The Errand
I've been going right on, page by page,
since we last kissed, two long dolls in a cage,
two hunger-mongers throwing a myth in and out,
double-crossing out lives with doubt,
leaving us separate now, fogy with rage.
But then I've told my readers what I think
and scrubbed out the remainder with my shrink,
have placed my bones in a jar as if possessed,
have pasted a black wing over my left breast,
have washed the white out of the moon at my sink,
have eaten The Cross, have digested its lore,
indeed, have loved that eggless man once more,
have placed my own head in the kettle because
in the end death won't settle for my hypochondrias,
because this errand we're on goes to one store.
That shopkeeper may put up barricades,
and he may advertise cognac and razor blades,
he may let you dally at Nice or the Tuileries,
he may let the state of our bowels have ascendancy,
he may let such as we flaunt our escapades,
swallow down our portion of whisky and dex,
salvage the day with some soup or some sex,
juggle our teabags as we inch down the hall,
let the blood out of our fires with phenobarbital,
lick the headlines for Starkweathers and Specks,
let us be folk of the literary set,
let us deceive with words the critics regret,
let us dog down the streets for each invitation,
typing out our lives like a Singer sewing sublimation,
letting our delicate bottoms settle and yet
they were spanked alive by some doctor of folly,
given a horn or a dish to get by with, by golly,
exploding with blood in this errand called life,
dumb with snow and elbows, rubber man, a mother wife,
tongues to waggle out of the words, mistletoe and holly,
tables to place our stones on, decades of disguises,
wntil the shopkeeper plants his boot in our eyes,
and unties our bone and is finished with the case,
and turns to the next customer, forgetting our face
or how we knelt at the yellow bulb with sighs
like moth wings for a short while in a small place.
poem by Anne Sexton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Settle Down My Boy
Settle down, an eat your peas and gravy, my boy
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down
Stop wasting all your time with running around the town
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down
Knuckle down and find a job and take some responsibility
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down
The futures something you should be thinking about
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down
Look around for a wife to start a family, my boy
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down
Listen toy our father and hell tell you the same as me
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down
Your words would go in one ear and out the other side
Dont say my head was empty and I had things to hide
And you better put something away for your old age
So settle down, settle down my boy settle down
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down uh huh huh
song performed by by Men At Work
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Bloody Paper Dolls
They bleed an ink of green blood
Cut them out
Faces of drawn misfortune
Bodies of frail dresses
Minds of empty blue lines
Given names of whores from distorted streets
Megan molly Shannon mind so weak
Created world of plagiarized lives
These bloody paper dolls have no eyes
They see not the tears upon her face
They bleed words onto the page
Green ink dripping
Soft words describing a life
Take there heads the lose all purpose
Fixed scissors this time ill make a man
Green ink bleeds from the cut up words
And the body it forms
These dolls aren’t real they are a shaken reality
Let her be she has dreams
And I cut the words from this page
I lost my age
I’m old... and still
I have bloody paper dolls all around
They rule my life
They are my reality
My friends
These words now just letters
Green ink stains my finger tips
My bloody dolls you are it.
poem by Victoria Martinez
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Writer and the Blood Inked Quil
The Writer and the Blood Inked Quill
By: Adam M. Snow
The candle flickered by a passing gentle breeze;
My quill dries up leaving not I at ease.
My words upon page now left to hang.
A reader's disappointment, now a writer's pang.
Misery held me as time stood still,
My heart has fallen because my mind is ill.
I stare at blank page as all words elude me,
I can't help to wonder, 'How could this be? '
Torment follows as night falls victim to dread;
My ink once black now turns blood red.
I wrote my soul upon each page,
As time ticks by with every age.
The word itself scream an agony scream;
I, the writer without a dream.
But what bedevils myself to write,
Elude me once more with the fall of night.
My nightly whimper comes with a toll,
My life upon the page, now bearing my soul.
poem by Adam M. Snow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Your Blood Seeping Through the New Blood Flow
The razor is the one that cuts the wrists
Drawing blood with every slit
The razor is the one that makes anger let go
Your blood seeping through the new blood flow
The gun is the one that takes your pain
Leaving loved ones and some shame
The gun is the one that lets life go
Your blood seeping through the new blood flow
The pills are the ones that cause endings
Swallowing twenty without pretending
No life left leaking when you swallow
Your blood seeping through the new blood flow
Suicide is your way of giving up
Because you think your life's bankrupt
Suicide your way of letting go
Your blood seeping through the new blood flow
poem by Free Faller
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Snow-White (Part 1)
Hers were the beautiful blue eyes and the black long hair,
She watched her blood dropp freezing to burn in the air.
Her pale lips were keeping the mark of her love's glow,
She wanted a child having the skin as white as the snow,
The hair as black as ebony and the lips as red as the blood.
That red on that white looked as beautiful as a flower bud.
She was sewing and watching the ebony of her window's frame.
An angel became visible in the air to tell her the child's name.
''Light up this love, my Lord, and give me this child of light
Unbearable is this pain of mine, light up my soul and my sight.''
Coming up the stairs, the king saw this and he told his queen,
'This white angel is the most beautiful creature I've ever seen! ''
The queen's heart used to be like a little book being unread,
But in front of her husband, it has become an open thread.
He tenderly kissed her, ''Your broken heart is no longer dead,
Because for Snow White on the snow your secret has bled.''
When she gave birth to her child, the sun rose to be so bright
And everything in the castle could be seen in the holy light,
But when the king came to see them, he heard only the sighs.
When he saw his dead queen, sad tears flooded his black eyes.
While he was living with his child being a lonely sad father,
The king thought to bring to little Snow White a new mother.
''Light up this life, my Lord, because I have only fears and sighs,
Change my fate, because I need a new morn in my sad eyes! ''
He married again, but the queen's heart was mercilessly beating.
She was like a dangerous snake and poisoned was her greeting.
Her sarcastic lips were always keeping the mark of her hatred,
Her powers were hidden, because for her the devil was sacred.
She kept her frozen air, although the snow was melting in Spring,
Her words could remain suspended in the air to freeze everything.
‘'Mirror, dear Mirror on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?
‘'You, my queen, are fairest of all'', echoed the mirror in the hall.
The Snow White grew up becoming more beautiful than the queen,
The king told her, 'You're the most beautiful child I have ever seen! ''
When the mirror told the queen, ‘'You, my queen, are fair; it is true.
She added, ''Little Snow-White is still a thousand times fairer than you.''
The king started seriously to think of the passion they had known
‘Cause the queen's self-satisfaction and insensibility have grown.
He realized that it's a wretchedness to continue sharing their bed.
He wanted to open a dialog with her, but the words left all unsaid.
poem by Marieta Maglas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Settle Down
Brimming with useless information,
Spilling thoughts void of true opinion,
Yes you'll fight it to the death,
Yeah you'll fight it to the death.
Fighting someone elses favour,
Regurgetate the words you heard on radio 2,
Arghhh didn't you?
[chorus]
Stop throwing insults and crockery around,
We can all be destructive so settle down, settle down
Well every dialoge needs a certain suitor,
One whos open minded,
To calmly digest the very question of,
And understand,
to look at things from many angles,
constuct and critic without anger,
Even comprimise,
You never comprimise
chorus x2
Stop throwing insults and crockery around,
Stop throwing insults and crockery around,
We can all be destructive so settle down, settle down
Stop throwing insults and crockery around,
We can all be destructive so settle down, settle down, settle down, settle down
song performed by by Ordinary Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Other Side of the Page
I pass to the other side of the page.
-Pablo Neruda
On the other side of the page
where the last days go,
where the lost poems go,
where the forgotten dreams
breaking up like morning fog
go
go
go
I am preparing myself for death.
I am teaching myself emptiness:
the gambler's hunger for love,
the nun's hunger for God,
the child's hunger for chocolate
in the brown hours
of the dark.
I am teaching myself love:
the lean love of marble
kissed away by rain,
the cold kisses of snow crystals
on granite grave markers,
the soul kisses of snow
as it melts in the spring.
On the other side of the page
I lie making a snow angel
with the arcs
of my arms.
I lie like a fallen skier
who never wants to get up.
I lie with my poles, my pens
flung around me in the snow
too far to reach.
The snow seeps
into the hollows of my bones
& the calcium white of the page
silts me in like a fossil.
I am fixed in my longing for speech,
I am buried in the snowbank of my poems,
I am here where you find me
dead
on the other side of the page.
poem by Erica Jong
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Snow On The Streets
Snow on the streets grooved by tires
into a bar-code. A band burning its first c.d.
Garbage bags humped against the parking meters
like terraformed drunks in an albino mindscape.
I want to sleep. But savage clouds are fuming
with moonlight. Oblivion's sweet, my little death,
gentle as a snowflake but the prelude to it
is pierced by cauterizing anxieties
like a needle park for voodoo dolls.
I'd rather be a butterfly, a pinwheel
spinning on an axis through my thorax
but you can't have it all. I tilt away from the sun
at perigee and try to stretch the night out
like a budget of meds for the month.
The dark's a cool poultice that draws
the infection out of my dreams. It
sublimates my sorrows like dry ice
that skipped the tears. I don't want to get wet
in an ice-age. Crucified by icicles
that drip like syringes in a limestone cave.
I smear my face in red ochre, blood
with desiccated binders, oil pastels,
and lay my prophetic bones under the firepit.
I place a great stone on my chest
like the weight of the world
to make sure I never get up again
but pain is a homeless ghost
and I don't think, even with my knees
popped under my chin like an embryo
every part of me is going to fit
my place at the table like a grave.
I throw a few cornflowers in
and wander off with my spirit
like a thought wave that's tagging along.
I chip away at my heart
like an obsidian lunette
with a bone that's edging it
into a phalanged Clovis point
for a throwing spear to penetrate
the mammoth of the wooly moon.
I think I'm going extinct.
I've culled too many stars.
The herds are thinning over my head.
The green of the traffic lights
that turned yellow in the fall
drops its single, blood-stained berry in the snow.
As the birds and the bards say
of the chokecherries, ripeness is all.
Snow-blinded by this white page,
and blazing is a kind of blindness,
I want to leave something behind
for people to follow like the tracks
of a wounded caribou writing
in the cuneiform Braille of my starmud
you can read with your fingertips
like a hungry clan that hasn't eaten for a week.
I don't want to be sought or thawed out by anyone
who isn't burning my fat in their lamps
or sewing my hide with a splinter
of my femur, threading my sinews
through the eye of a needle
stitching me up in an emergency room
like the mouth of a wound
that's had its say, and holds its tongue
like the exhausted flavour of silence
masticating a wad of pitch and pine gum
like the sacred syllable of the spear point
I was trying to make an era ago
before I got stuck in this one like a tarpit,
an exile returning on a migratory journey
to the prodigal museum of my homecoming exit.
poem by Patrick White
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Without Qualms
He resumed walking with the sun
propelled in river of fire of blunt red
and striking yellow to resonate with the pain of her,
who sleeps on the thighs of a temple tree.
The vibrations still follow the echo of forgiveness,
a shadow of palm rises on white wounds.
The snoring of blood letting winds break the
bones crisply, on the jealous shores.
Where was the need of sharp edges to slice
the heart? The words spilled on the table
like blood curdling bats. The candle light
turns black with a guilt.
Small gods are weeping inside the tear
scorched eyes. Somebody prays for the fallen
monuments of tongues and bullet killed bells
of tributes. Stars started hiding their faces.
poem by Satish Verma
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Images Of The Past
Image 1
A big white horse
Galloping
All four feet hanging in mid-air
On the ground below it
A yellow butterfly
A broken wing.
Image ii
A dirty boy chases a dirty pig
His dirty father chases both
While mother hides her face
Behind a black umbrella.
Image iii
I see on the ceiling a little spider, a lizard
And a white moth
The faded yellow fluorescent bulb blinks
I blink too
The little spider is gone and the moth flew away.
Image iv
A girl on a swing swinging high on air
Her left slipper left in space
Rightly so
Captured still in the middle of air
The two of us look we did not move
Like a Flemish painting
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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It Is Finished!
i've been to the place
where dead men weep.
where spirits go
that cannot sleep.
where near is far
and far is deep...
and i kept the silence!
i've tasted the wine
of human blood.
known the flower
still in bud.
danced in the moonlight,
bathed in the mud...
and kissed the fertile wind!
i've cried the tears
of oppressed and broken.
tended the fires
well past smoking.
kept the faith
past point of hoping...
now words have failed!
i've born the cross
God dared not deem.
slept with the wolves,
heard unborn screams.
touched angel's wings
in human dreams...
washed the feet of the unwanted!
'it is finished'!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Ode to Henry
The literary life
Of chaos and strife
Like a marriage with no wife
Can hardly seem right …
Swimming in a sea of words
They dance and they flow
A river of thoughts so wasteful …
Inside my mind so playful
And so completely distasteful …
But yet I know …
Henry Miller
Not the pillar
Of society
We'd all love to be
But his words they
Dance across the page
In obscene chaos
Life laid out before us
You cant ignore
The blood and the gore
All part of the dream
Not all that it seems
For beauty there in lies
Before our perfect eyes
Midst sensual sighs
Questioning what's real?
No longer of importance.
Just allow yourself to Feel...
poem by Lynne FincherSpringarden
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Sea-Shell Shope
She sells those sea shells
Along the sea shore
Cheaper than the sea shells
At the sea-shell store.
It's a shop-keeping nation
In a shop-keeping world.
Shopkeeper, Shopkeeper
What will you do
When all of your neighbors
Are shopkeepers too?
poem by Adeline Foster
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Torch, A Hand, A Cross!
the silent graves are shouting,
the waves come for the shore.
the time of thunder beckons,
the page is left unsigned.
miracles turn to ashes,
in the hearth of limitless time.
love burns in small fires left unnoticed,
the copper kettle is blind.
there's nothing left to say,
for words are tiny shells.
tiny shells cant hold oceans,
still oceans seek a home!
i only pray perhaps the snow will bring,
a torch, a hand, a cross!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Rain-Dreary Day
I'm chilled to the bone this rainy day.
It's been pouring and pouring my time away.
My words are circling again in my head
while the rain comes down and the worms are fed.
It's the change in temperature that's chilled me so.
It's my change in thinking that takes me low.
I'm a sun-lover whose words come alive
just like sunflower, they seem to thrive.
So I'll warm myself and layer my clothes
and use some tissues to warm my nose.
The warmth of the pen with its ink-like blood
will fill the page while the rain does flood.
And at the end of this rain-dreary day
I'll reflect back and find a way
to warm my bones and welcome my bed,
then cover up the words that were in my head.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Throwin' Stones
Picture a bright blue ball just spinning, spinning free
Dizzy with eternity.
Paint it with a skin of sky, brush in some clouds and sea
Call it home for you and me.
A peaceful place or so it looks from space
A closer look reveals the human race.
Full of hope, full of grace, is the human face.
But afraid, we may our home to waste.
There's a fear down here we can't forget hasn't got a name just yet
Always awake, always around singing ashes to ashes all fall down.
Now watch as the ball revolves and the nighttime calls
And again the hunt begins and again the bloodwind calls
By and by again, the morning sun will rise
But the darkness never goes from some men's eyes.
It strolls the sidewalks and it rolls the streets
Stalking turf, dividing up meat.
Nightmare spook, piece of heat, you and me, you and me.
Click, flashblade in ghetto night. Rudies looking for a fight.
Rat cat alley roll them bones. Need that cash to feed that jones
And the politicians throwing stones
Singing ashes, ashes all fall down.
Commissars and pin-striped bosses role the dice
Any way they fall guess who gets to pay the price.
Money green or proletarian gray, selling guns instead of food today.
So the kids they dance, they shake their bones
While the politicians throwing stones
Singing ashes, ashes all fall down.
Heartless powers try to tell us what to think
If the spirit's sleeping, then the flesh is ink.
History's page, it is thusly carved in stone
The future's here, we are it, we are on our own.
If the game is lost then we're all the same
No one left to place or take the blame.
We will leave this place an empty stone
Or this shinning ball of bule we can call our home
So the kids they dance, they shake their bones
While the politicians are throwing stones
Singing ashes, ashes all fall down.
Shipping powders back and forth
Singing "black goes south while white comes north"
And the whole world full of petty wars
Singing "I got mine and you got yours."
And the current fashions set the pace.
Lose your step, fall out of grace.
And the radical he rant and rage, Singing "someone got to turn the page"
And the rich man in his summer home,
Singing "Just leave well enough alone"
But his pants are down, his cover's blown
And the politicians are throwing stones
So the kids they dance they shake their bones
Cause its all too clear we're on our own
Picture a bright blue ball just spinning, spinning free
It's dizzying, the possibilities. Ashes, Ashes all fall down
song performed by by Grateful Dead
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Throwing Stones
Picture a bright blue ball just spinning, spinning free
Dizzy with eternity.
Paint it with a skin of sky, brush in some clouds and sea
Call it home for you and me.
A peaceful place or so it looks from space
A closer look reveals the human race.
Full of hope, full of grace, is the human face.
But afraid, we may our home to waste.
Theres a fear down here we cant forget hasnt got a name just yet
Always awake, always around singing ashes to ashes all fall down.
Now watch as the ball revolves and the nighttime calls
And again the hunt begins and again the bloodwind calls
By and by again, the morning sun will rise
But the darkness never goes from some mens eyes.
It strolls the sidewalks and it rolls the streets
Stalking turf, dividing up meat.
Nightmare spook, piece of heat, you and me, you and me.
Click, flashblade in ghetto night. rudies looking for a fight.
Rat cat alley roll them bones. need that cash to feed that jones
And the politicians throwing stones
Singing ashes, ashes all fall down.
Commissars and pin-striped bosses role the dice
Any way they fall guess who gets to pay the price.
Money green or proletarian gray, selling guns instead of food today.
So the kids they dance, they shake their bones
While the politicians throwing stones
Singing ashes, ashes all fall down.
Heartless powers try to tell us what to think
If the spirits sleeping, then the flesh is ink.
Historys page, it is thusly carved in stone
The futures here, we are it, we are on our own.
If the game is lost then were all the same
No one left to place or take the blame.
We will leave this place an empty stone
Or this shinning ball of blue we can call our home
So the kids they dance, they shake their bones
While the politicians are throwing stones
Singing ashes, ashes all fall down.
Shipping powders back and forth
Singing black goes south while white comes north
And the whole world full of petty wars
Singing I got mine and you got yours.
And the current fashions set the pace.
Lose your step, fall out of grace.
And the radical he rant and rage, singing someone got to turn the page
And the rich man in his summer home,
Singing just leave well enough alone
But his pants are down, his covers blown
And the politicians are throwing stones
So the kids they dance they shake their bones
Cause its all too clear were on our own
Picture a bright blue ball just spinning, spinning free
Its dizzying, the possibilities. ashes, ashes all fall down.
song performed by by Grateful Dead
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Pot And Kettle
Come close to me, dear Annie, while I bind a lover's knot.
A tale of burning love between a kettle and a pot.
The pot was stalwart iron and the kettle trusty tin,
And though their sides were black with smoke they bubbled love within.
Forget that kettle, Jamie, and that pot of boiling broth,
I know a dismal story of a candle and a moth.
For while your pot is boiling and while your kettle sings
My moth makes love to candle flame and burns away his wings.
Your moth, I envy, Annie, that died by candle flame,
But here are two more lovers, unto no damage came.
There was a cuckoo loved a clock and found her always true.
For every hour they told their hearts, 'Ring! ting! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!'
As the pot boiled for the kettle, as the kettle for the pot,
So boils my love within me till my breast is glowing hot.
As the moth died for the candle, so could I die for you.
And my fond heart beats time with yours and cries, 'Cuckoo! Cuckoo!'
poem by Robert Graves
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Forgiven
Yes, I was a transgressor
And I have broken all nine
Except the morbid one on murder
For I cannot stand the sight of blood
But then again, I did, for hate was mine
In evil thoughts and fiery rage
Enough to swallow my foe alive.
If looks could kill I've murdered many
My cutting words had ruined many lives
My Pride, the very sin of Lucifer
And my Greed had eaten all but me.
The seething hate never forgave
The bitterness was overwhelming
And I blamed God for everything.
But I was at the end of my rope
In darkness of soul I anguished
The torment so great there was no Hope
Like a snake I recoiled to perish
Yet He looked at me and took me back
Touched my empty life with Love
No one told me how great He is
Yes, God had found me in my abyss.
'For the wages of sin is death
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.'
(Romans 6: 23)
poem by Cynthia Buhain-Baello
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Leaving Me Now
It seems true love is so rare
Seems all Ive known is deceit
Your laughter fills the air
Once more Im sensing defeat
And I suppose youre leaving me now
I was so sure now Im so full of doubt
And I suppose youll be leaving this place
Just like the smile you wiped from my face
This time
I always gave my best
Your memory serves you so badly
Some people kill for less
Yet Id still die for you gladly oh, so gladly
But I suppose its my turn now
To play a scene thats familiar somehow
I turn the page and you walk away
Not even love could bring you to stay
This time
Walk away
You dont need me
Once more Im learning
In the depths of my despair
Your lies confirming
True love is so rare
And I suppose its my turn now
Theres no more love only feelings of doubt
Gone with the hope your words have erased
Gone with the smile you wiped from my face
Love is a ship we all hope to steer
Through troubled times cross an ocean of tears
A midnight sea that swells in your eyes
Takes just one look to know Im still mesmerized
But I suppose youre leaving me now
I was so sure now Im so full of doubt
I turn the page and you walk away
Not even love could bring you to stay
This time
Leaving me now
Leaving this place
I watch you walk away with an easy grace
song performed by by Level 42
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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