"wintergreen" poems
It was a hot summer day and freshly hatched flies
darkened your massive window bay.
Inside your decaying bloated carcass
millions of larvae are eating your flesh
they are eating you slowly away.
Your room had such a rancid stench
The New London Day gave it away
how long you laid all alone on the floor
four days old it was on your piano bench
out your body bag I saw a single fly take flight
in the embalming room that only leads to a big fight.
Rule is, turn out all the lights and open the door
Because they will then take to the air and bother you no more.
For a perfect viewing you must be purged of your infestation.
Step One, hook your nostril to a rubber hose,
Step Two, turn up the pressure so the water flows,
Step Three, push on your chest to break up there home, I call it their nest,
Step Four, Watch them all swim for their life as they exit out the other side of your nose.
I have a fetish for death I need to touch with my bare hand
slowly combing your hair with my fingers strand by strand.
I take out my Sterling Silver Mirror and then place it upon your frigged lips
and then I have to then put on a plastic frown when I see no BREATH!!!!
Dec 24, 2012
Dec 24, 2012 at 1:08 PM UTC
i thought.
you tasted like lust and you smelt like wintergreen and your hands were feathers and tickled my skin.
i know.
you tasted like skoal.
you smelt like smoke.
your hands felt like regret.
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 1:22 AM UTC
Pine needles in my head
Snowbird starts to fly
A want of apricity
Enters my blood stream
Like lukewarm sea water
Enters hiemal streams
I'm sprawled facedown
An angel or so
Below the snow
The taste of frost
Technically wintergreen
From your breathy kiss
Hinting at a return
To rays of affection
And the crush of limbs
Feb 5, 2021
Feb 5, 2021 at 9:10 AM UTC
Incorporeal wooing
-- benighted brown study,
slow to bleed,
turning on its axis,
wintergreen leaf
in free fall,
when all alone
the butterfly escapes the killing jar,
to parlously play along
this dulcet bine,
strumming crura,
like Orlando to faire Rosalind
in the Valley of Hinnom,
"a hunger uncurbed by nature's calling,"
which prayerfully ascends,
asking for cotyledon to appear
by break of day/dream.
Aug 3, 2020
Aug 3, 2020 at 10:41 AM UTC
over the summer
I had a brief romance
with a boy named Ty
whose tennis shoes
were six years into
a can of Grizzly
Wintergreen
on the Kansas
plains. I thought
about kissing him
a couple times when
he told me about wanting
to go to college but his
interest only went
as far as my arms
could reach, the
length of my
hair down my back
and the 5 minute drive
up Skyline that I never took
with him because he only wanted
to hotbox in my car to breathe his
past down my throat. And after
that, he told everyone I was too
much of a good girl and
left.
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 12:58 PM UTC
my dear fellow human,
you have been wintergreen against my heart. a sharp brilliance of blinding light captivating me within the infinite breadth of a wandering moment. my lungs frosted first freezing figures of frozen firs upon the memory of each breath. my blood ran cold like that winter river and I was a fish beneath its icy exterior and you have been wintergreen against my heart. a cold slap of circulating change penetrating each layer of protection. you have been wintergreen through them all and now you are wintergreen against my heart. a fresh perspective from the core of my being to the scales of my skin. a permeating resolution of piercing glacial coolness frosting the valves and chambers of this brumal beater. you have taken my breath from gelid gilded gills and scattered the shattered pieces of peace across this boreal landscape. from the hiemal heights of arctic aurora aura's to the lower polar valley's suspended in diamond dust--you have been wintergreen among them all and now these roots are too--cool, clear and growing--and i have never been so grateful for the cold that pierced and kissed this wintergreen heart.
Jan 31, 2021
Jan 31, 2021 at 9:51 AM UTC
Heavy is Head and Heart
No crown weighs them down
Yet they sink at the bottom of an endless sea.
Cluttered by memories of past passes.
Of opportunity squandered because of fear.
Because of the past pain that lingers
Somewhere near the tear ducts and rooted in the thalamus.
Still sinking,
Filled with the tears of a thousand pains that were bottled up.
Stocked in the recesses of neural mass and cardiac muscle.
Little did Head and Heart know that by releasing what they had stored.
What they had carried
To these depths.
They could be free.
It would hurt
And that's what they knew.
So they sank,
Memories and pain dragging them further from the surface.
Further from
Another second chance at something.
Something real.
Something true.
But unwilling to feel briefly
And release
To be free.
They sank.
Further.
As if caught in a net of chain and concrete.
Their baggage sunk them
Quickly.
Faster than their past pains could stabbingly flash before their eyes.
Faster than a memory of a first kiss forgotten or misremembered.
Faster than the memory of the scent of wintergreen gum,
Wafting through their nostrils,
Coming of the lips
Of their high school crush who never knew.
Faster.
And faster.
And they reached bottom.
Head and Heart trapped
On the rocks.
Their own doing.
They struggle to no avail.
But you know what they say,
About rock bottom.
There's no place but up from here.
If they can only
Let go.
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 1:11 AM UTC
I found love in watching clouds move across the sky.
And fear in the smell of Wintergreen Grizzly Tobacco.
Jan 26, 2017
Jan 26, 2017 at 7:28 PM UTC
I am always seeing the seasons changing
the hottest summer breeze fall leaves
cold winter snows spring roses
dawns and darkness
crimson ochres
grasses green drenching
clear drop rains, ice and cold,
turning reds and oranges fallen leaves
your eyes being the clearset
green of forests the scent
of wintergreen freshness of a lucky Irish lad on spartan turf seeing
his love. His four leaf (c)lover.
Nov 13, 2014
Nov 13, 2014 at 1:06 AM UTC
Home is a red-shuttered house with over-
grown hosta plants, sold to a Chinese couple
whose translator loved our hummingbird
feeders and the way the house faced East.
We had a swimming pool, frog pond, two
pink bikes and matching helmets--mismatched
childhood memories nine years behind me--
we moved to a ranch, where I painted my room
the color soft, baby grass fighting through
wintergreen fertilizer, the kind my father
scattered over our front lawn, hoping to grow
something above the underground spring
flooding muddy, brown, saturated as we
became when my mother remembered her
locked-away childhood, my father broke
his back, my sister succumbed to self-blame,
and I cleaned up after it all. Our ranch holds
these events in its powder-blue walls, creaks
at night and wakes me from a dream repeating
nine times over--where I stand inside that red-
shuttered house, beside an eleven-year-old
me with honey hair bleached from too much
sunlight, speaking softly: you’re almost home.
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 12, 2015 at 12:25 AM UTC
Playing by all the rules,
or so it seems,
the out-law fears
nothing and no one
as she
places her backwards cap
atop her
full head of fine hair,
sunshades
hiding her wide
toffee-colored
eyes.
Chewing hard on a piece of
wintergreen gum
like a first baseman
and some chaw,
she grips the steering wheel
as a heavy clap of
bass
emits a thundering chorus
out her rolled-down windows
into the half-empty street.
Brow furrowed,
the out-law ponders her next move,
bobbing and weaving through
one-way roads;
the destination she knows,
but the route is more
a riddle
yet to be solved.
The light air
and brilliant rays of sun
that sneak behind
puffy white clouds,
the out-law senses
some promise
from the
universe.
Lungs still filled
with
smoky wisdom,
she reflects intricately
on the life
lived by she
in the past few months,
gaining insight
into her own
optimistically
curious
soul.
She slurps
her Diet Coke
thirstily
as her cottony mouth
forms words and phrases
she one day
wishes to utter.
Time and space,
they are dear friends of the
out-law,
so drive she does
down that
long
windy
road,
twisting and turning
on the beacon of self-discovery
and hope.
And
love.
The out-law
watches the sky,
fascinated
by the rich colors
the sun paints
as it falls into a state
of serenity,
and
the out-law feels so serene.
Leaving comfortability
and safety behind,
the out-law relishes
in the excitement of the unknown,
getting high off
the fumes
of the uncertainty
that looms.
On she drives.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 9:43 PM UTC
Munificent two-act plot
Bug in a box; exasperate traded space by rule of fate
Savior rides high horse curse
The brain bully among altruistic thoughts
Ever is kind and gentle lost behind tepid colored curtain
Melodies play as menthol fulfills the allegory
Both almost half forgot, bowels in knots
Love making mammals misunderstand their own animal
Creation relegates creation and offers up a wintergreen mint
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 5:36 PM UTC
I. '88 dakota
mondays still **** granted i don't get up at the crack of dawn no more but around noon i always feel the need to leave the rest of the day behind me and take the big red monster out and go to the beach and contemplate my life for hours, so i'll reach into my tattered 35 year old prada bag for a lanyard that says "nirvana" on it (like the band, not the stage of buddhism), but then i remember that gas guzzler and i got 337 miles between us, no more, no less.
II. whidbey
on wednesdays i feel like i've shifted into an alternate universe where there are things other than evergreen trees and dirt roads, where the view when i look out the window is an interstate and dagger-like icicles that are as tall as me. maybe it started when they took down the texaco star in freeland and maybe it started the day i left, but i'm not sure if i can remember what home feels like anymore.
III. you
i still miss you on thursdays, sometimes saturdays. i know, i thought i woulda found someone better by now too till i realized that i'd been giving myself false hope this entire time. no one will ever be you. no one's teeth will curve the same way. no one will ever love the home teams as much as you. no one will ever smile as hard when i give them my last kit-kat in a strip mall parking lot at sunset. they drink to dak prescott and spit wintergreen griz more than you ever did. i thought i would find someone better until i walked into the coldest part of heaven with some crinkled twenty dollar bills and a carharrt jacket.
-z. vega
Jan 17, 2017
Jan 17, 2017 at 6:28 PM UTC
The weekend stretches out
like a loaf of fresh baked bread.
I want to cut myself a slice but
I'm poorly,
tucked up in my bed.
Life isn't fair
even when I'm in there,
I should get well and tell life
to go to hell.
I received a letter
from the doctor,
it said
'you're better,
back to work'
The doc's a berk.
In spite of it all
I think I will fall and
taste Saturday night,
take a slice from the Sunday and
drift back slowly
into
Monday
where the week stretches out and
I'll wonder what the weekend was
all about.
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 5:58 AM UTC
This breath of revitalizing air
Taken in on the first brisk day
inhale
Wintergreen presence of menthol
Leaving me without words to say
Pinecones dropping without provocation
Dodging them as they pummel the ground
exhale
If winter was forever
I think I'd be okay
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 4:32 PM UTC
I envisioned these days so often,
fearful of the independence soon to come.
Repression has surpassed to grant this favor
of forgetful remembrance –
or perhaps my memory you’ve stripped as well.
Loneliness stalks even the proudest of prey,
probing the crevices stashed deep away
to betray the very promises endemic to your core.
Now do I savor the silence I once abhorred.
I lie and I listen to the serenity all around,
obscurities of the day whispering from my walls
as an auburn Cardinal serenades from outside.
The moon beckons me near, apologetic murmurs
of her needless façade from the past –
a revered box fan underwhelms the silence
and disperses my diffused Siberian fir,
crips notes of pine and aromatic wintergreen
to soothe the comfort of my nightly routine.
Now do I know myself more than ever before.
Apr 18, 2024
Apr 18, 2024 at 1:40 AM UTC
wish i wrote dark, about deep insecurities,
a struggling childhood, i wish i wrote
like others with words of wonderfull
syllables, bells ringing,
you know.
wish i wrote long tomes, to bore myself
rigid. to tap the hours away till bedtime,
early.
wonder if i shall write serious,
tell thee all hard stories that
don't exist. i wonder if i shall stop,
when no one reads.
this is a time to wonder at the
dark hours leaving, waters receding,
black trees slowly turning. wintergreen.
sbm.
Dec 24, 2014
Dec 24, 2014 at 2:07 AM UTC
Dear Anthony T.T,
If I came in close with your back against the wall
Took my hand placed it on your chest while the other hand on the wall
Kept me upright while I stared into your icy ocean eyes,
Drew in closer and closer letting our breaths take the chance and dance,
Closed my eyes and gave you kiss
Would that have awakened the butterflies?
If I pulled away after acting on that impulse
Took my hand and let my fingers act on their impulse
(Which is to play with your hair as if a party was to start)
Let my fingers caress while “I love you” I confessed
Would that have quickened your heart?
Tell me,
If I led you to my room where there was a bed to lie on
Closed my eyes as I rested on you while the lights were not on
Breathed in the aroma of wintergreen while I pictured the rose you drew
Lied next to you as I cuddled with the door locked so people wouldn't muddle
Would that have let it emerge the “I love you too”?
Sincerely,
Francisco D.H
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 8:07 PM UTC
Who is it then that dare disturb the chantings of old men
and hear the lamentations?
who would care to listen to these evening walks through chalk filled mouths
and canyoned craters?
Brave, but who would that 'true valiant be'
to stand before and beside of me and hear the litany that I prepared
who has cared to shelve the sleeve of time
and in his own time mindful of these needs that speed along the ruptured streets where each beggar meets his alma mater
and in yet one more canyoned crater
would hear as if his very life depends upon the pen that penned the prose?
who knows that just as life is so unjust yet each man and woman must as time allows or pray to fattened sacred cows and anyhows I ask again
who is there out there to give their pain that I might lead it
bleed it into the dust
where the rusted franchise of good old fairy tales and bigger lies
stands in abandonment
and in an army surplus tent which being pegged out in the Sun
where we old men
would run if only the old bones would agree with thoughts we think but no longer see
come look here with me and lend me eyes that I might see that all is lost.
Another chant and one more rant
I shan't be needing this day again
this day I filled with a rain of unformed carbuncles
and Uncle Joe's mintballs
with just a hint of wintergreen
which soothes the legs which in turn have been
a million miles and then come back
Don't worry
'I'm alright Jack'
Back to back and moving on another singer one more song
and just like that the pain is gone
it has to be
I see that now
No sacred cows at all
just me
in the fall
where the leaves leave me alone
and I go home
to emptiness
the pettiness of the old grey cat that scratches
I'll get rid of that
one day.
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 4:55 AM UTC
Frost is longing
I longed for the thaw as soon as I saw
icy blue eyes and a navy Patagonia
reflected up from a small square of light.
Longing to see you in person
but settling for bantered texts
and drunken FaceTimes
Longing to reach across the copper table,
clasp your neck,
and pull you into candlelight
Longing to collapse twelve days into one
so we can stop rehearsing
and begin.
Frost is two roads not yet contemplated.
We have barely set out.
There will be many chances to diverge,
Each one a "what could have been."
For now there is only one reality -
A fantasy of who I want you to be.
Whatever we will be,
we will never be that.
Frost is nipping at my nose
With teeth like wintergreen chiclets.
Seduced by the smell of roasted chestnuts,
I am always disappointed by the taste
Yet, ever optimistic,
I try one again.
And each time it comes closer
To making fantasy real.
Frost is on the window.
Scratch with your finger to try and see through.
Delight in how it rolls under your nails before it melts.
May 2, 2019
May 2, 2019 at 1:18 PM UTC
It goes on for as long as it will or as long as the will is quite strong and when the will fails
everything tails off,all bets are void and whatever it was that buoyed me up disappears,
for years I have wandered through wills which I've squandered and thoughts such as these bring me to my knees and my will falters.
and for years I have searched,have lurched here and there to find someplace where my will can be free,
not to be
for we the proletariat have decided that all wills will be held in probate .
Then let them fornicate or ********** I ******* hate them all
I am not we
I am me
me alone
my Island
my home
sod off ifya don't like it
I don't give a ****
I am
me.
Feb 4, 2014
Feb 4, 2014 at 7:51 PM UTC
Feathered in song, sweet in breath
Sing to me, give grace voice
I need not hear the words
Just let me listen to your tune
Are those mocking words
Falling from your chest
Along tongue, among winds
Dancing through leaves and brush
Come hence, my window frame
I beckon, bribed with treats
A quiet audience, enraptured to you
My eyes closed; your voice is all
Imagination and term of phrase
The notes carry here and there
But never so perfect as where I sit
Hands folded in my lap
Let the notes cascade
Through dim interior sights
Brighten corners, hanging webs
Scare the shadowed bits
But my glassless pane only lead
From hence you flew now flown
The songs now ended, bereft
Sightless eyes, lids sewn shut
Spiders spin brighter anew
Shadows darker carousel down
Unseen by my eye, felt on skin
Such is life, so quiet an end
Come closer, closer now, Friend
Let me hear your sing song breath
Smell mint, wintergreen, and flesh
Grasp your hand, kiss your skin
I'll have your voice, dance
See through your eyes, drink
Hold you close, to cold skin
Give your song, love then live
Feb 16, 2015
Feb 16, 2015 at 9:16 PM UTC
there you are
eclipsed by moonlight
& here i am
kneeling in your shadow
a black dog prayer
wedged between the
chapel silence of you
& the church bells of me
there is gravity to our
antiparallel orbit;
you, the blue planet
& me, the stranded astronaut
but you say we are at a
crossroads like it's a goodbye,
our unwinding paths
arcing through the night
i was a falling star,
a sinking ship, plummeting
into that familiar abyss
a tempest of tragedy
when i fell in love with you;
do you remember it?
how my heart lurched
in my chest at the sight of you?
there was rain
there were tears
there was dirt
there were bodies crammed
in coffin-sized pews
suits dripping with water
& you, your handkerchief,
that up till 1 in the morning grin
smelling of whiskey & wintergreen
as you pressed your shoulder
against mine so gently that i
thought you were a ghost
caught in the morning light
or an angel haloed by stained
glass, flying into church
like a starling come to roost
i cried then while you stared
at the nail bitten quick of my
fingers, at the entire mess of me
& chose to remain at my side
you tucked me in until the sheets
touched my chin & oh,
it broke my heart to pieces
you sitting in the corner
sleeping in that wicker chair
like we were strangers
like you didn't live here too
the shape of you known
by every piece of furniture
in the house
but you kept your distance
as if you were afraid
that i would burn up in
your embrace,
turned to cinders in the
enormity of your love
as if i did not throw myself
to the pyre years ago &
come sprouting from the
ash-smoked ground
you were a forest fire
a natural disaster of a lover
leaving me cracked open &
broken in a soul-starved way
knocking away the walls
around my heart
until the home that grief made
crumbled at your touch
i am bad at being vulnerable
too much animal left in me
to be soft or kind
but you never caged me
even when i was sick with
grief you held my hand
& brushed my hair &
kissed me till i laughed
i knew i loved you then
but i did not say it;
& here i am again
begging you to turn around
to see through the coward of me
to read my lips as they
whisper your name in prayer
the only word for love i know
i don't want this crossroad to
be our graveyard;
let us go out into the night & walk
a star-drunk orbit back home
Aug 17, 2019
Aug 17, 2019 at 9:04 PM UTC
My pine tree eyes
The darkest green
Overwhelming me
With a sense of bliss
Smelling like wintergreen
And a smile like a breeze
Oh, my pine tree eyes
Stay the Winter
Stay for a while.
Sep 28, 2019
Sep 28, 2019 at 11:58 PM UTC
Bungalow bunkie,
Doth thou awaken or sleep to thy dust you accumulate?
Captious are one's these slothful ciggarrete nights!!!
Electrolight,
Come near that I may feel warmth,
As a child in early birth I seek forane high class milk,
Footlights on stilts do the the actors take high position!!
Not seeking the inefficient,
But the tower of Babel gone lost!!!!
Injurious kirtles are kinless,
Thy best friend is now friend less,
Due to thine own kindness!!!!
Lamb-kin darling,
Canst thou lance these burns to cuts?
For what's missing in the soot?
Lamenting chalice...
A king and a queens palace I'll die to live in,
For a smile and a grin cannot be weighed!!!
Hay/fever will take the fidelity of what's polite!!!
Damoclean of wintergreen,
Do you flatter by ones self?
Or doth thou Get help from dandering blotters!!!!
Intimate plotters of murderer's and lost hopes fun!!!
Chatoyant skin doeth I wish to feel once,
Where thy stage is real_,
No stunts!!!!!
Just reality of cavern lathered seducing!!!!
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 6:29 PM UTC