"wingspan" poems
*Dreams within you take flight
Embraced with the wingspan
To wander the high skies
And deliver messages of love
Shower from high above
Stars that you have plucked
Glittering with your generosity*
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 1:28 AM UTC
As our dreams expand
We take flight to new territories
Soaring higher above the ground
Embracing the world between our wingspan
Looking down from dizzying heights
Once nurtured as a fledgling
Lest we not forget the ones who believed in us
One day we can soar higher
Flying at higher altitudes
We can be the ones to give wings to future dreams
Sep 13, 2014
Sep 13, 2014 at 12:45 AM UTC
Woman birthed. Woman raised.
I am no biproduct
donating ***** does not make one a factor
back strained, she supported me like Atlas
sheltered me with wingspan like Daedalus
her love stronger than the Greek gods
Aphrodite was her apprentice
agape her creation
her love for me surpassed my love of self
Nov 26, 2012
Nov 26, 2012 at 8:27 PM UTC
They tell me I can do anything.
Looking down the throat of a challenge.
Hanging on to the coat tails of life by the fringe,
above a fire that is trying to singe...
...Who I am
My Identity
Targeted by
a self created entity.
To bring me down...
...Below my potential
to see what is essential
through consequential actions.
I AM A MAN!
no matter my wingspan... I CANNOT FLY!
And those childhood encouragements are a lie.
But through accomplishing what I am capable
I find that my boundaries are escapable.
I'm not shooting for the stars,
or looting and ending up behind bars,
but I am me, myself,
doing what I can so I'm not rotting on a shelf.
Jun 4, 2013
Jun 4, 2013 at 6:17 PM UTC
Cocoon suspended ‘neath a branch,
Out of harmer’s range;
Churning in tight quarters then,
Awaiting for the change.
A cast she’d spun with great detail,
To blend into the scene;
Remain innocuous, choosing plain,
To spend such days serene.
This sanctuary has terms of time;
Yet flippant so, of sight;
Blinded by the darkness kept,
May only dream of flight.
There, outside this nurturing crypt,
Lies futures yet untold;
Exploring freedom, airless hours,
As wings will then unfold.
Alterations to her inner form
Complete in all detail;
While oblivious to worlds unknown--
Mem’ries without a trail.
As perforations tear a fold,
In which she will embark,
To crystal, glowing cast of moon
Within this evening, dark;
She wrestles to uncurl her girth
And wingspan so anew;
That seems so awkward, foreign and
Has converted different hue.
Now perched upon her drying bed,
She fans while instincts try
To capture sens’ry explosions
That lay to foundling’s eyes.
Beyond the glen, a spot she sees;
A single glowing blur.
Just then each tree bends toward one side,
As breaths sweep under her.
Weightless, floating, movement new,
She tests her longer arms,
That reach, manipulating wind,
Should quivers strike alarm.
The lure of the eerie glow,
Possess investigation,
As closer toward the light she flies,
Embraced with consternation.
Near collision with the beacon,
She’s halted in mid-air;
Translucent strings of sticky form,
She didn’t see, were there.
She wrestles, tries to free herself,
While a shadow looming near
Smiles with contentment of
His cunning craft of snare.
Slowly he approaches while
She looks to see his eyes,
So vacant of emotive flush,
With fear she starts to cry.
The octo-legged creature then,
Inserts his poisoned quill,
As venom circulates her life,
He waits until she’s still.
Then coils her in silky thread,
While dancing ‘bout his room.
Tho’ this is of his own design,
She returns, inside cocoon.
As thoughts of life, such brevity,
Released of any pain.
She closes youthful eyes at last,
And dreams of flight again.
Jul 4, 2010
Jul 4, 2010 at 6:23 AM UTC
A smile forever
On this life too soon severed,
Her face blushed
with pockets of
glow.
To the darkness he fled,
Hands stained with red,
and stopped in his tracks by a
crow.
“Begone,” said the crow,
And he started to show
a wide wingspan
directing toward
North.
“A life has been spared
yet you still dare
to test the fates as your
time travels short.”
“Move from my way,” said the lover,
“I’m no stranger to once again smother.”
The crow with
his beak
pecked away at
his feet
And won a prize of a toe from the lover.
“Arise,” said the crow
to his new peeked foe,
“we have not even start-
ed yet.”
Though the journey was long
the crow sang a sweet song
just before a swift
stab at
the lover’s neck.
Oct 19, 2012
Oct 19, 2012 at 3:39 AM UTC
The night is dark against your fair fur feathers
And your wingspan holds true against the glass.
Legs splayed against the pane, hard and fast pressed against the portal to my world.
You'll do anything to touch the light.
I cannot blame you, I have been there,
Outside in the cold warming yourself with the thought of a light bulb
Feeling the phosphorus of that explosion with your eyes and ears
Longing to be a part of what is good.
No, I cannot let you in, for
I am ready to selfishly bathe in this illumination
The moonlight will do for you
So I suppose I'm just as bad as the others were when
They kept me out.
Window panes and light refrains
From being yours, but mine.
All you shall do is hang there and wish
You had a light switch of your own
Ready to make your own world bright
Ready to lift you from the darkness
Ready to help you spread your wings
And fly in the day like all the other successes.
With just a flick.
Poor moth, it must be
Cold out there.
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 3:23 PM UTC
Unleashed
She is finally freed from her cage
Her flight feathers grew back
Her wingspan impressive like the dawn of a new day
Flighted, and ready
She takes to the sky
An eruption of beauty
Never to be seen again.
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 1:59 AM UTC
Before her, I was
South-facing as a loose tooth plucked from sore gums.
There is a affinity shared with her
In this gloomy hair, like graphite
Fingerprints anointed on my featureless cranium; and how
Before me, she was
Broken as the noon's fever. Her boyish hips fanning out,
Abdicating space for my anemone palms
To measure their wingspan.
Jellylike expectancy
Suspends us in a flood of adrenaline.
May 10, 2025
May 10, 2025 at 1:28 AM UTC
Even now, as we lie here, heartbeats like a metronome for the coming storm, I write songs in my head for you. And though my voice will never sing them, they are the soundtrack of your kiss. Each record scratch on my heart like a pressed vinyl love letter. Shaping my sinking chest into drum skins that my pulse beats against.
If I were covered in magic dust, you would be my happy thought. And all my childish notions of what it means to be romantic would be written down the sides of Chianti bottles in melted wax, like an oak. And in that bottle we would keep our hungry mouths.
And still I find my heart adrift. Ripped sails and ropes leading skyward like veins. Split and tattered and stitched haphazardly together, waiting for the lightning to strike twice and bring it to life. My throat a bricked flue, leading to an open mouth, spitting smoke from the torches my heart fears but always seems to carry.
And I stretch my spine skyward. Trying to wedge my head back into the clouds but manage only to cast the shadow of an orchid that has begun to lose its color and wilt at the edges of its wingspan. Coming to terms with the idea that it may never be picked. Not even its petals, even numbered like a deck stacked against it that it might lose in a game of being loved and loved not.
We want for a little more time. Arm wrestling clock hands into submission with god like fury. Ticking tongues to dampen the prophecy of false mediums. We practice fighting so we may fight for each other. Fight for the greener grass on the other side of the pavement walls we draw our chalk hearts on.
The clock tower is a lighthouse. The lighthouse is a windmill. The windmill is a giant. The stories never end.
Even now as we lie here, heartbeats like a metronome for the coming storm, I write bed time stories in my head for you.
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 11:24 AM UTC
~~~@~~~
i break
my chrysalid womb
into a realm
without
protection
my wings
are wet and stunted
cyan jewels lie dew'd
tourmaline
clusters upon the
veins
i'm only beginning
to learn the
nature of flight
i'm at my
most vulnerable
please
protect me
but don't assist me
in my struggle
to break
FREE
~~~@~~~
**it took me
disolving time to
emerge
from my own
beautiful
amorphous mess
while I drew
my imaginal discs
i dreamt
of flowers
and their
everlasting
bursting colors
the
celestial skies
and soft
empowering
spring
breeze**
~~~@~~~
as i push apart
my place of
safety and security
i find the life
pumping
into my
wingspan
the colors of the
world
entrance me
i am no longer
dreaming
as i drink in
my natural
but still
foreign
home
~~~@~~~
**riveting pain
with each
s p r e a d
of these
newly acquiesced
defenseless
delicate
appendiges
this
m e t a m o r p h a s i s
has just begun
my
j o u r n e y
to self discovery
paved with
wrestling and scuffling
everlasting
flight
and
wondering**
~~~@~~~
for it is in the
p a I n
we find
g r o w t h
and in the
s t r u g g l e
against
the
safe and secure
that we
at last
find
F R E E D O M
~~~@~~~
dajena m
soulsurvivor
(c) october 10, 2014
Oct 10, 2014
Oct 10, 2014 at 4:18 PM UTC
On really good days
I'll leave a crisp five
In the back pocket
Of my ratty blue jeans.
That way when my future self
Feels as fragile as spun sugar
But tastes like burned bitterness
And needs to shake herself awake
Drag herself from chore to chore,
Convince herself that collapsing isn’t a cure,
[Though doesn’t the cold tiled floor feel refreshing?]
She’ll only have clothed in comfort:
Her baggy gray sweatshirt,
Consuming her body whole,
Making her shapeless,
So maybe she can shape shift,
Into a bird or a bat or a pterodactyl,
And make the most of her new wingspan,
Flying further from her fractured reality,
Into a fabulously far-fetched fantasy.
Her ratty blue jeans haphazardly thrown on,
So worn that there are holes in the knees,
Frayed hemline attesting to the tired trampling,
But when she tries to shove a ***** tissue,
Into the back pocket hoping it’s mere placement,
Is enough to leave the memory behind her,
She’ll stumble upon a long forgotten monetary love note.
Yes, you do love yourself,
Yes, I know it’s rough now,
In fact, I guessed it way back when,
But life is just a series of juxtapositions,
And maybe you’re in a hole dug so deep,
That you’ve burrowed out into China,
And now look, really look,
You’ve got a world of exploring to do!
But if you’re not yet strong enough to
Climb the Great Wall,
Don’t you worry,
Building endurance takes some time,
But until then,
Here’s a crisp five,
Go buy a Kit-Kat,
A can of Sprite,
And a cheap horror flick,
And never forget,
I always love you.
Jul 28, 2013
Jul 28, 2013 at 9:02 PM UTC
vampire bats
are jumbo jets
flying high
with their six foot
wingspan flapping
through this heart of night
stretching against
the surface of the sky
hiding the face of the sun
yes, pitch black
leather wings
grabbing hold of
space and time
slicing through
the thick of night
slipping pass
the House of Hades
being guarded
by gray ghosts
griffins and gargoyles
but somehow
the Gothic moon
stands her ground nor
does she sleep
a wink tonight
letting go of
fear and fright
protecting the
still of night
knowing that
the vampire bats
possess infrared eyes
to capture their prey
Feb 13, 2011
Feb 13, 2011 at 7:16 PM UTC
Embodied in a perpetual persona of shitheaded seventeen
(Before you snuck out on a cold silver sheet)
You could measure your lifespan (or is it your wingspan, now? did you know it's the same as your height?) in late-night shenanigans topped with bacon-guaca-holy-moly burgers, tumbling in neon spandex and the raising of general hell, which you probably can't reach right now,
(And how many flaming bags of feces on why-not doorsteps, for me?)
Speaking of me,
Do you remember when I kissed your head beside a broken down photo machine? Do you remember when we ran away from your first girlfriend (her first kiss) and laughed because you had a current girlfriend? Do you remember when we tried out clouds in department store floor levels, like you were planning on getting one all along? Like you were my (first) and now my (late) husband? Three years doesn't seem very long ago, when placed in proportion with - what was that word again - eternity?
You were but a fleeting presence not only in my life, (in her life, his life, their lives now broken from a trio into a typical twosome) but in your very own - one blonde beach-bunny darting from top-hat to top-shelf
(Could you give up World of Warcraft for a World of pearly White?)
(Would you take me to my Senior Prom?)
We will float yellow rubber ducks down the water at your wake (one by one) and eat food-court teriyaki because no one is allowed to be sad (says you)
(Jesus, baby, what's your dang address?!)
In the end, you ride off into the sunset on your unicycle, like the bad movie that this is
(Screaming, "this thing's killer on the *****
Sep 20, 2013
Sep 20, 2013 at 12:30 AM UTC
The holy pages burnt slowly as it drew you closer into a darken rapture of sorts.
Ashes and soot crumbling from a wayward vessel, down into you, the sacrificial lamb.
You burnt the sacred pages. The fluttering flecks of a religion scattered around your scarred and bleeding feet. The enlightenment you sought was nothing but a false ploy; a world of innocents to crumble and deploy.
Balefully cries linger on the opening of trepidation. With the wingspan of purgatory, wrapped in nefarious black silk.
You!
You, virtuous martyr...
Abbadon's gate, with it's scaly arms, stands open and wide, deceitfully at the ready.
The question is; Are you willing to pay for your deceitful sins?
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 12:43 PM UTC
Brittle as glass
Strong as steel
Truth is powerful
So keep it real
The beach is dry
The sea appears green
The sun light blazing
On a sky so clean
We seek it and love it
Hold it so near
Like a bell ringing
Sweetly and clear
Sweetened and pure
The water overfloweth;
The truth separates
The liars and the voiceless
As tis we hath choices
To settle the scene;
Some seeketh reality
Others liveth in dreams
And between these things
We keep our head's topped;
Speaking honesty in mantra
Wherein one's ears shalt pop
And aloft the floss
Of the sky that is greyish blue;
We shalt travel by wingspan
Showing amour so true
*In depths we dive
The sun we trust
Till we hit the* rocks
And get shattered to dust
*Holding our breath
The pressure gets worse
This mighty* sea *has never
Quenched anyone's thirst*
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 1:57 PM UTC
Adam and Steve
Adam and Steven
Adam an Eve
Adam an Even
Adam was odd
An Eve she was even
Then came the planet
With all the plants
It came before their plans
Or did it
Sweet honeysuckle
Down by the water
Sat catacorner
To a caterpillar
On a big mushroom
It had way more than five limbs
It looked strangely wizened
It told them to try it
Till boom bing bang
Wham bam shazam
Buildings and fast food and robots, oh my!
Soon little monkeys
Stopped crawling on knuckles
They invented baseballs
Chains and belt-buckles
And caterpillar
Lost all his wrinkles
Turned into soup
Came out with a wingspan
This is a tale of the
Cautiously clever
Does it make you nauseous
Or want to wear leather?
Nov 20, 2011
Nov 20, 2011 at 4:20 PM UTC
Her wingspan is
a mystery
lost and forgotten
information;
he holds her too close
to even let them
flutter.
Sep 2, 2013
Sep 2, 2013 at 2:26 AM UTC
Across the sky, dauntlessly, watching,
Shoes in cigarette stems while I
Wonder what flight's like.
Would I transition softly with the means?
Wingspan cutting resistance leaving me freedom
to fall, or better, to land when I see
earth worth tasting in the air around
mirrors in sanctuary.
Across the ground, dauntlessly, watching,
Shoes in cigarette stems while I
Observe my life like
Stone in the wind, steady as the leaves blow
Leading and closing the shows before and after
to end, like weather, and begin again
Forces to withstand time while I walk
sit, or lie where I go
What it looks like
What it is
Ends and means,
unanswered wishes
What it looks like
What it is
Ends and means
within reach will I take,
Palms wide open
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 9:26 PM UTC
wedded that day, on their way
to El Paso, for two nights in a grand motel
with TV, and AC
they would splurge,
for profligacy was not a sin at such times
and a fat steer was sacrificed for it
the radio filled the cab
of the pickup with Tammy "Why-not"
singing D-I-V-O-R-C-E
they sang along, changing the letters
to M-A-R-R-I-E-D, creating one cheerful
cacophony in their shared space
when the next tune started, he hit:
a greasy buzzard, wingspan wide as a fence post was tall
black as an oil slick
the old windshield was no match
for the vulture, and it was a vengeful one
that crashed through Ronny's side
glass, bone, feather and flesh
tore into his sweet face like a chainsaw
his blood blinding him
Ronny turned so hard on that wheel
the truck rolled, twice, landing them on
the passenger side in an arroyo
where he lay on top of her,
gasping, his blood dripping generously on her
"Ronny, Ronny..."
her legs were numb, and she felt a warm
liquid crawling down her back, one she knew
was from her own head
which smacked the roof
so hard she was surprised her skull
hadn't popped
or maybe it had, for she saw double:
two steering wheels; two setting suns; two mangled birds
and two crimson faced Ronny's
who then had stopped gasping, and only
slow breaths came from him, like a warm whisper
on her cheeks--but only until the song ended
and she knew, he was gone--and old verse
came to her, from Psalms, from Matthew, and she knew,
she was sure, someone would find them
and make her whole, and resurrect Ronny
for the good Lord would not do this to them, on this
hopeful highway, before they consummated
she harbored such a notion until
her own eyes closed, and other dark birds came
to find them, still, under her God's closed eye
(1968, north of Marfa, Texas)
Sep 12, 2016
Sep 12, 2016 at 11:09 PM UTC
each of my poems is a commencent address,
depending on the day, the time or place,
either an ending or a beginning
a moment unique, we mark a changing,
by tossing/losing a hat we’ll never wear again,
or picking up a shovel to bury a parent
in earth and casket we cannot share
an operating room, shiny clean, with mercurial microbes
awaiting a new arriving inhabitant, to defend and attack,
or bidding farewell to a elder child born blood-deformed,
whose wingspan shortened by virtue of our own gene-rosity
commence the commencement.
take the iron from the grotesque irony,
the steel from the stealing away seconds,
the hum from the humble mumbling, a disbelieving refusal,
the tears from the skin-rent tearing just
beginning a speech for the occasion and
ending with a prayer standing, by a gravestone
when you awake today, prepare a commencement
or a commence-not address
May 15, 2019
May 15, 2019 at 5:16 PM UTC
on moonlit nights
concrete beds and
pillows of flora sing
songs
empty cold winds beg
company
starlight's wingspan
warm, maternal
and cooing that shares that
macabre bedtime fairytale love
a silence that has become
a wool-knit cap of late
hours,
smoke,
bitter drink
an excuse really,
for desperate wandering
and the freedom to stand still
pacing stagnant
shallow grey rainwater neighbor waves
nods
the choice, holistic,
to breathe and live
or sigh and think,
be a man--
adult--
problem-solve;
industrial
untrimmed grass,
the words of a friend
the gate's rusted
repeat a tired fantasy tune
with all the time in the world,
just enough to waste
to search for answers or for self
bundle up
the alarm is set.
Jun 29, 2023
Jun 29, 2023 at 7:35 PM UTC
Sanctuary
I twig, is a brick, is a home to a canary
Foundation found in the mother of the bricks
Neighborhood gossip, chirps and clicks.
And the mileage,
Flying highways horizons
Followed by frigid winds, they migrate.
And man,
Stomping
Furious and curious comes cutting down with chain and sound
Foundations of, profound consistency.
Bird song...
Chirping blue in the melting landscape,
Prevalent wingspan
Feathers fall into shadows travels.
Apr 22, 2013
Apr 22, 2013 at 9:36 AM UTC