Unread
Unread the faces in the street
That cross and cross the path
Where they meet, and do not meet
The eyes unseen
There, there are windows without souls
But two feet mark the spot
And on they go
casting their lot beneath them
Like an afterthought
Can you see the lines in her skin?
See the colour fading from his hair?
The old lady in the street who talks to her imaginary friend?
The lover and the stranger
Share the same seat in the park
Exchanging looks and numbers
The old man with a parting centrefold
'I grow old I grow old'
Do you see these unseen things?
The automatic gestures?
The tarnished rings?
The bell that tolls?
Ringing in the godless?
Ringing in the godly?
They all share the same seat
Break bread
But do not speak
Or see
The wonder of their skin
The same blood shared
The same hunger
Just beneath the all seeing
Unseen eye
The window without a soul
The souless window
All pressing in
crossing paths
line upon line
Written on skin
faces without maps
Feet without direction
catching the last bus home
After 'callling time'
So much crowding in
So much being alone
yvette smith june 09
poem by Yvette Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Beneath The Skin
Beneath the Skin a caustic red river
Beneath the Skin corrosive abuser
Beneath the Skin genetic in rupture
Beneath the Skin all cold and hungered
Beneath the Skin a still born forgiveness
Beneath the Skin cell transfer in whispers
Beneath the Skin a lover cries murder
Beneath the Skin all cold and hungered
Beneath the Skin i wasted this moment
Beneath the Skin old undiscovered
Beneath the Skin another lies ruptured
Beneath the Skin all cold and hungered
song performed by by Queen Adreena
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Reading Me
There is a chance I will go unseen
Under the pattern of things
Swimming just beneath
Your distracted gaze
You will read me
At least this far
The space between
Eye to page
But I will go largely unnoticed
The secret is
I always emerge
But as someone else
A fragment
A piece of shining glass
The photograph
Look closely
And you will see every i
Is a particle
Shaped into colour
Shade
Form made sense
Texture as soft as skin
Glossy print
Half felt
You will read me
With distracted eye
But I will remain
hidden
yvette m smith 18.9.08
poem by Yvette Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Sorry
Sorry I could not be there
Open my face
Surround you with lies
Comfort hides in disguise
And these are the masks
We carefully wear
Worn down
We bear them
For every occasion
Births
Marriages
And death
They keep us safe
A hearts distance
Out of arms reach
Love
I am sorry that I never told you these things,
About, what it is to live just beneath the surface
A breath away
Skin deep,
And yet
There is something left unloved
Like love.
And sorry, sorry, sorry,
So much left
Unturned unseen
These invisible things
My love, my love.
Yvette M Smith poet of uk
june 09
poem by Yvette Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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O My Soul...
where have you gone,
o my soul...
where have you gone?
are you lost in the tears
of a thousand faces
blackened by hunger?
in the cries of the dying?
of the homeless?
in the defiant feet
of those standing in line?
the unemployment line?
the soup line?
the line just outside
the prison walls?
in the lover left desperate,
who takes his own life?
in the students beaten,
who stood up for freedom?
in the young man hated,
for the color of his skin?
in the young woman sold
on the lonesome street corner?
in the windowless offices
where lives and deaths are decided?
in the hole behind the gun,
eyes hard as steel?
in the bare apartment,
where the children are cold and hungry?
on the corner, 'neath the bridge,
in the back of the car?
where have you gone,
o my soul...
where have you gone?
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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These are the things we cannot possess
These are the things
We cannot possess
The earth in all its 'holiness'
The earth in all its 'bloody defiance'
The earth in all its secret violence
The earth in everchanging times
We cannot possess the earth
Less time
Reckless
Unsolved
Unseen
We can only grieve
And love
And laugh
And live
Letting go of all we thought we had
But never did
Knowing we have felt these things
Beneath are skin
Like a kiss
In a shimmering stream of light
And like a wound
In darkest night
They will flow on and on
With or without us, yet,
We cannot forget them
yvette smith sept 2008
poem by Yvette Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Underneath The Stars
When the closed eyed dawn
Breaks the silence
Of the still dark nights
Ceaseless argument
When restless skies move unseen
Beneath the curtain
Each ruin a dream
Unshed
Unseen
And underneath
A pillow of stars
Still waits
To illminate
The moons unshared secret
Come walk with me beneath the lamplight
And leave your fingerprint
Upon my heart
And let the rivers rippling beat
Prepare to dance
yvette m smith dec 08
poem by Yvette Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Graduate
Can I graduate
Can I graduate
Can I look in faces that I meet
Can I get my punk ass off the street
Ive been living on for so long
Can I graduate
To the bastard talking down to me
Your whipping boy calamity
Cross your fingers, Im going to knock it all down
Can I graduate
Echo fading we cant let go
She goes walking by in slow mo
Sell your heart out for a buck
Go on fade out before I get stuck
Talking to somebody like you
Do you live the days you go through
Will this song live on long after we do
Can I graduate
Can I look in faces that I meet
Can I get my punk ass off the street
Wont die on the vine I want to knock it all down
Can I graduate
Echo fading, candle blow
Did you flash out long ago
Cross my fingers, I dont know
Someone poked you down below
Can I graduate
Can I graduate
Can I graduate
Can I graduate
Can I graduate
Can I get my punk ass off the street
Can I look in faces that I meet
Im not waiting here for you to die
Will this song live on long after we do
song performed by by Third Eye Blind
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Friends With Unseen Faces
'This is dedicated to Suzanne, Melvina, Alison and Francesca. My friends with unseen faces.'
For years my work lay hidden.
Gathering dust on my shelf.
Then came a chance encounter.
From a past half forgotten.
A voice across the internet.
A conversation was taken.
An introduction was made.
A new voice who sounded my praise.
Soon there was another and another.
From different parts of the world.
Four ladies who have helped me.
To find myself again.
They are strangers, but friends.
Kindred souls whom I’d never recognise.
If I passed them on the street.
Their words kind and supportive.
Have helped me to my feet.
After a drought of words.
They have rekindled an old flame.
Made me see again.
That my words can bring joy.
Again and again and again.
So to my friends with unseen faces.
A little gift from afar.
Hope you enjoy my praises.
As much as I enjoy yours..
We may never meet face to face.
Unless fate decrees it so.
But just remember wherever you wander.
You have a friend out there.
Who’s face you do not know.
poem by David Harris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Submission
I submit myself to these things
The 'small talk' on the sidewalk
The eyes that survey a thousand faces
Without question
The measure of my self and men
The day hangs impatiently outside
Unchanged
I cannot rearrange the sky
Or measure a world in an hourglass
Yet something must give
In all these acts of living
Is this it?
Letting the mask slip
As the light falls to the window
Uncurl words
Unpaint the feelings
Is it possible just to live
Let life in, under the so many illusions made?
Submit to these other things?
That do not ask anything of us
But just let the day in
The world unfold beneath our feet
Shall we begin
Again?
yvette smith sept 08
poem by Yvette Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Swallow Flame Words
swallow flame words into soul at own risk
I paint distances between seen unseen at world's edges
I paint portraits above beneath mask as multi veils
I paint shift faces figures skin deeds intended done deeds
I paint poetry life in shifting kaleidoscopic images souls
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Coil
Turning tight
Twisting in
Tail taut
Unflinchng skin
A cigarette burning
Unseen
But for the smoke!
So much unholy rage
Burning.....
Why?
?
The tail turns in..
yvette m smith sept 08
poem by Yvette Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Remains Unseen
The hate that tears at my brain
Remains unseen to you
The self loathing and the pain
I'm swinging at the end of my rope,
If you only knew
I am lost without a hope,
There's nothing I can do
Oh.
I don't want to live this day
It's getting harder every day,
To face what I've become
The fear of what I have become
Remains unseen to you
A heart that's just gone numb
Remains unseen to you
I just want to close my eyes
And pretend this isn't true
Throw my hands up to the skies
There's nothing I can do
Oh.
This feeling of helplessness
And despair remains unseen to you
It's the cross that I must bear,
But it remains unseen to you
I dwell in a twisted reality of hate,
Remains unseen to you
Ugly thoughts, you cannot relate,
So I'll remain unseen to you
song performed by by Unseen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The mute singer
She cut out her tongue
So she could sing
Those unheard songs
sung
She cut out her tongue
So silently
She could unspeak herself
Free, from prison words
She cut out her tongue
So that her soul could catch the light
And let it run
Through her body transparent
Prism shining out
She cut out her tongue
To free her self
From her self
Completion
Knitted under the skin of silence
Flying unseen
Into unexplored horizons
Without
Mother
Country
Point of
Trace
She cut out her tongue
To see the eyes
Behind the face
yvette m smith sept 08
poem by Yvette Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Lament
I know, I grow old….. I grow old
When silver threads peek in my head.
The flush on radiant cheeks wanes,
And a pallid tint creeps unseen.
Fading years have robbed the ardour
And a rigid sobriety sinks and settles.
I hear the howl of autumn winds,
That come to shake off the yellowing leaves.
Dragging tired feet through pavements
I try in vain to keep pace with the young.
Mind grows annoyed and distressed
As the bones beneath the skin go brittle.
The weary body spins rugged,
Like a rusted machine never overhauled.
The soul grows mutinous over things unknown
And reasons hard to trace.......!
There is a tumult in my silence
Like the undercurrents of calm waters.
Through miles on dreary miles of gloom
That stretch out before the eyes, endless,
Where can I find a quiet haven
To lower my burden and rest awhile?
poem by Valsa George
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Hat And Feet
Hat And Feet
Fountains Of Wayne
I'm just a hat and feet
That's all that's left of me
A spot on the sidewalk
A mark on the street
I'm just a hat and feet
I'm just a hat and feet
You dropped a bomb on me
I didn't even see
Like a falling piano
From out of the window
Now I'm just a hat and feet
I'm just a hat and feet
I'm just a sitting duck
That ran out of luck
I'm the unhappy guy
That didn't look up high
I started running when I saw it coming
It got faster and louder til I took a powder
Now
I'm just a hat and feet
That's what 's become of me
Flat on the sidewalk
Stuck in the street
I'm just a hat and feet
I'm just a hat and feet
song performed by by Fountains Of Wayne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hat & Feet
Im just a hat and feet
Thats all thats left of me
A spot on the sidewalk
A mark on the street
Im just a hat and feet
Im just a hat and feet
You dropped a bomb on me
I didnt even see
Like a falling piano
From out of a window
Now Im just a hat and feet
Im just a hat and feet
Im just a sitting duck
That ran out of luck
Im the unhappy guy
That didnt look up high
I started running when I saw it coming
It got faster and louder til I took a powder
Now
Im just a hat and feet
Thats what become of me
Flat on the sidewalk
Stuck to the street
Im just a hat and feet
Im just a hat and feet
song performed by by Fountains Of Wayne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Crowd
I cannot flee the crowd
My feet lose themselves in the rythmn
My body swims into the sea
I cannot see my hand or recognise my face
Nor feel a breath or sigh or hint of love
Each face faceless
Each heart unseen
And yet we live and breathe as one
with one breath unfelt
wiped clean
Unseen
In time we move
In one long stretch of feet and endless days
I cannot flee the crowd
So I must swim into the sea
I cannot scream, inside I scream aloud
For I must swim into the sea
And lose myself to be set free
For if I flee the crowd
I fear i'll drown.
yvette smith
poem by Yvette Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Sic Itur
As, at a railway junction, men
Who came together, taking then
One the train up, one down, again
Meet never! Ah, much more as they
Who take one street’s two sides, and say
Hard parting words, but walk one way:
Though moving other mates between,
While carts and coaches intervene,
Each to the other goes unseen;
Yet seldom, surely, shall there lack
Knowledge they walk not back to back,
But with an unity of track,
Where common dangers each attend,
And common hopes their guidance lend
To light them to the self-same end.
Whether he then shall cross to thee,
Or thou go thither, or it be
Some midway point, ye yet shall see
Each other, yet again shall meet.
Ah, joy! when with the closing street;
Forgivingly at last ye greet!
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Signalman
I see him as the signalman
On the unseen tracks of time
A family priest for all of us-
As we travel down the line.
Railway stations made him blue
When he was young and leaving home-
I wonder if it was his Signalman
That for so long kept him going? .
He taught the boys of Wexford
By the Barrow in New Ross
And at a later time the Déise lads
In Dungarvan’s lovely town;
A chaplin in Dublin's Liberties
Now in Limerick nearer home;
The road that led to his priesthood
Had earlier started off in Rome.
In his vestments with a bell of brass
Before the quarter past eleven mass,
Ringing out “Come all ye within”
To that little hospital Chapel
That always has been dear to him.
Augustine's''Lord we are restless''
''Until we rest with Thee''
He quoted freely at his Golden Jubilee.
He has always been our signalman
Along the unseen tracks of time:
A family priest for everyone
As we are travelling down the line.
poem by Matt Mooney
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Faces In The Street
They lie, the men who tell us in a loud decisive tone
That want is here a stranger, and that misery's unknown;
For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet
My window-sill is level with the faces in the street --
Drifting past, drifting past,
To the beat of weary feet --
While I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street.
And cause I have to sorrow, in a land so young and fair,
To see upon those faces stamped the marks of Want and Care;
I look in vain for traces of the fresh and fair and sweet
In sallow, sunken faces that are drifting through the street --
Drifting on, drifting on,
To the scrape of restless feet;
I can sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street.
In hours before the dawning dims the starlight in the sky
The wan and weary faces first begin to trickle by,
Increasing as the moments hurry on with morning feet,
Till like a pallid river flow the faces in the street --
Flowing in, flowing in,
To the beat of hurried feet --
Ah! I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street.
The human river dwindles when 'tis past the hour of eight,
Its waves go flowing faster in the fear of being late;
But slowly drag the moments, whilst beneath the dust and heat
The city grinds the owners of the faces in the street --
Grinding body, grinding soul,
Yielding scarce enough to eat --
Oh! I sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street.
And then the only faces till the sun is sinking down
Are those of outside toilers and the idlers of the town,
Save here and there a face that seems a stranger in the street,
Tells of the city's unemployed upon his weary beat --
Drifting round, drifting round,
To the tread of listless feet --
Ah! My heart aches for the owner of that sad face in the street.
And when the hours on lagging feet have slowly dragged away,
And sickly yellow gaslights rise to mock the going day,
Then flowing past my window like a tide in its retreat,
Again I see the pallid stream of faces in the street --
Ebbing out, ebbing out,
To the drag of tired feet,
While my heart is aching dumbly for the faces in the street.
And now all blurred and smirched with vice the day's sad pages end,
For while the short `large hours' toward the longer `small hours' trend,
With smiles that mock the wearer, and with words that half entreat,
Delilah pleads for custom at the corner of the street --
Sinking down, sinking down,
Battered wreck by tempests beat --
A dreadful, thankless trade is hers, that Woman of the Street.
But, ah! to dreader things than these our fair young city comes,
For in its heart are growing thick the filthy dens and slums,
Where human forms shall rot away in sties for swine unmeet,
And ghostly faces shall be seen unfit for any street --
Rotting out, rotting out,
For the lack of air and meat --
In dens of vice and horror that are hidden from the street.
I wonder would the apathy of wealthy men endure
Were all their windows level with the faces of the Poor?
Ah! Mammon's slaves, your knees shall knock, your hearts in terror beat,
When God demands a reason for the sorrows of the street,
The wrong things and the bad things
And the sad things that we meet
In the filthy lane and alley, and the cruel, heartless street.
I left the dreadful corner where the steps are never still,
And sought another window overlooking gorge and hill;
But when the night came dreary with the driving rain and sleet,
They haunted me -- the shadows of those faces in the street,
Flitting by, flitting by,
Flitting by with noiseless feet,
And with cheeks but little paler than the real ones in the street.
Once I cried: `Oh, God Almighty! if Thy might doth still endure,
Now show me in a vision for the wrongs of Earth a cure.'
And, lo! with shops all shuttered I beheld a city's street,
And in the warning distance heard the tramp of many feet,
Coming near, coming near,
To a drum's dull distant beat,
And soon I saw the army that was marching down the street.
Then, like a swollen river that has broken bank and wall,
The human flood came pouring with the red flags over all,
And kindled eyes all blazing bright with revolution's heat,
And flashing swords reflecting rigid faces in the street.
Pouring on, pouring on,
To a drum's loud threatening beat,
And the war-hymns and the cheering of the people in the street.
And so it must be while the world goes rolling round its course,
The warning pen shall write in vain, the warning voice grow hoarse,
But not until a city feels Red Revolution's feet
Shall its sad people miss awhile the terrors of the street --
The dreadful everlasting strife
For scarcely clothes and meat
In that pent track of living death -- the city's cruel street.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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