;
This oratorical misleading of the broken-ones
this empty illusion of a presentation, borne
not from a suffering leading to true regeneration
but instead, a distractive short-cut into the Realms;
This counterfeit substance..
as if borne in power, as if.. as if.
.. But the realms.. they know
It is only those down here on earth, spirit
cloaked within the deceptive misgivings
of the flesh-- so aching to establish itself
apart from the necessary legwork needed
to humbly become a part of Stream's flow:
(borne, solely from the inner Wellspring-- deep
within the bowels of Love's True Ache)..
It is here.. on earth.. that you will find
the reward you seek.. oh wondrous orator,
oh magnificent 'smither' of fine words..
**Your podium, a whitewashed soapbox
floating upon nothing..**
--And therefore meaning nothing
within the Substance-Based parameters
of the Realms.
#
Mar 22, 2021
Mar 22, 2021 at 3:48 PM UTC
Skinhead
super short
military hair
with a strong jawline
jutting out
I saw you
One random
blindingly hot afternoon
In a jeep
I tried to squeeze in
the small space so the two guys
could scoot over
You’re the guy to my right
Reluctant to pass to the driver
my exact change
You sat upright
Your right arm lifted, hand
closed on the security rail
I could only see your profile
Your jawline and Aviators
Mouth set in a deadpan line
Lean, quietly confident
Dressed casually and carefully
Odd eggplant-colored shirt over
whitewashed jeans
You turned slightly,
your nose strong
chin dignified
skin clean, with slight
blemishes of stress
Pretty eyes
That never landed on me
Your lips slightly curved
as if remembering something
You are beautiful
Arrogant-looking
Bored
Worldly
You’re not from here
Not from common places
Not from this wretched community I belong to
Then my eyes traveled to the back of your head,
An inscription was tattooed
at the back of your skull.
Your hair growing, beginning to cover up
the past?
A dangerous past?
New life?
A mere change of look?
Where are you going?
Where are you from?
Why are you taking this route
to and from common places?
What is your agenda
on this high afternoon?
Are you a rockstar?
Are you a poet
A gangster?
Then finally it’s my stop.
I got up and wished you
were following behind
That we have the same destination
Just so I could look at you
in full view
I stepped into
the sad, bright afternoon
Then I turned around
You’re not there
You sped away
To some place
Some life
With your Aviators
And your principles
And it hurt
That I never even
knew what
your tattoo meant
Oct 21, 2013
Oct 21, 2013 at 3:36 AM UTC
I **** the mood in a sour June,
opulent misery, scorched Earth,
exchanging platitudes with old faces,
full of ******** full of hot air.
Both sides of the fence
at war with themselves,
feigning inner peace and profit
across the beer garden table.
I talk of hangmen and floods,
child brides and dressing gowns,
my hometown under the mythic spell
of collective memory loss.
We have forgotten our place
in the comfort of our urban sprawl;
sirens caterwaul past the high-rise,
past the vacant church with locked doors
and the homeless on the street.
A commonplace emergency,
young male suicides, women *****
in the safety of their homes,
taught a kindness through physical force,
the way the gun drops to civilians
in countries saved through the filter
of television screens; of dust and distance.
I sit and write and think of ****
of old loves, anxieties-
they call me crazy all the while
for not committing to the scene.
Now Afghanistan is a blueprint,
extended diagram of steady-state destruction,
a conspiracy of white man dreams,
farmlands bruised by machines of war,
by the Big Black Boot,
the feeling we have been here before.
All the while, the illusion persists,
car parks filled with smoke, professional escapists
with their 9% lager, bags of tobacco,
and the megalomania of art.
I **** the mood of a whitewashed June,
advertised freedom, a mortgaged Earth,
exchanging currency for a chance of peace,
the zen garden smoker, the looted mind.
Both sides of the fence are collecting bones,
at war with themselves, whilst my eyes are red
and my philosophies, ******
They call me crazy for dreaming of escape,
whilst never leaving the confines of home.
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 9:09 AM UTC
evening
Maria and Mr. Riner are sitting on my bed
tied up like garlands, against the wall
the words stew inside and I can't seem to
pour them out
but we three fools, sit and scribble regardless
staring blankly at the drooling clock
(persistent, in our memories).
the whitewashed cinderblocks are testament
to the number of walls
the quantity of clocks
this series of chairs
and if we close out eyes we expect to
wake up in heaven
but it's just the same old hell.
she says, keep writing
(if you feel inclined)
and slides her back into mine
but I've got no more letters in these fists
(so I'll lie and think for a bit).
she says,
I've never been a 'she' before...
morning
my coat sits in a bundle near the door
I've been trying to find a way to hang it
but I'm having mixed results, in fact
all this month I've been trying to make attachments
to these white,
white,
cinder block walls
with all manner of adhesives.
but these nightly sessions
have been ******* with the humidity
and every morning something new is on the floor.
all I can do is put them back up again.
try and
be a little more constant
with these climate fluctuations.
try and
sleep a little more, sweat a little less.
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 5:43 PM UTC
All summer we moved in a villa brimful of echos,
Cool as the pearled interior of a conch.
Bells, hooves, of the high-stipping black goats woke us.
Around our bed the baronial furniture
Foundered through levels of light seagreen and strange.
Not one leaf wrinkled in the clearing air.
We dreamed how we were perfect, and we were.
Against bare, whitewashed walls, the furniture
Anchored itself, griffin-legged and darkly grained.
Two of us in a place meant for ten more-
Our footsteps multiplied in the shadowy chambers,
Our voices fathomed a profounder sound:
The walnut banquet table, the twelve chairs
Mirrored the intricate gestures of two others.
Heavy as a statuary, shapes not ours
Performed a dumbshow in the polished wood,
That cabinet without windows or doors:
He lifts an arm to bring her close, but she
Shies from his touch: his is an iron mood.
Seeing her freeze, he turns his face away.
They poise and grieve as in some old tragedy.
Moon-blanched and implacable, he and she
Would not be eased, released. Our each example
Of temderness dove through their purgatory
Like a planet, a stone, swallowed in a great darkness,
Leaving no sparky track, setting up no ripple.
Nightly we left them in their desert place.
Lights out, they dogged us, sleepless and envious:
We dreamed their arguments, their stricken voices.
We might embrace, but those two never did,
Come, so unlike us, to a stiff impasse,
Burdened in such a way we seemed the lighter-
Ourselves the haunters, and they, flesh and blood;
As if, above love's ruinage, we were
The heaven those two dreamed of, in despair.
3.2k
Exceeding tall, but built so well his height
Half-disappears in flow of chest and limb;
Moustache and whisker trooper-like in trim;
Frank-faced, frank-eyed, frank-hearted; always bright
And always punctual--morning, noon, and night;
Bland as a Jesuit, sober as a hymn;
Humorous, and yet without a touch of whim;
Gentle and amiable, yet full of fight.
His piety, though fresh and true in strain,
Has not yet whitewashed up his common mood
To the dead blank of his particular Schism.
Sweet, unaggressive, tolerant, most humane,
Wild artists like his kindly elderhood,
And cultivate his mild Philistinism.
2.8k
Mom always walks her child to school,
Her little girl's lunchbox in hand.
Every day she cares for her,
Teaching her how to walk and stand.
She held her close that fateful day,
Against her breast while nose to nose,
"Mommy, why is this lump right here?"
Now only whitewashed halls she knows.
Mom always waves her child to school,
From the porch with a trembling hand.
The poison did not work this time,
And there was not more she could stand.
She pays the bills day in, day out.
The insurance has long run dry.
She coughs up blood, cleans it quickly,
And makes sure her daughter won't cry.
Mom calls her child at school sometimes,
A red phone in her bony hand.
"The doctors say I'm doing great!"
At nine months since she last could stand.
The blade has cut the flesh demon,
Yet even faster back it grew.
Waves of power rolled over it,
Yet there was no cure that we knew.
Her child now walks alone to school,
Mom's old tin lunchbox in her hand.
The grief within her swells sometimes,
Making it hard to talk and stand.
She visited her that cold day,
By the old brick church down the lane.
"Mommy, why did it take you now?"
She whispered through soft tears of pain.
Jun 2, 2014
Jun 2, 2014 at 7:53 AM UTC
Lately I have been hanging your voice on my wall.
It came in ten different frames,
and I spent hours adjusting them
until they hugged the wall at the perfect angle,
their gilded bodies pressing against painted emptiness,
whitewashed space.
And when I feel nostalgia
twining around my veins like wild ivy,
I only need to reach out and –
“Hello. My name is –“
“Hello. My name –“
“Hello. (Stop.) My. (Stop.) Name. (Stop.) Is. (Stop.)”
“Hellomynameis –“
Do you remember that?
Did you know my hands shook,
that I tripped over words like I do
with miniscule cracks in the sidewalk,
that my heart stuttered
thumpthump thu thump thuuump thumpthumpthump
and how it hasn’t quite been the same ever since?
“I love you.”
“I love (rewind) – love (rewind) – I love (rewind)– love (rewind)– I love you.”
“I love –“
“Iloveyou.”
You thought you could pry me open
and tear down my walls
and then suddenly you did.
It only took three words to start a hurricane in my heart.
Did you ever notice the aftermath,
the broken homes and homeless souls?
I am still rebuilding.
I hammered this one into my soul,
can still feel the echo of your words
pounding away in my bones:
“Goodbye.”
“Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.”
“Good…(clickclickclick)… bye.”
Aug 23, 2013
Aug 23, 2013 at 9:43 PM UTC
Trezūnger, last house along the esplanade
Stares out towards Polruan Point. In the growing storm
I feel Atlantic.
St Catherine stands
Over the harbour, laying her claim to the sea
Under the watchful gaze of the eye of Neptune. All the while
The trees whisper to the waves in the wind and release
Leaves and autumnal fragrance. Clustered cottages shoal
Whitewashed in the lee by the ford-over-the-stones-by-the-beach.
The tide and the air pressure low as nature ***** a deep breath ready for the storm
Nov 16, 2018
Nov 16, 2018 at 1:10 PM UTC
These whitewashed walls scream out my discontent,
The faces of inmates line the corridors, impassive and unimpressed,
I bang on steel locker doors, but I hardly make a dent,
My words are not replied to, and my screams go answered,
It doesn't matter though, they are silent screams of aid,
They resound through these hallways like the echoes of a gale,
The cold of locker steel is an ever foreboding constant.
They line the hallways, like the vigilant sentinels of a jail,
And I can help but think, how familiar the two seem to be,
And how in one a perfect illusion is created, of being free,
These whitewashed walls are filled to the brim,
With students and inmates, angels and demons alike,
Teachers and wardens stalk these halls, hidden behind their hollow faces,
Bullies and inmates swarm these halls, hidden behind unfamiliar faces,
In these whitewashed walls, there are blackened souls and empty holes,
Holes where hearts used to be, and coal where souls used to be,
These whitewashed walls are alive, and they bear witness to it all,
And here these whitewashed walls remain, through our rise and our fall.
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 7:46 PM UTC
it's three months later
and the tune of our love
still echoes through the labyrinth
of my prozac-poisoned cerebrum
it's the sound of rainy evenings
in whitewashed suburban neighborhoods
overwhelming me
as it ricochets off the cold stone
it's the ghost of your hand
holding mine so tight
and it feels like home
as I stand here alone
even as the symphony changes key
to red hair and bright blue eyes
the cadence of you
still rings in my mind
Nov 9, 2013
Nov 9, 2013 at 7:36 PM UTC
The crowds flock to protest the new recipe,
as thousands die in the city of Jakarta.
Even as the tulip fields promise diversity,
another whitewashed wall appears
by the old laundrette.
I cannot understand sanity in a world so crazy.
Police barricade the homeless
and set the rapists free.
Each jewellery room is iron-gated,
whilst hospitals turn to soup kitchens.
There is no app to save us from human folly,
no special offer on compassion, or a trial period
for higher states of mind. Eyes are bleeding
by TV screens, as all expectations
are lowered to the high-rise.
Where comes politics in Democracy's atrophy?
Voter apathy, faceless names
and blood-lined tycoons fill the news.
They are saying “nothing will change,”
whilst promising the world.
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 11:18 AM UTC
it will just end up
being a tale of a drunk looking into a metre
as if it was a kaleidoscope mile
in an l.s.d. fuelled centimetre seance,
conjuring the dead, esp. sergei with his kijé,
and thinking about turning the zoo inside out,
with the birds as fish in the great aerorium
of the missing stars to cook up a fluster with broken beaks
nudging achilles to kneel using his heels.
i mean i’d cage those parrots to seal their colour
into stamps and dutiful ink of borrowed bureaucracy,
but i’d stink of oysters doing so and very little else.
so why did they decide upon petting fish in an aquarium
and said that birds were simply caged chickens easing out
an omelette? if i was keeping goldfish in aquariums
i’d be keeping budgies in aeroriums.
don’t tell me, the glass eases the process for disney's
talking blue fish? no wonder, a caged animal
is reminiscent of a caged man, but put man behind glass
and there's little chance of a narcissist conjured;
hence the necessity of slicing iron of the ribcage innuendo
within the framework of a niqab to peer through
on that whitewashed backdrop some call a canvased sigh of beginning.
Sep 28, 2015
Sep 28, 2015 at 9:00 AM UTC