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Rock BottomThey say a rolling stone gathers no moss,
so when I shudder to a halt
The rocks in my feet continue to grind.
I feel the sand in my lungs
and the regretful mist silting in my heart
as the waves come back in
reaching eagerly for my legs, spooling, churning
over me. Rooted in my misery.
I know the rocks in my feet will help me drown.

ScarsSee the sharpness of my tongue-nib
As the metallic taste in my mouth draws out
A barking cough, forced out
By the dirty nicotine lining my lungs.

See the blade of stubbornness
That slices across my cheek bone;
An amalgamation of all the times you pushed me.

See the residue in my eyes,
The remnants of all those times you forced me
And I forced myself not to cry;
Those tears condensed into a thick blinding syrup
That colours all things red.

See the crinkle in my nose,
The wrinkles on my heart
As I remember how you didn't love me. (Don't love me).

See the burns on my psalms
And fingerprints singed off
By all the times you called me nothing

The White ThingsNothing is as far away as a minute ago.
No matter how hard you row against the tide
we can never reach it, never return there.

It's hard to sleep in the light of my regrets
that creeps through curtain and barriers
to rot away and bleach all things white.

It's hard to sleep knowing that no distance
is as far away as sixty small seconds ago.
Immalleable, we rot, and things turn white.

BuriedUnder the paprika house,
are the bones of my father
and nestled between rib
and reason, is our love.

The Bone CollectorSometimes my breath catches in my throat
and the very stillness of an earth going
a thousand and three miles per hour
gets lodged there.

Sometimes these simple exchanges
leave me breathless, croaking on dust:
the unfiltered pigments of other people's skin
and blood and ash

but with my tarred lungs and itchy eyes
I sit and sift through charcoaled remains,
alphabetising them from c to c. I am lost
in a world charred brazen.

Many things I have loved have turned to ash.
Many people. I was naive enough to think
that there was some perfect nutritional truth
that could outlast hell-fire.

I claw through a world turned ashen
and know those dead

HAIKUWRIMOCOMPLETE 2013

February 28th, 2013

Dire desperation
A feeble whimper for help;
roar of these raw times.

February 27th, 2013

Gluttonous ash cloud
sucks the moon's blood
and swallows the night.

February 26th, 2013

Bark! An explosion!
Angry bodies escape the
network of lung cells.

February 25th, 2013

Silently cloning,
multiplying, honing in,
determined to kill.

February 24th, 2013

Tea and sympathy
readily available
for my dear sister.

February 23rd, 2013

I will hold my breath
as the north wind does the same
waiting for your love.

February 22nd, 2013

He hovers behind;
Hamletian apparition.
Always following.

February 21st, 2013

A lo

In The StarsIn the stab of the night,
when there is no moon
or modern light to guide you -
there will be stars.

They will burn themselves out
with the vehemence with which
they shine for you.
They will desperately radiate
their message to you
across lightyears of dead air,
they are full with it.

They are children
holding their breath
until you beg them to stop.

They are waiting for you
to be ready to hear them.

In the ache of the night,
when there are no whispers
or echoes to guide you -
there will be stars;

and those stars will be couriers
baring these words to you
emblazoned with their royal seal.
They will be eternally pressed

In absence of a poem.I chewed my pen to the nib
and swallowed the ink thoughtlessly,
but no matter how long I thought,
I couldn't say what you mean to me.

I tried, I tried and I tested,
every word in my diminutive range,
but I screwed up more pieces of paper
and happened upon something strange;

I noticed words, which have served me,
for all of my formative years,
had no power to convey my gratitude
for the times that you dried my tears.

Whenever I doubt myself (often),
You're the one who tells me I'm wrong
You lift up my chin and remind me, wait
for the good things that will come along.

I can't find a way to express how
you are the saving grace in my head.
So

MatterIt is only a matter of time
until the stone lays down with the sheep
and sleeps.
Rested firmly above the holes
where our eyes used to be.

It is only a matter of matter
until epitaph and eulogy diminish to dust
and sleep
becomes the eternal home,
not where our souls used to be.

It is only a matter of fact
that our words will become reductionist, redundant,
and sleepily
the world will forget
where our words used to be.

Of Nuisance LeavesHear me read it!

Leaves clutch their ropy fingers around the tree's limbs. The zesty leeches bloom, crack open overnight and slip silently up the nearest oak or maple. They pierce the crunch of bark and penetrate deep into the rubbery veins.

They feed. They pauperize plum and peach until they are heavy and brown; heavy laden with the stolen sap.

When at last they reach their fill the tree can finally shake them off emphatically, desperately, until at last it is clean again. The tree reaches its black bones to the sky in praise and as a new year begins vows never again to be the victim of leaves.

40810If only you were soulless.
If you were mindless, blind,
you and I could make a beautiful disaster.
The press would write of our brief affair;
they'd paint me (the woman in red) as pathetic.
They will not consider how I need your love
or how it pains me so deeply to throw myself at you.
I will not be remembered as a poet warrior.
I'll be the eternal survivor no more.
All who think of me will shake their bowed heads
and tearfully remark;
If only you were soulless.
If you were mindless, blind,
You wouldn't have been such a bloody disaster.

Thy lips are warmOf all the words that mouth at love
and soften it with tongue and tooth
None will ever justify this breakage.
Never will there be diction enough
To make a heart salve, or tears unwept.

There will never be a word of woe
That suits to the shape of the thing.
Though many mouths may speak
of love and all her many expressions
airs, graces and confabulations.

None will correlate the meaning truly
how I loved for him, and he not for me.

A chance secondI lie awake, staring at the cornices.
3AM: my fingers worry at the corners of my sheet.
My anxiety worries at the corners of my rib.
I bite and tug and huff out my misery
As the silence keeps me awake.
I lay with pressure of your absence
Pressing down over my nose and mouth.
A soft asphixiation of the heart, of the sanity.
It is a hot grey night in London.

You are awake, startled by the sunlight.
7AM: you can't lift your weighty skull from the sheet.
The day sirens, but you stay, settled,
Under the weight of your shroud, your loss,
Only the silence keeps you awake.
Unknowingly, for the first time in weeks
We are unintentionally in sync;
Laid

Undying LoveShe screams, pain holding her, hands holding her hair and pulling tight, each strand reins to her conscious will. The drugs running through her system become a geas, an imposition stemming from the necessity in her soul.

The tetter barked and shouted it's way down her arms, her misery congealing in her wrists and at her throat, forming a lump that pressed down weightily on her trachea until clawing a breath in was more effort than she had energy for. She choked on a sob and the angular bite of the sound released some of the tension. She fell.

The beige, tiled floor rose to greet her decrepit, falling form. Undone, as if a string on her soul

Never The Gold.I want my silver back,
I need to melt it down and forge a new connection
With someone else.
I want all the precious bits of myself
that I so willingly quarried for you.
I want my silver back.

Browse More Like This

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More from `KathrynODriscoll

The 8 Simple Rules - Draft One /The number one and first rule,
That you should not forget,
Is to always say your 'sorry',
But never 'I regret'.

The second one is easier,
An easier game to play,
Always leave things open,
To a 'maybe' or 'someday'.

And after two another rule,
A simple one to three,
Always blame your other half,
To the rest of the family.

When in doubt just call upon,
Your friend at number four,
Never forget past grievances,
They help even the score.

Weve almost hit half way now,
Youve left your house and home,
Why not leave everything else,
Your debts, mortage and loan.

So number five has set you free,
From all your money woes,
Number si

The Devil Lies - Draft One /He mistook my eyes for starlight,
When there was nothing but the rain,
and when I tried to tell him no
He just kissed me once again.

I couldn't make him run from me -
His feet danced much too lightly,
I could not charm the snake charmer,
For he held my heart too tightly.

Go! go from here, I cried out,
The heart wants what it wants -
'but I want to stay, you silly girl'
Was the devils quick response.

I tied his love to a vulture,
So that it might see decay.
It laid its eggs and he asked me,
If we'd be wed some day.

Go! Go! Go away from here,
I chased him to the street,
But once outside we still ran,
To where the devil and I

The Heart Dies - Draft One /This is the way the heart dies
with consuming tears and mourning sighs,
With ripping, shredding, biting pain,
I'll never be the same again.

This is the way that love goes,
Inevitably, the heart knows,
That poison spreads and kills its prey,
I'll live to see another day -

This is the way the story ends,
With broken hearts and 'Lets be friends'
When what you meant to always say
Was 'please dont leave me, please just stay'

This is the way a soul dies,
with desperate tears and sobs for sighs,
With destructive, brutal, fearsome pain,
I'll never be that girl again.

Holding a Hostage - Draft One /I daren't close my eyes
The moment I do
You may dissapear.

I clutch at your body
Pressed between you
and the slate flooring we chose together
   You and I.

I stroke your hair and murmur
My tearful confessions
- You've heard them a thousand times before.
Not today.

There are sirens, love
and they come for me
   They come for us.

They seek to part us, my darling
and I cannot let them.

No battering ram or tear gas
Could bruise me more
       than seperation.
Nor make me cry more
       than departure.

I kiss your face
and try not to remember
How you looked when I fell in love with you.
You're not so different angel,
Not

Good Kid - Draft One /Good Kid

The parents want you to be
A good christian kid.
A good well educated kid
A well mannered kid
A good spirited kid
A good _______ kid
A good
Blank
Kid.
Fill in the blanks.
So the kids go to school to learn
How to fill in the blanks
Enforced upon them
By blank minded parents
Who only want to be ______ parents.

Home Is Where The Heart Is - Draft One /Home is Where the Heart is.

I can't promise you a Palace
Full of diamonds and of gold,
I only offer you home
That will never grow cold.

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Perfect on Paper

by `KathrynODriscoll, Mar 7, 2013, 12:04:14 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

We cut hearts
into paper to make streams
of love.
That was my impression of it.
That you ripped
off
the pieces you didn't want
until you got something that was
pretty.
It's no wonder
that I can't believe that someone
would think I was paper-perfect,
or loved.

~♥~♥~

Perfect on Paperby `KathrynODriscoll

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

©2013 `KathrynODriscoll

Inspired by the title of one of today's DD's; "paper hearts" so thank you *travelgirlxx!

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Mood: Love

`TeaPhotography Apr 27, 2013 Professional General Artist

What great imagery!

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~exquisiteoath Mar 24, 2013

This one I'll get behind 100%, and it captures a couple of themes that run very close to my heart in terms of the way we as people treat each other.

Reply

`KathrynODriscoll Apr 18, 2013 Student Writer

_{I'm late responding because April hates me, I apologise :[

Thank you so much. :]}

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~exquisiteoath May 11, 2013

I'm late replying because my life just keeps barreling along.

You're very welcome.

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~KuraiTenshiV Mar 10, 2013 Hobbyist

its pretty i like it

Reply

`KathrynODriscoll Mar 22, 2013 Student Writer

Thanks Kurai!

Reply

~KuraiTenshiV Mar 22, 2013 Hobbyist

Any time

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~Lazy--kurt Mar 9, 2013 Student Traditional Artist

Aw, you totally deserve the favs you get. (:

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`KathrynODriscoll Mar 10, 2013 Student Writer

aw thank you so much

))

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~shehrozeameen Mar 9, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

I love this poem in so many ways, and at so many levels, that, honestly speaking, I want to thank you for posting this poem.

it is about hypocrisy; it is about broken relationships; it is about betrayal; it is about hopelessness; its a reference to "halo"; its an embodiment of the prose piece which had your grandfather in it; the scars of "the wolf" and "the sheep" are brimming out of this work; the carved papers remind me of "the music of razors" (which btw is a big reference - its the first serious book that I read, and the one which left the biggest impact on me).

I personally think you've written something very very well done. Bravo.

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