"woebegone" poems
my heart flutters at
the way she speaks my name.
"lover", she hums,
and i watch speechless as woebegone
drips from her lips. she
tastes like moonlight
when she kisses me. fragile.
unknown. known.
when our bodies meet
i can't imagine living life any
differently than this;
magnetism draws me closer and
i am intoxicated and sobered and
and i let my fingers
trace symphonies over her skin
love songs and love letters
and the lust of
knowing that this is belonging.
we fold into each other
and it is inevitable. i want to
learn her, learn
every part of her, as if
it's what my soul was sent to do;
her heartbeat weaves a
gossamer of beauty and
she leaves it in the crease of my
neck. "lover".
lightworker. twinflame.
architect of this home, these
two arms that sing safety
into rose quartz bones.
this is harmony.
i release a held breath and
whisper back, "always".
this is my promise.
Jul 26, 2017
Jul 26, 2017 at 10:33 AM UTC
Only the open sky
Could take my wings
Mold them into essences of purity
I was forged within
Rapid rivers of forsaken modesty
Left alone and sore below
Because my insecurities undressed me
And bedded me savagely
Before the watchful eye of the moon
The minds glowing aphrodisiac
As feathered hate falls from blackened flight
A finger is raised in denial of sunlight
A symbol of woebegone sensuality
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 6:44 AM UTC
O
Out of a bed of love
When that immortal hospital made one more moove to soothe
The curless counted body,
And ruin and his causes
Over the barbed and shooting sea assumed an army
And swept into our wounds and houses,
I climb to greet the war in which I have no heart but only
That one dark I owe my light,
Call for confessor and wiser mirror but there is none
To glow after the god stoning night
And I am struck as lonely as a holy marker by the sun.
No
Praise that the spring time is all
Gabriel and radiant shrubbery as the morning grows joyful
Out of the woebegone pyre
And the multitude's sultry tear turns cool on the weeping wall,
My arising prodgidal
Sun the father his quiver full of the infants of pure fire,
But blessed be hail and upheaval
That uncalm still it is sure alone to stand and sing
Alone in the husk of man's home
And the mother and toppling house of the holy spring,
If only for a last time.
3.7k
Enveloped in a haze of sullen clouds
Woebegone is the sky as it laments
Rain falls to ground in an aqueous shroud
Pooling its bleak anguish on the cement
All that is living drowns in the sorrow
Fearing long hours of the cold and despair
Hoping for warmth of a new tomorrow
No more melancholy could we ever bear
We mourn the sun's imminent exodus
As rain fall begins its sojourn of woe
And the joy of the sun's warmth leaves from us
To us the onus of grief it bestows
But with rain's end comes the tender sunlight
Ending the bemoaning war and sorrow's fight.
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 5:39 PM UTC
Going Off To War (a/k/a Washing The Dishes)
When its time to wash the dishes,
I make proper preparations for this serious business,
I strip down to my skivvies (shorts, in a prior generation)
Cause there will plenty blood and gore afore too long
Soap and water flying about, the ceilings and the walls,
Not to mention big, big puddles on the floor.
Multi-colored sponges of sizes varied,
Some Brillo-sided, like extra armor on a tank,
By Dawn's early light, turn the clear water
Into a heaving, breathing soapy concoction.
Woebegone and woe betide, dried and sticky maple syrup,
You are no match for super-strength orange dishwashing solution,
Of the Greeks did praise, a single dollop packs a mighty wallop!
Ain't afraid of any stain, decomposing, half chewed, culinary rejection.
Don't even bother with rubber gloves, cause that's for sissies.
The dirtier the better, cause I love the sounds of
All out war, the rushing water, the futile screams of
Grease departing this world, down the rabbit hole,
My gleaming, victorious sinking of the enemy shipping
You think I am the first to celebrate in verse
This storied fight of right over dirt?
Recall please this famed couplet, for now be known its true inspiration!
"Oh, say can you see by the Dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?"
Though Men Like to Load the Dishwasher (You Didn't Know?)
Is another poem of a similar ilk, when technology is unavailable,
It is fact verifiable and unassailable,
That if you give a man some room and some privacy,
Ignore the shouts and war cries from the kitchen emanating,
Male aggression can best be expiated,
When playing war games in the kitchen, a live action movie,
A video game that never grows tiresome,
And violence is necessary, for the enemy's complete annihilation.
Thank you my dear, no medal need be awarded,
Scored this poem as my just reward.
May 26, 2013
May 26, 2013 at 12:23 PM UTC
where to begin?
let us acknowledge
the responsibility of our actions,
and the titles and duties,
and the unexpected,
thereof.
I was a son, till this year,
still, of sorts, but no longer,
traded it in for
orphan.
are you still a child,
when you have no parents?
are you still a parent,
when a child lost?
I am a father, and grandfather.
this definition of me,
extant, future seeded,
perhaps permanent,
perhaps not.
the product of
actions more than
thirty years ago,
and events yet-to-be thirty years
hence.
titles claimed and granted,
partial, not finite,
not definitive, nor infinite.
partial, but part and parcel,
these titles, of you,
yet
they are not the totality, of you,
but very much part of you,
for you possess precious,
The Imprint - The Gift.
the child lost,
the parent found,
the newest coming,
the oldest gone,
all imprinted on your hands,
just look at them!
there are lines on your palms
you do not know the meaning of,
you do not yet know the ending,
they are in your cells,
as you are and were in theirs.
The Imprint
is The Gift
that is
non returnable,
non refundable,
nor is it
diminished by
any stone marker, measurement
of a day, an uncertain,
certain moment.
Look in the mirror.
see them in you,
as they saw themselves in your
reflection.
ah, reflect.
acknowledge that the
absence is pain,
but look at those hands,
that face, your face,
see the
The Imprint - The Gift
permit yourself an easement,
for it the season of
recollection.
ah, re-collect, recollect.
let the story.
continue, by the retelling.
find that palm line,
find that psalm song,
where the babe lost,
the mother lost
is the babe reborn,
in new faces, forever contained in
The Imprint.
we all ken loss,
we all keen know anguish,
different kinds for different folks.
do we not all have blood?
but are there different types,
and yet,
all still blood related.
prepare yourself
for more sad to come,
and some to never,
woebegone.
but do not forget,
nay, you cannot,
for seared it is,
this imprint,
a two sided copy
of a single document,
you on them,
them on you.
~
an eyelash falls
upon the poem.
a decorative reminder,
a stop sign,
a decorative remainder,
that it is time,
to recall,
to be unafraid.
now, now, right now,
is the time to remember,
that very eyelash,
the cells that are
therein,
the eyes that it has protected,
saw, know, well recall, gave,
gave part of you
and smile,
yes, smile,
for in them,
in the lines around your eyes,
the crisscrossed cell map upon thy hands
is the
The Imprint,
The Gift.
where to end?
This imprint upon your body exterior,
part mark, part stain,
part badge, part medal,
part cain,
part ribbon black pinned.
it is twinned,
for the match, the mate,
of this gift I printed,
is still in your living cells,
and thus knowing
the imprint is yours forever,
they are not lost,
you are not lost,
for Their Imprint
is a gift that
is
never ending
shall eternal be a salve this
happy, sad, melancholy,
holy
morn, day, season.
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 8:21 PM UTC
We were a beleaguered bard born,
a chief in chatoyant charms charged with
the principle petrichor of passionate paramours;
to drive the dainty dalliances
of incipient ingénues immured in
glamourous gossamer gowns;
lilting, lead lissome lads 'long labyrinthine love;
mischeiviously make mellifluous mondegreens;
sing of such serendipity: surreptitiously susurrous sessions
scintillas of Spring's sempiternal sentiments!
But fetching fugues fade fast, felicity's fated to fly. For
penumbral poets, it portends a pyrrhic pay.
We wander woebegone, waiting wistfully.
Lovers leave lyricists to languish in lonely lassitude.
The halcyon heyday has harbingered
inbroglio in the inured inventor of infatuation.
Why? With what wherewithal?
Often our offerings off us, opposite of, obviously, obtaining, or,
lucidly: lyrical lacers of Love likewise lack its livening lagniappe.
Sep 28, 2012
Sep 28, 2012 at 11:59 AM UTC
The elixir that I take in,
To indulge all of my deadly sins.
Eighty proof of malign madness,
Trapped in a bottle of rancid bases.
**** my insecurity,
And drown me in my reverie.
Where all the worst become the best,
Where fear and shame cannot arrest.
Each trickle burns my frozen core,
A second turns to forevermore.
The holy water from the river Styx,
That forces every mime to speak.
Stay with me 'til I succumb,
To this empty heart that's gone benumbed.
When this head's befuddled with every lie,
Until they look true before these jaded eyes.
My most loyal companion,
Don't wake me while I'm woebegone.
I'll intoxicate this bleeding heart,
And let this hell just fall apart.
Jul 20, 2013
Jul 20, 2013 at 10:43 AM UTC
~
Rigel
*Art thou
Thy soul
Of souls
Reaching
O to thee?
Or that
Celestial
Tide thus
Brimming
So, most
Delightful
Beams o'er
Me?*
~
Sirius
*O, Yes!
My Bride-to-be,
Spinning fiercely
Like a dervish in
This galaxy!*
~
Rigel
*My flames! My core!
Held together by my
Own attractiveness, I
Assure, I need not thee
Tis myself I do adore!
Fantastic mysteries
I keep thus pure!
Woo me to Love?
You seem assured
Of your Self as well!
But you must make
Haste to hence take
This, my body, O!
Heretofore to meld.*
~
Sirius
*My lust forsaken
Broken, taken!
See how hot
These fires
Thus burn,
All my Love
To you I turn!*
~
Rigel
*Be gone!
Be gone!
My Love
Must be earned.*
~
Sirius
*O what woe!
Woebegone
And melancholy!
Ease my malady,
Be my Lady!*
~
Rigel
*Perhaps one day
I shall, but as of
Now, I turn
Thee away.*
~
Sirius
*I shall do
My utmost
To burn
So close
Today
Tomorrow
So perhaps
Someday
It will be so.*
~
Rigel silently
*Sigh, you
Persistent thing;
I wish to cradle
You, soon too.*
Jan 14, 2016
Jan 14, 2016 at 4:31 PM UTC
a daunting bolero sends a shiver through a dream
a forlorn melody haunting a hazy delusion
crooning on a whimsical note
and breaking a melancholy tone
an elusive song opens into an abyss
of mambos and rumbas
that thrill like a superfluity of delicious electricity
strumming at our deepest treasures
buried in woebegone memories
seeping into our cellophane heads
and enveloping our entire being
until we heave our way back to reality
and dissolve into a sea of people
who are only twinkles
in the scudded windshields
of a rococo world
Nov 4, 2012
Nov 4, 2012 at 9:03 AM UTC
I passed the thronging Gariahat market each day,
There were quite a few comrades on that very road; but only one seemed acquainted to me
A florist; whom I would survey.
He held a basket of red, lucid, hibiscus flowers as I could see for wee.
The drastic smile reminded me of old Grand-dad.
The alluring gleam in his hazel eyes remarked despondency.
I wanted to confide to the hard working lad,
That he isn't alone, and sing him a strain, melancholy.
His smile was blemished.
His bony hand could not hold the basket for a prolonged time,
And I thought his wounds must be replenished.
My contemplative eye would be abstracted by the tram's chime.
Once, on the night of May
When I thought he was endowed with glee,
To him, I lost my way
For sleeping pills vanquished me.
I stood there like a woebegone,
In reminiscence of my inamorato
As the funeral carriages were drawn,
I weeped while that naked smile on me, would bestow.
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 10:48 AM UTC
*My smile is ever so slowly ephemeral
My iridescence is becoming opaque
I feel languid from day to day
My broken heart is imbued with pain
There is no elixir for the loss
The hurt is so great at times
My eloquence is laced with somber thoughts
I am efflorescent without my petals
I am demure and brood at night
I feel so woebegone
No one--nothing can take away my pain
I cry tremulous sobs in the corner of my room
By candlelight I pen my tales
My epiphany is heartbreak
Someday I will let go of my pain
But for now I will grieve
And regret the day when I said my last adieu*
~Marian~
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 12:58 AM UTC
Woebegone smile
Lost in the dark of a room
Sumptuous lips part with words
Of the long gone past
Lilac scent
Redolent in a delicate nose
Flit about
That dark room
And remember all the lost
And all the past
And all the vanished
Dancing with your heart
Not your mind
Without your body
With the lithe beating
Of the *****
Said to hold love
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 10:23 AM UTC
i loved every single thing about him. all those moments with him, of course, have already been betided. i desired to repeat the past but i don't behold the possibility.
i have ascertained that he had to scoot away from me. it made me feel woebegone. my fragile heart shattered into pieces. everything i saw bedimmed my mind.
he was my everything. he made me experience transcendence which brought my hopes up high. he just left without any farewells; i was too attached to him.
why did he leave without stating any motive? how could i move on? what would my life look like without his presence? will i persist loving another person?
i guess that i have to carry on. life goes on even though he has vanished. i deserve someone better. yet, it's the juncture to let go.
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 3:04 PM UTC
the horse rummages on the track
and the victory is owned by the ****
soon sleep will engulf my body
like the oblivious quietude of Aokigahara-jukai.
things and their semblance of utmost care.
light begins to burst
and there is little left to see,
wide-eyed, crunched by the efficacy of aches.
taking all to the very heart of hurt
as gamblers wager,
and coming back with the sound of completeness:
a man is a man in his chronology of defeat -
left torn by madness,
a cornered beast pressed against the woods.
the moon plays its lyre, white-washed,
sound wading in the very source of quiet,
hauled out of the Sun, its mother.
this hound stalks the world
with woebegone legs, a reflection of the entire world fractured
by a singular shot at the end.
i hear the guttural snarl of engine
unwavering in its limitations. say, at first light, all exists to paint darkness quicker
than any obfuscated conclusion -- hiding in
itself, its mood for squalors.
the mud dug deep for bones
pared from the slaughter of midnight,
hiding them to mask my defeat:
everything around me sparkles with
the vigor of frailty, all the same.
the nights are too long, scarce as froth
from an opened mouth left flat,
a dry gin bottle.
i imagine sad armies dissolving in pale moonlight, and crosses thumbed down to the snaking hiss of its nondescript prayer.
gears gnash like teeth in anger
of you in your young clothes, the pace of cars
hurrying back to homes.
i remember the splintered wood burning
the last in the round kiln of the Red Lion.
the upholstery of night is the twilight's
catharsis. the coast of dread widens like
the vernal metamorphosis of a young ********** in Gibraltar,
come in, come in with undecided ******
you can hear the fall coalesce with the levitation of ember, landing like feet blunt
on the asphalt beside desolate bicycles
in seedy parks.
the surreal tabulation of analogue repetitions:
death's myriad, in all corners screaming
the countenance rebel, against the floored masses.
Feb 26, 2016
Feb 26, 2016 at 7:55 AM UTC
Going through each day
Looking happy and worry-free
'I am fine', I always say
But there is something they cannot see
Something hidden deep inside
So that no one could know
The scar I used to hide
My woebegone soul it would show
Still learning how to mend my heart
Looking at the shattered pieces of it
Seeing what's still left after it had been torn apart
Picking up each fragment bit by bit.
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 8:14 AM UTC
A tryst between the ring master's daughter and his young apprentice
Goes unfulfilled by the reluctancy of the young man
And his unspoken, half assumed desire for the girl behind the cotton candy booth
But the ring master's daughter, with her quivering curls
Waits by the zoo tent all night
For a wisp of woebegone love
With a poor, handsome Circus Freak
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 11:53 PM UTC
I release a rich, mulberry cloud of a sigh into the atmosphere of the nine-by-nine dominion I call "Home". Within it sleeps the ingenue that I long-thought was the apex of my quasi-mature, teenage heart. It and she will soon brood alone in the blackest heights of the room. I couldn't see the ceiling with the Hubble bolted to the floor.
I never knew being light felt this good. My desultory dalliance left scars on my shoulders, notches for her to hang her sloth-arms upon. I undress. I lower myself to the ground. The more my skin kisses the marble, the less woebegone my bones feel. Warmth radiates from the marrow into my lymph nodes. The heat spills out from my body and onto the ground, reaching for each corner of my icy bungalow. From below me, the marble murmurs in a hum as soothing as petrichor:
I have missed this warmth.
For too long I've been frozen,
I have missed your warmth.
Apr 10, 2011
Apr 10, 2011 at 11:06 PM UTC
One day
When my hair is graying, face is creasing
My husband will be at work
His apathy slowly increasing
And making him a rude ****
My kids will be at school being fed empty knowledge
Preparing for college
And the TV set will be blaring
I won't be caring
About the static noise filling the beige room,
The news guy speaking of terror and gloom
A blue glare will reflect on the brown stained couch
On which I will be sitting, with a woebegone and wistful slouch
And my brain will drift, slowly searching memory files
Going back for years and endless miles
And I will remember you,
The boy I once knew,
As the boy I never kissed
My eyes will mist
And maybe I'll cry
And give a shaky sigh
For so many reasons, and that lost kiss will merely be one
May 5, 2013
May 5, 2013 at 4:18 PM UTC
My father's old Cadillac,
"Betsy", was an old champagne color,
With fabric that hung from the roof
As Betsy carried us
From our small East Texas town
To a slightly bigger town that
Actually has a Luby's
Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion"
Is coming through the dulled speakers,
As it does every Saturday evening.
I lay my head against the cool glass of
My window in the back seat and
Close my eyes and listen to Keillor's
Crooner voice softly and gently take
Me to the shores of Lake Woebegone.
I loved the stories of Lake Woebegone
Before I knew it was not a real place.
Before I even realized the name
Was itself a pun.
I still do,
But back then I would listen
And imagine moving and
Living there one day.
My father eventually
Sold Betsy to the only
Place in town that would
Take her,
A junkyard.
I'm not sure what he saw
In that old Cadillac
But whatever it was
Stuck with him.
Betsy's hood ornament sits
On his mahogany desk in his office and
Overlooks the bay.
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 11:22 PM UTC
The sheep were in the pen, sheltered for the night
we then sat around the log fire to chat till we fall asleep,
under the open sky ,in a clearing on a wintry night.
Contrary to what I gathered, he was full of life,
there weren't any lines of worry, nor his face woebegone.
The heardsman looked cheery, humming tunes he loved aloud
which the pesky mountain wind, snatched and spread too soon.
I quiz him about his treks to find pastures for the herd,
"Isn't it a task tiring , in the rough mountain terrain?"
"It's not me who leads the hungry herd to the pastures" he says
"As it is made the world to believe by those never had seen a pasture
The sheep know where the grass in green, and find the shortest path,
as pleasing them is my only wish , I dutifully follow their lead."
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 8:00 AM UTC
Sometimes we feel
Discouraged
Despondent
Dispirited and Crestfallen
By the world
And all its
Melancholy
Morose
Disconsolate
It's so despairing
Wretched
Dejecting and woebegone
It seems a neverending blue
Wrapping around you
Pulling your smile down
And devouring
There is a cure
Called ice-cream
Feel like a kid again
With a few licks
You'll forget about
The sad things
The cool cream
Vanilla swirl
In chocolate covered eye dreams
Don't be conquered by the world
And all it screams
Just grab your self a cone
Of your favorite flavor known
And enjoy the cure
Called ice cream
Aug 15, 2018
Aug 15, 2018 at 3:27 PM UTC
In a castle constructed of bones on a mountain high,
our hero sits alone on an ivory throne,
waiting for his current state of jejune to pass.
Whisperings of a voice, mellifluous air,
a singing so beautiful his heart skips a beat
at the gentle murmurings of such an ethereal voice.
And so he vacates his ivory throne
in search of this songbird that has invaded his walls,
the voice instils a certain hiraeth in his mind,
that village once so dear to him that now lies in ruins
due to his incandescent bursts of magical madness.
The owner of this voice, the eloquence, the elegance,
the image in his head that of a maiden on a rock,
as naked as the day she was born
and bathed in an iridescent sunrise.
A scintilla of a break in her voice
and she begins to sob at the meaning of her words.
He finds the source of this angelic sound,
a woebegone but comely creature supine on a table,
her eyes staring into heavenly mountains of madness.
She does not look to meet his wild-eyed gaze,
instead melting away until she is nothing at all,
leaving only dancing embers and phosphenes where she had lain.
He hears this burst of angelic quavers every day
but his madness permits no memory of each
to reside in his brain, comfortable and snug.
Instead, he suffers this delusion every morning,
when his head his quiet and thoughts are oblivion.
This siren swansong has no source in reality,
it is the last vestige of a mind damaged by time and solitude,
where the dawn chorus each morn’s twilight goes unheard,
but the ghostly choral vocalisations of a bitter memory
break his trance and he searches for the only sound not real.
Jul 15, 2017
Jul 15, 2017 at 8:03 PM UTC
Why do I still try?
This love is like halaal
Everyday a bit of me dies
Whilst it keeps stabbing me
Bit by bit.
Now I feel like
A lone cloud
Drifting away into my paradise
Of filth and dark air.
I am standing on a cliff
And on either sides
I know I will be woebegone.
What do I do?
How do I tell you I love you?
Aug 25, 2016
Aug 25, 2016 at 5:49 AM UTC