Best Crinkling Poems
"You are ... different, aren't you?" she said, crinkling her nose.
That sentiment, spoken by my fourth grade home-room teacher
Had been paraphrased many times before
(And would be countless times again)
Different, unusual, odd, weird, curious, complex, or just plain strange
Those were the kind ones - the ones I can repeat
My favorite, however, was "unique"
The day my mother put it into that sensible little frame, I knew ...
I ... was HOME.
You see, we creative folk
Are not put on this good earth to "fit" into it
We are not molded to be a status quo part of society
But rather, set apart FROM society
Our gifts are granted us in order to change the world
Not continue the order of its mundane spin
We are interpreters of the language of beauty and ingenuity
We weave expression and imagination into what's tangible and visible
Turning ideas and emotions to the substance of words and color and sound
Bringing light and clarity to variation and choice
We are the very children of NON-conformity
Living proof that acquiescence and conventionality stifle the human spirit
We are soldiers of vision, innovation, cleverness, and inspiration
Fighting the war on commonplace, submission and docility
Battling daily in the name of ALL who are unlike the Average Joe
And bringing inspiration to the world.
So, do I think I'm "special"?
Yes, for we are ALL special ... every single human is born with unique gifts
Ours - the artistic talents - just happen to be of a creative fashion.
Yes, I am odd, strange, weird, different, unusual, and unique ...
And I am BLESSED ... to be so.
~ 4th Place ~ in the "CReAtiVe CoNForMiTy" Poetry Contest, John Lawless, Judge & Sponsor.
The kitchen radio rumbles heavy drumbeat,
outside, rain pecks out its staccato
on the porch.
Stirring fragrant coffee,
I ponder doing dishes, starting laundry,
pause to glance at him.
Across from me,
his eye-crinkling smile
liquefies all my resolve.
Oh, listen
to that insistent rain
ans heartbeats drumming.
I came out screaming from the womb
No I am not a malcontent, I innocent
Was slapped upon my nakedness. Gloom
Was the first thing I grasp, a dissident
Wet and squirming in ackward light
Suddenly changes, I could not swim
This new ocean of day becoming night
I slept so that I would not know the grim.
My mother's last child sixteen years gone
All the flowers were dried up in their bed
And yet old skies make still a brighter dawn
But someone superior wanted me here instead
I had a purpose before I was conceived
My mission awaited me the day I was born
My father was being rolled up like a sleeve
They were at late evening, I was at morn.
I often wondered what he said to her, before
I am sure they did not hold hands about me
The liquid tongue of tidal waves on the shore
Sang not in prophecy, nor splash of memory
She must have surprised him with surprise
Ebb and flowing either which crinkling way:
O I am about unamask our love's disguise
And then came March, and the phoenix spring
Ecstacy that came long before, now to follow
The puffs and groans of agony, making the wing
Puts a strain on the moth. March is a mellow
Month ending when I am coming new
From the wet blackness where God too
Wet his ankle in the milk mildness of dew
I am a child of spring, but how dry I grew.
What was the boring sum of my days you ask
This waking and sleeping and smiling on cue
When my physiology grounding them in task
Spoke of my humanity, making me like you
O I had such dreams then, not where
I am heading now and still do not know
But where I coming from, the comfort there
And memory fading, fading the more I grow.
Here is the sum of it, the absolute beauty
Of being born, and brimming with reality of God
Heaven is somewhere in the past, O duty
Shall find me there if earth backward would trod
There is a mystery paling life at the edge
Of life, There is a depth in us shallowed by time
And I cannot unthirst me of this knowledge
It is too absolute, and O, it is too sublime
Cicada shells that sticky hands attach
to dirtied shirts
Humid evenings echo with jovial screams
and patient parents calling curfew
Morning dew and the crinkling of autumn
leaves on foot to school
Soon, blizzards bring free days for slippery sleigh rides
and endless sweet cocoa
The melting icicles mean days back outdoors
and hunting eggs on Easter
Then school would end,
and the cycle would begin again
Until it wouldn’t,
and I’d wonder when those times had reached their end.
Once again mankind hopes and gathers
Looking towards sunlight after the worse of days
But now released mankind laughs and sings
The young dance
The old with crinkling wrinkles smile
Yet sleep does not come easily
For the old have seen during the years
Uncertainty created by unstable minds
They have seen the craving of evil men
How they stay quiet and wait ready
To ponce during the dancing days
Living for the bitter coldness of gold
The people who care, hope and love
Those with joy, and hear the future calling
Exalt children, the earth, the expansion of life
They are watching resting quietly
Their funds kept safe as they sit on the sidelines
Check their computers and the news
Watching while the young celebrate
Learn, dream, love, and grow
For they know that evil always survives
And hides in the alleys during the quiet dark
Jealous of joy, resentful of our reveling
Ready to cause pain and deception
And though we may rest, we are ready to
Open our eyes cry out beware and battle again
it's quiet on the lake right now
sun sliding down from it's perch
as I watch with mixed feelings
from a pew in nature's church
enjoying the paint splashed sky
reflected across water's mirror
content smile crinkling my face
for a moment thoughts clearer
before memories drop blinders
overtop my respite briefly won
causing me to bitterly inquire
of what interest
is a sunset
for one?
flames into flames
flesh sizzling flesh
cores consuming cores
pips crinkling into load-shedding
emotions into grains of salt
light across spacetime
heat melting
h e a t
street strength simmering
sweating scalding
sensation has no
crystal drops
rooibos tea faraway
nothing to drink except
our own fluid feuding
hot waves raging roaring
consummating
burning consumables
dissipating veins with
our own veins
burnishing flesh...black dust
past
present
f u t u r e
waves upon waves of
electric light electronic wires
our Light liquidates
iron steel
from infinity
rumbling inferno
black charcoal transmutes
into blackberries
to suck
like nipples nurturing
eradicating fleeing
fumbles
fleecing fear fast
red organs rise
in spirals of voiceless
words fathoming
wrath is
over
or perhaps to come
last few steps of
licking flames orange purple
all is feedback
flammable
surrounded by raven rain
red reducing
red oil
blood blessing blood
in a BloodMoon of vanities
smelling of
vanilla and poppies
waving in war winds
containing OverSouls
overall is overall
forms
fathering
dripping salt
in an unsung faith
unknown spaces seen as Beloved
I am not all happiness.
I am not as bitter as your smile
and I have no lips to make me sense -
to curve around my name and give
me more depth than the air,
than the dust I rise from
like the moon, night after night
chasing sunlight across the sky.
I am the antediluvian scrap of flesh
in the corner of my grandfather's eye.
When he laughs, I feel myself folding
with him into my own skin,
into the held-breath slip of sky
I inhabit, into this
airless gap of eternity
where we live solemn together,
my body like an accordion and
his skin crinkling with all
the mirth of his years seasoned
with every war he encountered
and the salt that scarred welts
into his corneas
time and time again.
He touches my face, and I purple with the bruises
the sun inflicted on the flaking-parchment
knowledge of his skin.
We are love.
We are birthday-cake candles
half blown out before
the wish has time to develop.
We are hand-in-hand soldiers
and accidental splotches of red,
blood on lovers' lips.
We are a pattern woven through history,
sporadic and relentless
and beautific in inevitability.
And so we smile for each other,
secretive and mournful and gloriously
wise,
and we laugh at words that
have yet to materialize.
**For my Grandpa Clyde... your stories always made me sad and happy at the same time. I
longed for adventure like yours, and I ached for the pain you had to go through, and I loved
and love you very much. I hope you never feel lonely again.
These rustling humans, how they jabber!
With their smudged and crinkling ink dabber
I lie here resting while their investing
Their moments in this blabbered pestering
I've seen their pages scribbled in rages
Of inspiration by their sages
I hear the parchment, crisp and crackling,
Depicting marks pronounced in cackling
And wheezes of a breezes sighs
Read in secret by her eyes
Here in this secluded corner
This one was sent by a foreigner
The rounded man, all clad in fur,
Hears some code, it makes him stir
The thinner man sprouts in his chair
Which creeks beneath his squirming dare
The glamour creature, thin and frail,
Seems neutral about the true tale
I hear a fist pound on the table
Shouting that this could be a fable
"What if it's true?", the other asks
While in fascination he basks
They analyze it for a clue,
This letter, to learn if it's true
The chamber, while closed, is secret, airy
While echo's this secretary
The scribbled riddles held in hand
Are esteemed to be so grand
I might chew them if I could
For I bask in my puppy-hood
1
i plucked a string;
it rang through me
like a hook through
a fish.
i was hooked on
the fine
craftsmanship;
the way the wood
was cut.
i was convinced
that the hollow
inside contained
a million dreams.
if i could only
reach them.
2
christmas came
in a whorl-wind
of crinkling paper
and tinsel.
i opened one
of my presents
to find a guitar;
it sang to me
in secret tones.
i knew there
and then,
we would be
friends forever.
i had to bring out
the best
in my six string
friend.
so i conversed
with my six string
friend until
my fingers burned,
i didn’t wish to
cool the flame.
3
time changed things
as it always does.
i grew tired of the
harmony we shared.
swapped
my music books
and slipped into
other pages of life.
now you sit in the corner
like a naughty child.
i watch you with dreams
now fading
into the screams
of what might have been.
Memories of you talking,
Simply talking to me,
About your day,
About a new song you heard lately,
About how you like worn out jeans,
And how you fangirl over John Mayer.
Memories of you smiling,
That smile with your eyes,
Crinkling up,
Creasing,
Happiness.
Memories of looking for that flower from Italy.
Turning on the flashlight,
Searching for it on the road,
And finally finding it back in your room.
Memories of that night we never wanted to end.
Our last goodbye.
Our last hug.
Our last kiss.
An end we never saw coming.
You said 'Remember me and smile someday.'
And I do.
So now, with no talks,
No goodnights and goodmornings,
I remember you and smile.
With an irreplaceable warmth.
And I am happy
Like I was before.
A ringing bell in the near-distance makes her delicate body tremble, as she sat on the corner of the opaquely purple stained living room sofa. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. She grew in despair of how that pattern of sound had aroused the tiny hairs on her crinkling hands. She exhales repulsively the last draft of the cigarette she just turned off. A glance at the silver-rimmed ashtray, which rests an arm’s reach away, powerfully depicts that it was one of those nights again.
She was content not too long ago. Pampered by his tender words. He was the father of the children they never had. She would name her first born Alexander. Defender of Man. They would live a joyful life, far away from the city’s lights. Far away from it all.
That day he did not pick up his gun and secure it in his holster from the smoothly sanded wooden table near the bed they shared as he went to work. That day he did not kiss her forehead, a gesture of safety, which she was so used to every morning. The silent kiss reassured her, everything will be okay and that he will be back sooner than later. That day he did not wake her up from her sleep. Not intentionally at least. That day she woke up to the sound of a bang in the near-distance of their home. That day she was surrounded with thick red. That day she understood how selfish human beings can be.
She began to shiver uncontrollably, tightly grabbing her left elbow with her right hand. She picks up a container of sky blue ovals which lay on the table in front of her next to her near-empty pack of cigarettes. She recalls what the doctor had said, “One every time you get an attack, ONE ONLY.” One never did the job, neither did five. That day she took ten. That day she slept well.
two wrinkled faces
found a crinkled billet doux
smiled with crinkling eyes
A crack in the night’s deep silence
thundering and blinding!
I stop to listen and watch
the falling daggers of ice,
snapping limbs, and shivering snow
dumping in clumps from shaken trees.
I slog on in search of shelter,
a windbreak from the bursting gusts.
Freezing flurries bite my face
tingling and burning with the cold.
Sleet descends in sheets of ice
blanketing the earth while
wild creatures scurry down
through tunnels burrowed beneath
crackling and crinkling leaves,
seeking their own shelter from the storm.
Inside worn and weathered walls,
Nobles and commoners
Gather and share
In the field of rosiness.
Together, they are
Composed, well organized.
Each one partaking in blind optimism.
Knowing truly, that
The odds prevail.
Uneasy
My eyes penetrate
The bleached and waxen folds
Of my buttoned-up, grown-up gown.
Cascading, suffocating
The pale, coarse mesh
Chafes and bites my skin.
Two perfectly fitted pearls
Glow and twitch
As I stand rooted,
Unwavering.
The train, ready for action,
Playfully courts the dusty stone.
And I rehearse and cling to
The delicate sensibility that
“I am doing the right thing.”
“I am doing the right thing.”
Anxiety flourishes and
Doubt ripens under my tender care.
The thick fruit thrives
After months of incubation.
Nimble fingered, truth
Is busy, eagerly
Fusing and wiring herself to my soul.
Driven, she hails my attention.
Waving,
She wiggles her little fingers at me
And with a barbed and knowing glare,
She pleads with me from afar.
Willfully, I repeat my mantra.
“I am doing the right thing.”
“I am doing the right thing.”
Faithfully,
The rancid chorus begins.
I flinch, and flaunt my hollow smile.
The train sways,
Excited for life.
Breathless
I stand anchored,
Clutching a condemned bouquet.
I survey the waiting rabble.
Scowls, scrutiny, scorns.
Dusty brittle hair,
Spectacles and flowery hats,
Moving back and forth
In unison.
A mutual nod of disapproval.
The gasps and murmurs
Trickle and ooze
Through the blurry layers
Of the jaw dropped gapers.
I can see him now,
Green eyes searching
Wild with fear.
My paper coat unravels,
He sees me.
He knows.
Praying, holding on,
He pushes forward.
Crunching, crinkling underfoot
Painfully,
Pressing onward.
He is just within reach.
Shaking,
I touch my fingers to my lips
And
I turn
And walk away.
Joyfully she whispers
“You are doing the right thing!”
“You are doing the right thing!”