Best Laminated Poems
Frozen flames pressed between each sheet
I flip every page while taking notes
Censoring every event in my past
I fall deep when staring at the painting on the wall
Every blink feels the same when in love
However, on this one night, I stumbled
On a certain page, I found my heart beating twice
The roof at this moment allowed the moon to illuminate inside.
A memory unfolded while I held your hand,
Repainting our years, a devoted love
At the heart of everything, I've forgotten this feeling
The canvas opens more than an old chapter
the beautiful canvas, tied by solid gold.
Flames brush every wall as we age as one
In perfect harmony. TOGETHER
Laminating our love forever
1-06-2016
Note : This poem is inspired by the artwork and we chose to focus on it from a mental health perspective and how inner demons can play a significant role in relationships as well as considering siren myth and legend.
I am the eclipsed dawn,
swathed in searing blooms,
hemorrhaging the heat of restless smoke
into perfumed thorns
and sighing thistles ~
whilst aching to be loved
beyond the damage I cast,
like the queen of darkness,
dancing with demons.
Let your exhaustion cascade into me,
all being healed between this madness and rest.
Incessant pull caresses insistent longing;
collapse and captivation fuse to desire.
Flesh and energy intoxicate these bodies
in the time before hunger evaporates.
Death charges on
as you follow me into the stillness.
And what if the first spark of stars
hardened our night into a kingdom
of ice and frost,
of hurt and hollowness ~
would we not remain infatuated lovers,
pouring poison into
the grass that breathes
in chronic colors of this doomed devotion?
Without surrender, we sing in silence,
yet our swooned hearts remain drowsy from swirling strings,
twisting and turning on a surface seared severely by the sun.
What better way to fill the air with the fragrance of our thirst?
Let us fade into the dim fog
as we cosmically flourish ~
a forest of lustrous chaos, unseen, unbound.
Hold me in a cluster of all your stars,
the delicate ones you’ve laminated and fear might scar.
I’ll cradle them in the softest scarves ~
but even roses carry thorns all the way down their stems.
The rosa blanda embroidering your face
will become the veins in my tongue reaching to clog my throat
go past the tonsils and vocal chords and windpipe
down and down still, burrowing into the esophagus
relentless in its pursuit, just, just, just to lay seeds in my chest
tumor a pea, peanut, grape, walnut, lime, matilija, peach, grapefruit
straining muscle surprising itself with the ability to withstand the stretch
craving asphyxiation, those lungs may covet paroxysm
but grieve not the fulfillment of a destiny
this ache, this devastation was meant to be
no, they won’t be careful of what they wish for
you’ll become the air I swallow, and the organ that inhales and exhales it both
viciously lush beauty anywhere and everywhere
so when you see the body that used to be mine,
you’ll gasp in horror or awe or both: which one? I’ll never know
the garden you planted nurses no speech, nor soil, nor hope of infertility
just a promise of bloom and perpetual harvest
a pretty letter from dainty lips, viscous honey quenching its thirst
a giddy blush warming embryos out of stout cases
a brush of apple-sun cheeks dawning moonlight-budding leaves
just a gaze and my heart will melt,
sand that brazenly melds into laminated glass
gifted to strong hands smothered in peppermint lotion
who will keep it safe in their loops, whorls, and arches
brindle cedar irises roots to this infatuation
their existence cruel to a poet who only knows
words mere facets unworthy of describing
fields of cosmoses a cosmos itself
choking on fantasies and tears of scarlet drupes,
I retch out garlands born in guileless meadows
and as the last petal falls,
the sweetest rose hip takes branch
its only sin a love too big
For you, the first to teach me poetry,
I wrote a little poem at age nine.
I don't remember writing any more
till I had you for English in ninth grade.
One day when we were talking at your desk,
I saw a single laminated sheet.
I took a closer look and realized
the childish cursive on the page was mine.
You'd saved "My Winter Poem" all those years
and brought it as my gift. I almost cried.
I smile now as I vividly recall
this scene from over fifty years ago.
As teacher and librarian, you earned
the praise of all. We recognized your love
of students, language, books, and our small school.
We knew how much you wanted us to learn.
If I had never told you how I felt,
beyond that day when I was just a teen,
I'd be without excuse, but I did claim
the opportunities to give you praise.
In our last conversation at a school
reunion just a few short years ago,
I told you how I often think of you
when choosing just-right words for poetry.
I recently shared memories of you
with others who held you in high regard.
We wiped our tears and said our last good-byes
to one who taught much more than books and rules.
dear sister,
if I was more like you, I’d fight for your
memory,
cascade waves in oceans in honor of you-
maybe thoughts of your final farewell flood
through my mind because of how you left;
what happened after we spoke leaves my
lungs empty and my veins bled dry-
for yes, my sweet sister,
I’d fight for your memory…
if I was more like you
you knew not your plan would leave me
restless; year after year, seasons changing
slowly as I try to change what the world
thinks of you,
a weight too much to bear sometimes-
I bring sights of your smile at gatherings,
speak in honor of you (as if I were you)
hoping everyone could see you as I do…
(strong as ore, soft as snow)
so I decided to go to the site where you
took your final breath, hoping to reach
you once more-
(dreams don’t embrace like they used to)
surprised my eyes were when I came to
the bench we have in honor of you!
stuffed animals, trinkets, deflated balloons,
letters sealed in plastic so they don’t weather;
I lay orange stargazers down under the
pine tree and I left a laminated poem and
say a prayer of thanksgiving
for signs did awake-
angels did not forsake
I saw a sight of wonder and finally realized
I have fought for your memory after all-
for if not, then there would not be all this
affection for you;
as I drive by your site and see the white
cross almost half mile away,
I think of how you were until you weren’t
you anymore
but I know deep down I must see lilies
when I think of you,
make angels in the snow in winter;
plant lilies in my garden in spring
(just to be near you, my sister)
“many remember you as weak in the end,
they hold onto sights of you weeping,
while I wear your bracelet for safekeeping,
always wishing your heart I could mend"
(Love U)
317 words
August 8, 2019
Caren Krutsinger
New ambient light taking hold of that which was once darkened by time.
New thoughts eluding desires and all answers to the questions at hand.
Laminated emotions taking the places of the empty spaces inside the mind.
Feel the love from behind the reinforced glass? Didn’t think it was possible.
Now the age of reasoning comes into play, now is the time for deep thought.
The devil calls for pain, in waves that crash on this body like water on rock.
No visible damage but over time it wears it down to nothing, little by little.
Plunging into the deep end surrounding the mind and clouding the vision.
Breathing is impossible, gasping for air only brings water into the lungs.
This feels like dying. This feels like numbing. This feels better than living.
Salute! To you our class president,
As you lead us away to impertinent.
A president who's passionate.
Let your faith dominate.
Salute! To you our class president,
As you lead us to a change which is permanent,
A president who's dedicated.
Let your honor be laminated.
Salute! To you our class president.
As you guide us to whatever school life's lament.
A president who's also an ordinary classmate,
Let your destiny finds your soulmate.
Salute! To you our class president,
As you unfold what your life is meant.
A president who's dignity is cemented,
Let your efforts be appreciated.
Blues in the Night.
A malignant moon
shines his metallic claws -
combs my hair and brushes me forward.
I am alone in the shadowy crooks
of a poisoned metropolis.
A clandestine garbage chute -
where waifs and strays burn
within the fetid bowels
of a cavernous concrete underbelly.
The orphanage awaits my arrival,
as muted outcries are crushed
beneath my footsteps.
A parentless prison
teeters atop Utopia's dreaded brim;
the hamlet where Orwell slew Hilton.
St. Peter has been released
and no longer tends the kitchen.
Agony and angel wings reneged
a redundant brotherhood of sorts.
His recipe for remorse shall be missed.
Blues in the Night.
In the distance,
feigned epileptic outbursts
placates a patron's fears.
Caffeine injections
stimulates another's venial sins
as it magnifies their cardinal options.
An insomnious woman converses
with a napkin holder. The surface
is dull and unreflective, like she.
Banter never-to-be heard
by her never-to-be gentleman caller.
I am home –
amongst the dead I adore.
A haggard waitress serves me a menu.
A laminated journal stained
with melancholy and mustard.
Desolation and demi-tasse
are tonight’s midnight special.
Ten cents additional, if you order deluxe.
Blues in the Night.
I twiddle my thumbs
for I have no other’s to borrow.
I catch my rugged reflection
in the asylum’s window.
I espy my counterpart again
in a twisted spoon -
realizing I’m three utensils short
from a grievous quartet salted
with Mack Sennett misfits.
A collection of dishes clatter
above the sanatorium’s jukebox.
I place my spoon on the counter
and pick up a lifeless knife.
I envy its potential and possibilities
as Woody Herman croons
in the background.
Continued from Part 1
The trees, they hang in time and space around me –
trees, which in time before had swayed,
so gently tugged by ocean breezes,
trees, which in time before were lightly lit
with emerald tinted leaves,
trees, which in time before had reached to space above
with twisted tangled fingers,
grasping fingers,
fingers drenched with golden tears
shed by the Mighty Eye.
The trees, they hang in space and time,
benumbed and frozen motionless around me
chilled with rooted premonitions of the void,
their branches clutching darkness
and their leaves foreboding doom.
The muted winds begin to whisper tales
of many frightened things,
which, with mournful apprehension
have hunkered down behind the haze
and ceased their joyful play.
And all the while dank shadows gaily dance
a dismal dance,
for their time is soon to come.
The fitful shore lies suddenly still.
Unfeeling stones and hollow shells,
are paused a little,
stalled,
and dropped haphazardly,
midst their mindless random journey,
now abandoned by the sea,
for fickle waves have slipped away
to greet a falling prey.
And as the Mighty Eye droops lower,
laminated molten lips
are pursed and pucker higher,
sucking in the sky.
Within a trice the Mighty Eye
submits and squints, distended red,
perhaps tormented by fantastic thoughts
of imminent demise,
or else of being lashed beneath a lid
of distant faithless waves.
And as her dying flash dissolves,
two lurid lips arise,
three lusty lips -
a thousand parted limpid lips
which asudden,
though with little haste,
consume the Mighty Eye.
EPILOGUE
The trees are now but lurking shades
amongst the murky shadows.
Relentless fog slips slowly by -
her floating tongues drip silence
as they slink like snakes in stealth nearby.
The lacerated faithless lips have once again returned
to kiss the vacant vapid shores
in a brief eclipse of time.
END
I remember living in one room dingy and dire
with old lino on its rotting wooden floor.
I remember crystallised spit dangling from guard at the fire;
as mother cleaned, he'd only honk the more.
I recall how we went hungry, waiting for the paltry sum
he allowed us for board and keep, the cheap fink,
and how he served apprenticeship to becoming a true bum
by treating as priorities his fags and drink.
I remember all the rows he caused demanding back the cash
which was supposed to feed and clothe his we’ans
I remember every Christmas morn' the gifts received were trash
because he'd pissed the present-money down the drain.
I recall one awful night my mother hunting high and low
with a hungry bedraggled child on either hand,
she finally catching that boozy stinker sate in the Dungloe.
How he fumed, outraged that food she dared demand.
I remember his begrudgement of those sparse few days away–
one hour upon the beach or at the fair:
how just when we were relaxing would be dragged from play.
Homeward-bound: him the ‘bookies', us despair.
I remember trudging up to Creggan to the ‘Housing Place'
every week with mother and sister, come rain or hail,
and how that worthless, selfish, monster did not even have the grace
to commend her dedication, instead railed.
I can picture his expression when she got herself a job,
determined not to lose her new clean home.
I remember his wild tantrums when she'd saved up for a hob–
the delivery man was perplexed at oral foam.
I remember those miserable times as if they were today,
how he made odd help with homework living hell–
so that now a friend's assistance, however gracefully
put, grates my tortured psyche so much I cannot tell.
When we started working, my sister dear and I,
it seemed for him a licence to give less.
Many weeks he'd keep house-money and, as the months went by,
we discovered he'd drunk the rent; that was a mess.
So now sot has retired, and it seems his mind has gone–
for he's telling all how great he was those years:
he built house on the prairie. He was such a con:
the only thing he constructed was a legacy of fear.
Preposterous melody won't exist,
Inside a piano without the chord's beat
Aubade is formed when dolefulness emits
Nails the body to where she always sits;
Ordering her fingers to start a writ.
Corners her world with piano as a friend
Heaves fro the melancholia life has sent
Obsolete in the past yet still remains
Rest in the hands of the hellion of dents
Deceiving the chords life composed to mend
Carted away from the womb of thy mom,
Dispatched to fosters as a surly wan
Ego disappears to the children's scrum
For years she can't find her ruined life's sum
Guided and loved with the help of the rank
An afflatus for three hearts to collide
But deep beneath, she had always been mock
Called in by her fosters as out of luck
Door to door, she lagged capitulated
Reminds herself the poem she narrated
Misses the time her heart elevated
Falls for a man who's crossed-dressing blended
Solitude before but now chaperoned
Laminated by her man's trifle tone
Timbre has echoed when they broke the stone
Do you hear the sixteen chords of her song?
Ocean lights cigarette
Puffs mouthful smoke towards mountain
Tobacco clouds incarcerate the mountain
Later on....
Mountain coughs
Its skins are uprooted
Displaying crystal clear
Cancer-laminated
Black lungs of mountain
Dear buddy
I beg sorry
I don't wanna be another mountain
Absolute is her adorable attitude,
blessed and bestowed with a burning benignity,
city girl caught within life’s calamitousness,
darling to all that dare dote upon her. Naked!
Economize, be efficient, enthuse she must,
Fight! For her felicity. Feel! For those whom fall,
groping gouging with a grotesque gravitation,
hold on to her hospitable habitation!
Indurate through incest! Injured through inurement,
justice she seeks, a juvenile Judy no more,
kicked by society, knackered by its keepers,
laminated personalities lost in love!
Morning time! Brings the sunlight, the mist the misery,
Nymph nurtured by noble, just to serve motley men,
Org*sm Cried off, just an opaque memory,
primate pants, within the woodland glen!
Quaint in monthly quarantine, desire still to quell,
rebellious rivals, rustic, but youth on side,
sanctimonious salutations satisfy,
the test for technique, tediously still apply!
Unable to command usage. “Utensil spent”
Valuation decreasing via vulgar gent,
wise mind, weary body responds to the wanker,
xquisite flame soon xtinguish by the banker!
Yet she that lived in yonder past, youthfulness yielded,
zero hour approaches. “Erotic zone no more!”
because of censorships some words had to be removed or changed.
© Harry J Horsman 1993
Alliteration and Abecedarian poem
entered into A Poet Destroyers 004 contest
Because of you
I'm all here
Buried all the pains
Dug a new chapter
Imported new feelings
Seeded hope
Exported all the grievances
Took hold of the promises
Watered the heart
Cementing the broken pieces together
Laminated the smile
And on the wall I nailed it
Began a tireless journey
Wishing for the best
Trusting the eyes
Enjoying the sweet melody
A lullaby I need for a lifetime
Remember those days?
Acting silly and stupid
The ignorance we entertained
The confusion we embraced
Embroidering the hatred
In the mist of pain we got lost
Turning our backs on each other
Anger reddening our eyes
Silence that became a graveyard
Silence that almost murdered our hearts
Intoxicating our feelings
Destroying the taproots of our future
I remember the days
Buried now
Now I smile
For we hold it
In our hands we are molding it
Together moistening the clay
That long ago cracked
With no hope of being leather hard again
We have it
We repainted the wall
A new dawn of hope
A beginning of a new chapter
The chills of winter all gone
Summer says hello
With its rain we will puddle
In the mud together
Yes the mud of love we will dirty ourselves
For we buried the past
(So sorry for the hearts I have broken
for the dreams that never came true...)
I wanted this madness to end
I have to stop this hurting spree:
1. I locked the door,
2. unlocked my gun,
3. cocked slowly, silently that no one will hear
4. and went naked (so they won't have to undress me anymore).
My uniform is neatly pressed lying in bed
with the shining badge and the laminated name plate ready.
5. Took the last breath,
6. closed my eyes,
7. then prepared for the fall (the devils inside me
rejoiced with blood and misery - as I put my finger
in the trigger).
Then a frail knock came (it was the loudest I ever heard)
the sound came less than three feet from the floor
outside the unpainted door panel
as though it was knocking in my heart.
A tiny voice called "Daddy?....Can I come inside?.."
in my mind : "Baby? Can I come inside?.."
So I let him in (and the sunlight came with him)
He asked why I am naked,
that it was cold I might get sick
He said he was hungry and cried because his playmates had left him.
I cried because I could not be completed
(We cried for a moment).
He wiped the falling debris lining in my face as he wiped his tears away,
he picked my clothes scattered in the floor
I hid my gun under my pillow in safety.
I wore what he gave me
I did what he asked of me (I went to the kitchen half-naked)
I could see he was sleepy so I went to lay him in the cradle,
he had his feed in his hands,
I have my pain reliever beside me---
as I am holding this little boy in my arms
(My angel came to rescue me and that was enough,
for the moment).
Then we both fell asleep.