Submissions by ImperfectedStone (The Gardener)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
💚
I Feel It Too.
Do you leave me
to feel emptiness
paragliding
across your glazed eyes?
Do you hold soft fingertips
to remind yourself
how I pine,
how I torture myself?
Plaster me up in casts
and lay me
for now you know
how I crave.
Obsession, it's love for an angel,
the naive who wear special glasses.
Our ideology lives:
a divine, great love
but in this torture
love is not love.
It is sold to ransom,
to a bid too high,
I can't compete
with the competition. ...
to feel emptiness
paragliding
across your glazed eyes?
Do you hold soft fingertips
to remind yourself
how I pine,
how I torture myself?
Plaster me up in casts
and lay me
for now you know
how I crave.
Obsession, it's love for an angel,
the naive who wear special glasses.
Our ideology lives:
a divine, great love
but in this torture
love is not love.
It is sold to ransom,
to a bid too high,
I can't compete
with the competition. ...
718 reads
2 Comments
Cancer
The tap still drips.
The map still has
red pen stains
marking a drive
from your parents
to mine
and in the rocking chair I sometimes sit
dreaming off days dusted by time
when the curtains were white
and I still sang
songs of home
to refresh my memory.
Those were days
when home no longer
sounded petrifying
as if leaving here
and leaving what had become
the last memory of you
taken in the last days gone by
was madness.
The sickness ...
The map still has
red pen stains
marking a drive
from your parents
to mine
and in the rocking chair I sometimes sit
dreaming off days dusted by time
when the curtains were white
and I still sang
songs of home
to refresh my memory.
Those were days
when home no longer
sounded petrifying
as if leaving here
and leaving what had become
the last memory of you
taken in the last days gone by
was madness.
The sickness ...
1015 reads
9 Comments
The Swap
I don't think anyone is born to be orphaned,
it's not part of the great plan -
The day I was shipped, like a package, to live with my Great-Grandparents
my Mother referred to me as 'trouble'.
Well, being two I thought toddlers were supposed to be trouble -
not that it matters anymore.
I've always been that sort of person,
someone falls in the street and I'd pick them up and invite them for tea,
too trusting and too giving and too fucking forgiving
and I loved her, like the Mother she should have been
she was unreliable, she...
it's not part of the great plan -
The day I was shipped, like a package, to live with my Great-Grandparents
my Mother referred to me as 'trouble'.
Well, being two I thought toddlers were supposed to be trouble -
not that it matters anymore.
I've always been that sort of person,
someone falls in the street and I'd pick them up and invite them for tea,
too trusting and too giving and too fucking forgiving
and I loved her, like the Mother she should have been
she was unreliable, she...
663 reads
2 Comments
Memories
Let me lay here
in this silent filigree
with your final words,
tied into a cocoon
of literate metal,
changing my insides,
teaching me to fly.
Could I be made of gold?
Shivering with emptiness
and lacking all oxygen
even when holding a bonsai tree
filtered air cannot reach me.
Will you fix this with
overworked hands?
Your food will poison me
your words will quench my thirst
with thoughts profound
and islands glittering
in your dark eyes.
Could you make me once again
untouched, shaking like a broken...
in this silent filigree
with your final words,
tied into a cocoon
of literate metal,
changing my insides,
teaching me to fly.
Could I be made of gold?
Shivering with emptiness
and lacking all oxygen
even when holding a bonsai tree
filtered air cannot reach me.
Will you fix this with
overworked hands?
Your food will poison me
your words will quench my thirst
with thoughts profound
and islands glittering
in your dark eyes.
Could you make me once again
untouched, shaking like a broken...
715 reads
2 Comments
Suits me
I shot him in the shoulder,
he shot me in the foot
- we took three steps forward
and ninety two back
On the attack is the cat,
in the kitchen, scavenging for food
and claiming it
its own
while he chooses music and I make the tea,
smoking a cigarette
out of the quarter open window
as he doesn't like smoke and the cat musn't flee through the window to the great outdoors.
I relight the cigarette and contemplate the rape
that persists in my mind
for it's a far too literal memory
and he doesn't get it. I...
he shot me in the foot
- we took three steps forward
and ninety two back
On the attack is the cat,
in the kitchen, scavenging for food
and claiming it
its own
while he chooses music and I make the tea,
smoking a cigarette
out of the quarter open window
as he doesn't like smoke and the cat musn't flee through the window to the great outdoors.
I relight the cigarette and contemplate the rape
that persists in my mind
for it's a far too literal memory
and he doesn't get it. I...
943 reads
10 Comments
Love
Stop wasting your time
trying to sign
into my emails or my Facebook
you're playing a dumb game
I get these messages all the time
did you think it'd stay the same?
And why are you still so obsessed?
I'm sick of your down status'
pick yourself up
pick yourself up
and go home
And why are you still distressed
by the matters once addressed
in a short goodbye?
Don't give me those eyes
I am done with seeing them cry
the time for us
has passed
we're supposed to be moving on ...
trying to sign
into my emails or my Facebook
you're playing a dumb game
I get these messages all the time
did you think it'd stay the same?
And why are you still so obsessed?
I'm sick of your down status'
pick yourself up
pick yourself up
and go home
And why are you still distressed
by the matters once addressed
in a short goodbye?
Don't give me those eyes
I am done with seeing them cry
the time for us
has passed
we're supposed to be moving on ...
831 reads
5 Comments
Silly Games
I am part of the ocean today
and it's a mystery
to everyone but me
to see the "uncharacteristic" behaviour
I present
with my lack of presence.
In my own company I can drink all day,
smoke away the last of my right lung
and move on to the left
or maybe I can make prank phone calls
and fall asleep at ten am
not before. I'm playing silly games
with myself. A long hot bath may create
some strength but that's only if I can move the length
of the hall to the bathtub
to fill it up
and that...
and it's a mystery
to everyone but me
to see the "uncharacteristic" behaviour
I present
with my lack of presence.
In my own company I can drink all day,
smoke away the last of my right lung
and move on to the left
or maybe I can make prank phone calls
and fall asleep at ten am
not before. I'm playing silly games
with myself. A long hot bath may create
some strength but that's only if I can move the length
of the hall to the bathtub
to fill it up
and that...
657 reads
4 Comments
Behind the sofa
I'm not counting numbers,
collecting the pieces that work,
I intend to leave it all broken on this floor
- the cascade of my time with you.
I'll only try to leave my name imprinted in your head.
The lack of Serotonin in my body is actually hurting
like chopping onion
or eating a chilli covered in paprika just for the thrill
even if I know it's just the time of year.
I'm not going to try to be clever
or creative or fanciful,
by now you already know how smart I am
or there lack of - opinions differ
so I'm told. ...
collecting the pieces that work,
I intend to leave it all broken on this floor
- the cascade of my time with you.
I'll only try to leave my name imprinted in your head.
The lack of Serotonin in my body is actually hurting
like chopping onion
or eating a chilli covered in paprika just for the thrill
even if I know it's just the time of year.
I'm not going to try to be clever
or creative or fanciful,
by now you already know how smart I am
or there lack of - opinions differ
so I'm told. ...
738 reads
5 Comments
Hibernation.
I want to be alone tonight
to strip the pages back,
a black and white landscape
ready for etching or sketching
or overflowing with watery black paint
while the cat lays beside me
and I twist a white rosary between my toes.
The thing I love about being alone
is the way I can listen to Florence or Example
or This Boy Wonders
with little judgement
and I can write the most pathetic drivel
even if I wish it was interesting.
Scattered around me are a few scratched CDs,
three quarters of the long life milk
and orange peels....
to strip the pages back,
a black and white landscape
ready for etching or sketching
or overflowing with watery black paint
while the cat lays beside me
and I twist a white rosary between my toes.
The thing I love about being alone
is the way I can listen to Florence or Example
or This Boy Wonders
with little judgement
and I can write the most pathetic drivel
even if I wish it was interesting.
Scattered around me are a few scratched CDs,
three quarters of the long life milk
and orange peels....
668 reads
0 Comments
Pills
You deem us perfect,
deem us real.
We're still
standing
at a
crossroads...
maybe you deem us simple
and deem us your forever
but we know not what we do
and we
are the
wise ones...
There may be many more
dreamers
to awake us
on the Arabian nights.
I know
we weren't ones
to question
what's wrong...
The light is still on
in your bathroom -
she's still lying naked there,
half a bottle of gin
and a tub of narcotics
ease her blow
but we are perfect, remember?
You knighted us as...
deem us real.
We're still
standing
at a
crossroads...
maybe you deem us simple
and deem us your forever
but we know not what we do
and we
are the
wise ones...
There may be many more
dreamers
to awake us
on the Arabian nights.
I know
we weren't ones
to question
what's wrong...
The light is still on
in your bathroom -
she's still lying naked there,
half a bottle of gin
and a tub of narcotics
ease her blow
but we are perfect, remember?
You knighted us as...
722 reads
4 Comments
A Portrait To The Dead.
glasses collect like frozen roses
in the sink,
and the limescale creeps up
the tap
and I can't believe I am
here again.
You kiss my neck
and I can see
the ghost in your eyes,
the last surprise of darkness -
can't say I wasn't happy
to feel the weight
of your fake smile on my
cheek
and the stairs
creek for you
when you're creeping up them
at two am
and I'm sleeping,
barely breathing
drooling on the pillow
with bad dreams.
You paint me
while I'm sleeping
still dreaming of...
in the sink,
and the limescale creeps up
the tap
and I can't believe I am
here again.
You kiss my neck
and I can see
the ghost in your eyes,
the last surprise of darkness -
can't say I wasn't happy
to feel the weight
of your fake smile on my
cheek
and the stairs
creek for you
when you're creeping up them
at two am
and I'm sleeping,
barely breathing
drooling on the pillow
with bad dreams.
You paint me
while I'm sleeping
still dreaming of...
724 reads
5 Comments
Deaf
Drip
drip
drip
you chopped the carrots
into a red bowl
and the silver tap was still turned half way
to the left.
I could hear it.
Step
step
step
away from the chopping board
it wasn't made
to be used for loud violence,
still the silver tap is turned half way
to the left.
The fool, that day, was you
when you cut your hair
and brought it home in a green bottle-shaped jar,
with half an ounce of ganga and only three toes on the right
foot...
I never liked you as a drinker.
drip
drip
you chopped the carrots
into a red bowl
and the silver tap was still turned half way
to the left.
I could hear it.
Step
step
step
away from the chopping board
it wasn't made
to be used for loud violence,
still the silver tap is turned half way
to the left.
The fool, that day, was you
when you cut your hair
and brought it home in a green bottle-shaped jar,
with half an ounce of ganga and only three toes on the right
foot...
I never liked you as a drinker.
791 reads
6 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by ImperfectedStone (The Gardener)