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Julie Grenness May 2016
In our world technological,
Here's how to talk to gadgets digital,
"Now, listen up, keyboard and router,
Not to mention dysfunctional mouser...
Are you listening to me carefully?
(I am talking to them, but silently),
I do have replacements for each of thee,
I see a future ahead of you three,
Tossed into the gaping jaws of a bin,
off to the council tip, repository of sin,
Did you hear that? Listening in,
Stop trying to do my head in!"
Now they're behaving dutifully,
Technology responding beautifully,
"I'm warning each one of thee,
No more messing around with me!"
Yes, how to talk to technology!
(But make sure you do it silently!)
A whimsy. Feedback welcome.
pitch black god8 Apr 2018
5 Sensory Deprivation Relevations  (Happy Birthday Will Shakespeare)


I     the smell of sad

odor colorless like *****, similar familiar sidewinder effects,
musty invasive, it has no specificity, no locale centrale, well closeted,
saddling saddlng, in place, plain sighted better to toy our lives,
pervades persists, worse lingers, impervious to sprays
and even everyone’s good literature (even Will’s)
good wishes good intentions and mood prayers
to the nearest lay god
on duty at the spiritual emergency room on weekends,
stink

don’t think that this poem is for you; solely for the writer,
your doppelgänger ******, your mirror’s inside hiding out place,
I, who has your sadness smell into my skin cells crept
waft woof and warp wet weft-woven
into the sad receptacles hidden in my
head’s cubbies and the palms of my tree hands-covering face


there are cures so wonderful and inexpensive but unavailable
at the local Rite Aid, though they are the right aid recoverable,
so closer than close, so close that the internist
cannot prescribe them because he must inject himself first
because the live bacteria in the antidote can **** all

this odor lays down bamboo-strong roots;
to eradicate you must dig down deep,
six feet perhaps more, with heavy earth moving equipment,
uproot at the source, follow sad always all-the-way down and the root
great god gone,
but the saddest truth
stench odor yet present

II    the taste of joy

the joy of cooking is not a gene in my litany possess,
but the buttery taste of joy I know, I know,
it’s a real princess rarity,
the hard costs of finding and keeping it,
I’ve paid endlessly and willingly pay on

the taste of joy is like presents under the tree,
shock surprises delights lives/life, customized, infectious
(except for socks, no matter how joyously exceptional),
joy to those whose buds never blossomed for its taste
readable on some one else’s, anyone’s ****** expression

I think of it as the taste of fast traveling cumulus whites
upon my eyelashes blinking as they are speeding you by, but happy
for ten more behind before the evening stars takes over

the taste of joy is physical, there can be no denying,
concentrations can be found in the lips and the fingertips,
which you think of as a tandem, someone else’s on mine

but it ain’t necessarily so; the taste of joy, shared I, having submitted to others kisses carried on the wind that
found their mark and were well received,
poems from the heart
that arrive well,
as their intended is sleeping, and
as intended, as waking gifts

the taste of joy in droplet tears
when you are notified that words
you joined in holy matrimony made you cry,
because the reader did, wept for two,
the weeping of contentment released,
free at last from container confinement;
this particular taste of joy is in the  
recovery and recognition that these
are not for you,
just joy peculiar these tasted tears for whomsoever sheds them

III   the hearing of truthful

truth am told is oft served cold and hard up for the hearing,
best avoided tween noon and midnight and any time a
bathroom mirror is in the vicinity; though religious men lie
too easily; bathroom mirrors cannot; a character flaw for sure,
but the truth to be trusted is this: no one is truly contented, always there are the richer, the more famous, the employed and
someone above who has more, more burdens of a different sort,
better quality losses and pains unseen not dreamed of

truth tastes terrible and is awful sometimes noisy painful;
it hides well in the stink of sad exposed to the atmosphere when exposed it turns red humans blue

truth may set you free, free to be what are you are or truthfully
an admission of what greatness you have to release the trick is
use the correct scale, do not let the wrong sized ruler rule you,
the truth, if you hear, hear it unfiltered w/o the bias implanted
by not your people; hear your poet voice growl like a blues singer and be truthfully satisfied like no thing no person only you could hear it as you intended it be spoken

IV   touches of fantasy fantastic
secret confess: touch my fav cause when its juiced with
mental visions of what might be, it Saturday satisfies and let me weep happy smile silly and is mine all mind; yes another’s tip
has sorcerer powers of revelation
but alone by myself I yet
relevate
and flow; my hands are right sized, my arms reach around myself for so designed, and the pleasure is mine to give;
mine to take,
neither better or worse if self-administered,
touch myself anywhere anytime and fantasy over dreams wins,
rise up, touch is a language and I speak six or a hundred;
listen to the sounds of touching and be touched human

V  insights for the sightless

at last we close the deprived
with an elegant elevation
sight overrated when imagination exists,
cannot be restrained
this the revelation
you have proffered and preferred all this time

have pity on me
I crystallize the unseen with the replacements
of my conjuring
the other senses lend a hand
telling me look up look up, be life save life
let your madness blossom in the spring airs,
the coolness of a first fingered ungloved snow
sight,
a mathematical function from the other four derived,
sightless an impossibility for with one alone defeat the
sensory deprivation and give tongues to words

epilogue

read my face
incapable of,
deprivation
but how now silent bow my head to Will
for teaching the way of words
traced upon
a fool or a king's tongue,
two too human,
so that poet may ken
his senses keener,
all for the better,
for the betterment of all
and now you understand how came this poem to be writ
in the pitch black
Emily Tyler Sep 2014
I guess I just expected
Something else

It happens every year,
I get excited
Hopeful
Giddy
That maybe
This year will be
Different.

Maybe I'll find an awesome friend
Who does my nails
And answers calls at two am
Like Nicole did
Before she moved to California

Or she could be like Kayla
Who would be silly with me in
Drama class
And use chocolate sauce for blood
In our Black and White movie
Before her dad died in combat
And she went to bury him in
Some foreign country
Where cell phones
Don't count

Or a boyfriend like Louis
That I could see a future with
Sitting listening to Relient K
In a college dorm
With a million years to spare
Before he left for London

But the girl in front of me
In English
Pops her gum for the boy
In the next desk
And could poke my eye out
With her fake straightened hair.

The girl in my drama class
Cakes on her mask and
Participates in pageant after pageant
And calls her anorexia
A diet

And I heard the rumor
That the boy I thought was cute
In chemistry
Was caught ******* his
Girlfriend
Under her desk in
Español Dos.

I didn't think my standards were too high to meet.
"Nothing gold can stay."
-Robert Frost
Alice Lovey Jun 2018
I know we've never been "together."
I know you said to move on.
I tried to be fine with wading this weather,
But the love in my heart still tells me it's wrong.

Now, I'm not saying I'm resentful,
But you did treat me like I was special.
Lately has been so uneventful.
And I'm starting to think this isn't a game...

I get a little jealous when you look at other girls.
I know we're not together, but... You are my whole world.
I get a little jealous when you talk about them too.
It's because we're not together, but...
You told me that you liked me... You told me that you do.

Now, I'm not trying to be weird, but call me, I'd give you my time.
Actually, I'd give you everything, cuz I just want you to be mine.
When I got too lonely, I'd just stare at your photos--
Soundless replacements for you, who knows.

You said I'm obsessive—come on now, don't play.
You like it when I'm open, you preferred me this way.
You said we'd be great together, don't think I forgot.
I cherish every sweet thing you said, so my heart doesn't rot.

Now I've deleted all of your things, cuz I can't bear to see your face.
My prized possessions... I should've given you space.
Why wouldn't you make me yours, like you wanted to?
Now we're apart, now we'll both just be blue.
And now I regret this—now I really do.
True, I'm a little weird, but we're both crazy.
I know what you're afraid of; I know it isn't me.
Sam Stone Grenier  Apr 2015
Bench
It's me,
the bench

The one who
let you nestle
your scraped knee
atop my wooden boards

The bench
that watched your parents
interlock their lips
from prom to
the sound of bells
those wedding bells

The bench
who would adorn
your family

the bench
who would mourn
your family

I have almost
withered away now
time is almost over now

But replacements are fine
I see a badge on this new bench
"Dedicated to you and your family."

I am happy now
I can die in piece now

I am the bench
and I loved you so
a m a n d a May 2013
[ode to my vehicle]*

always mindful
  
not to love things or stuff


living so that it 
  
could all burn

and it would be nothing
  
but an inconvenience

always mindful
   to love the people
because for these
there are no replacements



three objects 
  
have escaped my plan

maneuvered 
  
through my designs
and i fell in love with 3 things:



1. *old white macbook
*  
my beautiful
      
smart
        
well-designed
  
whirring piece of brilliant technology

you are already gone.



2. *wedding rings

  (irrelevant)

 i used to believe the
   joke of the symbolism
i fell prey to the beauty of
    well designed twisted metal
and stone.
no more.



3. asian machine love
*
    (a.k.a. mitsubishi outlander sport)  

i am having a hard time

having to let you go
  
my beautiful, black mitsubishi.



i chose you.


i researched for weeks
  
analyzing data

comparing machines
  
prices

trying to be reasonable


and out of all the machines,

i. chose. you.



you are the perfect shape
  
of all vehicle shapes, mitsubishi

you fulfill my obsession with
  
design

     lines
  
c o l o r 
      
efficiency

speed

    and b  o  o  m  i  n  g SOUND



you are the perfect balance of safety
  
including 4WD

and fuel efficiency

your headlights are so bright
  
and your high beams

so magnificent
  it's almost embarrassing


mitsubishi, you little snake...
  you have a manual mode

so i can choose to be a race car driver
  whenever i want


mitsubishi outlander sport, i love you so

*

let's talk about your face
  
(you have a pig-face like me
)
your nose is abrupt
  
it's blunt and it's different

and i love it


you know i hate the cold and the snow
   so you heat my seats
you warn me about ice
  you wipe away the rain

  without me having to ask

you cast light into the dark

  all on your own

gps

  usb

subwoofer

  rockford fosgate

bluetooth


mitsubishi,
you shake the earth

 blasting music 
through my dna

  so that i am made
of vibrations
and air

  invisible to the naked eye

or playing my science fiction audiobooks

  at a reasonable

and responsible volume



mitsubishi, 
you respond to me
with such grace

showing me impossibilities

with a rearview camera

saying, "hello!" in the morning

and, "see ya!" when i leave

(and i believe you mean it)



the deer was not your fault.

or mine, or the deer's.
  
we were all doing what we do,

and to be quite honest,

  the deer got the **** end of the stick, mitsubishi.

the kids like
  to go in
"mandy's car"
    they like to
look through the moonroof
  and i know they are safe
 .  
you are my one machine love
  
with power

combustion
  
     and pistons

you are electric
  
  intelligent

and you boom
 
  sleek

comfortable
  
          well designed



i don't want to see you burn.

it would be more than an inconvenience.
but you will burn. he will burn you.
it won't be me, mitsubishi.

he will take you.
he will smile when he takes you.
he likes to take what i love.
he likes to hurt people
who have never hurt him -
not once in their lives.

he is coming for you,
and i will never forgive him.
S K Anderson Apr 2018
I couldn't care less about
"Inspirational Quotes"
I don't need to be told that
the present is a gift
or what the best thing about
rock bottom is
or that only I can stop forest fires.

If I was to write one myself,
it would have less to do with
landing in the stars,
and more to do with
how much better you could see them
if you had the eyes of an octopus.

See,
Octopi have such phenomenal eyes.
The spectrum of color they see
makes our own look like
the ****** box of crayons
you get at a kids restaurant.
Whereas an octopuses,
would be the beautiful,
64 Crayola pack
I always wanted as a kid.

If I ever went blind,
I think I'd get octopus eye replacements.
And yeah,
I'd probably look weird because
they'd be too big for my head
but can you imagine how
strange and incredible
it would be?
And it wouldn't matter how I look because
how I see things
is more important to me
than how I'm seen.

If there was even the
slightest chance,
of seeing though the
eyes of an octopus,
that's reason enough to be alive.

And if I could take your life
or your perspective,
and change it even a bit,
that's reason enough too.

So look through the
eyes of an octopus.

Can you imagine the stars?
This is one of my very favorite poems that I've ever written.
Can you imagine the stars?
***
George Anthony Apr 2016
i write about you
but you do not exist
or maybe you do;
maybe you do and i'm just talking to myself

maybe you're just another part of me that i hate so much
i have to talk to you,
i have to
punish you
because i know i shouldn't like the way it feels-
and i don't; but i keep coming back for more anyway

i amend: i know i shouldn't be addicted to this hatred
you tear me open and pull at my frayed edges
so that i split apart and lose my functionality - and i let you
then i let you thread me back together once more

you build my body with thicker wool each time, hoping that
one day
i'll be warmer, and harder to unravel
and you sew my edges with fragile promises of a better future
as breakable as the metal pin that bends between your crafty fingers

the materials started off so colourful at first, like rainbows
maybe that's why i'm so queer
though over time you started toning down my personality.
as my depression embroidered me, my sexuality dulled
purple and black and white and grey

you manipulate my patterns.
some nights i sleep through, others i don't sleep at all
and some nights my strings are stretched so taut across the nightmares
that one small pull will undo me

i am ripped apart then made into patchwork;
there are white seams over my arms
you call me a work in progress, damaged goods
to be fixed, to be mended:
you can't afford replacements

that doesn't stop you from looking
wishing you could upgrade me into something more,
something better
and every time i fall apart again
i'm left itching with apologies

but never to you; i never say sorry for hurting you
my only regrets are to those who become collateral damage.
i do not apologise to you
because you are me, and i am you
you are a part of me
and i hate you as much as i hate myself.
i find that i'm constantly writing about somebody i haven't physically met, and came to the conclusion that maybe i'm just writing about the darker parts of my self.
laura  Jul 2018
kinda day
laura Jul 2018
in the cloister, we had coffee
talking something about the soul
today in the cold but sunlit court
with a good girlfriend of mine
is when it struck me:

a pretty Christian girl kind of day
before me, a butterfly kind of day
winging the dark fantasies away
start obeying and getting good habits
would have stayed had i any money
to get the rest of my college degree
kind of day

filling your heart with my replacements
to match my false interpretations
of your expectations of me
Revolute Jay Sep 2012
Nothing is indestructible.
We all know most things can be broken.
At home, in your friend’s toy chest
Breaking things in a place you’re considered a guest
I guess,
Breaking a bone hurts. I know through some testimonies
I wouldn’t know, but maybe eventually
That ninety or so broken degree
Painful message sent through the spinal cord holding me--
Together.
Underneath the thin material having been tethered.
The spine surviving endless stages of weather
Holding on to claim being a backbone helplessly held together
Hoping through each trimumph the chronic pain might feel better
Only holding onto the self as a go-getter
As life’s building blocks as the brick setter
The rain picks up
And life’s damp becomes wetter.
Just let her.

Things, as if they were pushed right over the edge
Smashed, or broken, as the smasher’s true pledge
It’s not me. These ten fingers deny
To be responsible for all the pain felt as the time passed me by

Maybe it was everything. The endless rotation of our planet.
Maybe it was this or that. ****, I have had it.
It wasn’t everything, or anything, or anyone or body
It wasn’t the unerasable ink splatter and splotting
It wasn’t the wind that knocked me over
It wasn’t the colors you’d paint me
It wasn’t the night,
It wasn’t the morning,
It wasn’t the past or present cold mourning.

It was not my limbs or the joints, or the ligaments that compose me
The fragments and pieces ] glued together intravenously

Each psalm taken in the hurricane seasons’ wrath
One, after another, too broken to cast

The two unequal hands ring based on the hour
Whose sounds was the ring of a shared life now gone sour
Because being ignored, as if I never existed is power
Unconsider yourself, at least today, that forever blooming flower.
I might be a million things. But of those not a coward.
Today you took the title with a medal to show off to the people you know
Welcome to the black and the white swan’s big show
At this point I’m the raven, she’ll never know
I was too drunk to function at the end of the show.

The curtains begin to rise, and I watch in surprise
How exposed and naked are the both of our lives
As your patience has taken time to disguise
Replacements as substitutions for the nature of the styles
We have to live life in the ways that we fight
Hoping for what we want in the end without struggle
How about perfection? I said on the double.

And those two uneven hands of the clock are due to change places
Ticking away at our concept of time
And aging our faces
The weeks pass us by
The days and the hours
Ask me who if not both of us are the coward

The giant dump truck grinds up countless materials
Making fragments of the things that existed for real
And what lasted in the bins of the emotions free wheels
Making internal rationalizations for what I tried to feel.
It’s over and over on what I wanted to seal
Were too many things to remember?
Dreams turning it all too, too real.
Turn my mind inside out I begin to expose now and peel.
How long will it take to forget
Or to heal?
I don’t know what to call this.
And idea or what’s real.
I’ll tell you what the heart asked for his final meal
Peace to believe what we did have was real.

Life keeps grinding up what treasures I’ve collected.
Forget what memories I ever recollected
All I’m asking is that I remain intact and protected.

But no one can guarantee me that.
No one can ask me to offer up my hands frostbitten with your cold
No one can ask me to bluff followed by my own fold
No one can ask me the number of me having been sold.
There was one dream and I bought it.
Except the belief in the memory is what I’ve left to have fought it.

I don’t ask or expect to ever be repaired.
But you didn’t break me, so why were you ever so scared?
Maybe for the immeasurable amount that you actually cared.
But today’s findings have left me quite frankly impaired.
I didn’t exist to you at all. I was the invisible man.
I use all my abilities to understand as I can.
But nothing makes sense to the invisible man.

So he hopes and he hopes for just one part of him to be seen.
One of his hands through the smoke in your overly-woven screen
To knowingly be holding one of yours, when your reality’s clean.
I’m the invisible man.
Pretending not to see me was a game played unclean.
I hope one day in your life he exists.
Parting through the smog and the fog and the mist
As I feel forgotten in both my clenched fists
What's left is to let go of  those fogged moments like this.

vi.xxiii.xii
Copyright © Jimena Zavaleta 2012
Girl On The Wing Dec 2014
You want to replace me?
fine
I can replace you too
Just watch
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2018
VD/ lasting life

I have VD.

the decapitating, desiccating disease slow taking over

every day another word withers and there are no replacements

the diminishing returns cannot be substituted and all losses are
permanent, like Samson’s hair, once cut, cannot grow back

I live alone.  Easier then conversing,
gaps in your sentences,
****** communication that is pointless anyway

banished by overuse and incapacitated;
tarnished by time, silver polish resistant;
too late for inoculation the cortex eroding;
the Vocabulary Diminishment has cost me so far:

rain and all its weathered relations;
sad and it’s variant cousins;
body partition arrhythmia, breathtaking breathing loving has
jumped overboard

lasting life

never bothered me that verse and curse rhyme so fittingly,
fit for life, for ‘tis nothing but re-racked intermittent rhymes,
reasoned rhythms connecting the intermittent mayhem’s
dropping by for fun and choosing, verse or curse

nevertheless, won’t bother to explain the difference
between last and lasting, leave it for you to self-teach-taught

nonetheless,  body is degrading, the needs grow strongly weaker and the bites taken out by time, her, imagination, p ain,
even worse words disappear, f irst a letter the hole s aces are
modern art product, avant garde  at the finish line

empties remain as abscesses with all-access passes,
cortex locked on only receive is busted and most of your
transmissions go direct to the
Junk mail folder

winter drags and summer now a vision of was and no longer a
will be, a thrilling sensory palace with a closed sign
appliqué to my weakened ayes

time to rise time, to shave, put on the cutaway uniform
when you obtain the obligatory occasional I love you
and it winces, and tears still come easy
when you want them too
but you don’t want them to arrive or
let depart the ones that presently dry
of their own according in their place

mechanics of writing are obstacles and the cherished
lovely fluidity of transportation traveling transformation is searingly wearing and beyond the just,
the reach, of the true meaning of meme
which means has no more to communicate

the days of slow wasting away,
when the touch is worse
you say out out loud to the tiles
shave away the slough, flush the fallen skin cells,
just cut me down, these bad poems are too onerous
when the brrrain is hardened ice ball hitting forehead

so we go away in every sensory hurrah
retired to solitary ask no questions expect no answers
dreaming of healings but that is another self-starting movie
dreaming sequence that has been erased

fearsome, the energy drinks required to survey survival,

much easier to bid adieu and bypass au revoir

the standard set can be modified or erased
and everyone wants a shortcut lesson to skip to the
top of the line, are they unaware that line will choke au fin

important meetings ahead, assembly the solutions and your
children want answers and you give them a mirror and implore
them do better than thy lousy training

don’t make no difference, their genomes contain
mon nom so they come cursed and I who wrote, shot prayers
on skywriting writ, have none to offer present-lies

poor babies too long this elegy, too bad for you
work is hard and no r&r location on my list and short
attention spans will bring you low in world of words


say bad bye to over loved companions

https://hellopoetry.com/words/

the Vocabulary Diminishment disease don’t permit
reuse: true colors needed crest creation and all the
breaks are bad and the words have fled my pointer
fingerprint fingertip

code only in 0’s;
it’s like having halve a tongue
and if you were among the lucky few who knew my visage,
look away look away and let this too long spaghetti sauce be
recipe thrown away my vision is satisfied

3:11 am and no more
s words to fall upon

— The End —