Cigarette Kisses
There are empty places stashed inside this cellars
That your soldering grazes cannot reach,
That reverberates its caterwauls for a succoring chance,
That is hollow, void and obstructed of reprimands
And in these spaces, the flame of life seeps out
To burn the lamented fringe and seal the debris left
Or squander it away with the ephemeral cosmos
And disembogue the frothy screen of bereft.
poem by Norman Santos
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Black Bruises IV
I can gorge the vile blackness,
the eviscerated acquiescence
like a dog-eats-dog carnival
I can endure the struggle
tasting blotted inks,
tasting cheap champagnes,
tasting one's molting skin,
tasting a chance to begin,
tasting cold greasy dishes,
tasting stark carnal sin,
tasting tar and nicotine,
tasting saline misery,
but am I the only one tasting
these black bruised savors?
poem by Norman Santos
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Glissando of the Marionette's Strings
Impasse the futile grounds
A contorted plane by a contortionist
And a dancer the city crowned
A marionette played the optimist
Who breathe but does not live
Must she resign this grief?
Detest all that she believed?
End the direst and seek "what if? "
Docile plastic limbs are stringed
Steady your temporal haggling
Take this marionette under your wings
Underneath a promising coaxing
poem by Norman Santos
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Invisible Circus
I looked around
and found the prancing devils
showered in sacred veils,
the cobbled pavements
filled with footsteps
without any pursuit
Why am I here?
And nowhere at all?
This dreadful drudgery
seething into my lungs,
this farce comedy
lurking like a tiger
ready to pounce
Such banal superficiality
in tragic charades -
caprices and cavalcades;
why do I have to play
this goddamn harlequinade?
poem by Norman Santos
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Crucified Seraphim
Excoriate your garish light
I belong to the crimson sun
Thank you and I apologize
For giving you apt wings
In an unsolicited riposte
Now, I'm letting go of the strings
Back to my cranial dome
Nibbling on a ravine of fear
Ubiquitously searing
Adhering to my struggles
Without banisters or pillars
As you vaguely conceal
Your lustrous wings
In a conceited vying
Do no crucify yourself,
Fallen seraphim.
poem by Norman Santos
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Pawned Hearts
A mazy rat-race razed
In the dog-strut highways
Shearing the haze
Billowing in the head
Now haplessly astray
Beneath a downtrodden parasol
So you held the lever tight
Braving the daunting height
Of the searing defeat
Gnarled fists above
The pounding in the chest
Where the heart shatters
And the serrations slices
The vacant chambers to bleed
Enthralled in the logic
That was pawned for
A heart,
With no avail.
poem by Norman Santos
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Looking Back and Away
Emotions swelling
like a storm taking form
Out of words,
cold tears worn
Vacant eyes watching dancing motes
a fictive space where spirits float
Profound reveries consuming me
and waking brings a hilt-deep agony
A cloudburst:
My spirit crumbles
and lamentations pour
I picture our finger interlaced
but yours are slipping out of place
and like an empty goblet I wished to fill
you sealed your lips and kept it real
poem by Norman Santos
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Black Bruises III
I can wallow under the blackness,
the quietude underwater
coaxing to a surmised fray
I can endure the insipidness
sleuthing senescence arrive,
sleuthing balmy perfumes,
sleuthing cigarette kisses,
sleuthing ablaze kerosene,
sleuthing sly putrefactions,
sleuthing unawake buds,
sleuthing old handkerchiefs,
sleuthing ruffled pillowcases;
but am I the only one smelling
these black bruised fragrances?
poem by Norman Santos
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Macabre In Breaths
Such forlorn hope
Falls in the red soil
With the crumbs of your
Porcelains, gnawing with
The tautly grinding maw
The disdain and angst
Molding more disdain
In this nihilistic scarcity
Of waters to tread
The filth glistened
In the crimson drought
Like a puked bile
Reminiscent of the shattered
Face of oblivious thrills
The serrated silence
In holding breaths
Underwater,
Under abeyance
A purveyance
For subsistence.
poem by Norman Santos
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Heaven in a Bitter Bud
Dangling by the ceiling these moths
Such lackluster but can never abort
Eternity that these starlights behold
Let it go, take flight, let it all unfold
A constellation I had never knew
A cyst of emptiness that have pursued
To instigate another endless flight
I'll take my best friend some other night
To show the heaven in a bitter bud,
Bliss and anguish holds the same rod
Hope is not so bad,
Heaven is not so bad.
poem by Norman Santos
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!