Best Margins Poems
Life's margins are too narrow for proofreading: a poor catch of extra commas, profiles of girls and monograms of insomnia. For literature, an earthly life is just a couple of words in a not too coordinated sentence, let alone the poetry: here the author's headache determines the character's lifetime, here the area of a paper sheet limits his rectangular space of life… At this moment the protagonist is wondering why his black coat, which he puts on only once a year on Christmas Eve when visiting his wife in Woodlawn Cemetery, is worn through and why a lonely old poet is so cold in December in New-York?
should author tell him
I don't think so life's margins
are too narrow for
19.12.2019
The Darker Side Of Christmas Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Richard Lamoureux
There is an old and wise saying,
Take only what you need
and use everything you take.
We often consider the first part,
or at least make occasional stabs at simplicity,
but the last part is less frequently said
or thought about
as essential to healthy vulnerability.
If we don't use everything we take
and have been given by others,
then we can be sure
we have been given, and perhaps taken,
more than we need.
Taking only what we need
sounds obvious and transparently ethical,
perhaps even aesthetic
in purity of harmonic intent,
yet more mysterious
and richer
and deeper
when we remember
that life itself,
and human life even evolving more so,
is lived in margins,
double-boundaried spaces,
places,
times,
seasons of growth and decay.
Earth's marginal soul
is living soil and water,
surface wind and fire storms
and swells and ebbs.
RNA and DNA regenerate
on and within this thin biosystemic sphere
between atmosphere
and dead bedrock.
Life, as contrasted to not-life,
is a marginally placed process
of learning to take only what Earth offers
and gratefully using everything as cooperative gift.
Life derives from prehistoric photosynthesis
on Earth's evolving and devolving synthesis
and revolving skin.
And our senses, all five,
each take what we need of this synthesis
to LeftBrain adapt
and RightBrain adopt
what our thin margin offers us
of and for a healthy simplicity
yet wealthy diversity
of synthesizing double-boundaried life through death.
Humane life is evolutionary
within Earth's marginal organic boundaries
as we choose to use everything
our RNA and DNA Elders
have gracefully and phylogenically offered us
to swim and walk and fly
within Earth's bountiful health boundaries.
Humanity defines what Earth has given
as marginally sufficient diversity
and is uniquely poised on a constant multicultural edge
to fully delineate,
acclimate,
creolize,
know polypathic gratitude
for this polyphonic boundary grace,
to deeply digest
and warmly decompose
every sensory gift of Earth
we take in
through this vulnerable ride
between natural birth
and spiritual revolution,
Taking only what marginal wealth
we need
and using every double-boundaried healthy day and night
we gratefully receive.
She sleeps with a copy of Stephen King's The Shining under her pillow.
The knife was left on the kitchen sink; the gun to her head out of ammo.
She writes, but has no pen to stab with-
just a finger to make herself sick
Reflection screams "I want to be perfect!" and the mirror shut up!
How can she? How can she? She will fight; she'll work for it, she's been working
a new page; fresh - running out, wasted
so much paper wasted already
She writes in the margins, left there for someone to open the book and see
Seeing life pass them by
swaying between sleep and death
Hypnotised
Anesthetised
Paralysed
Living on the margins of life
Like a background actor
Dumb
Watching
Wishing
dreaming of becoming alive
full hearts
full
stop
| From lack of reason, to quotients of densest space
| Through the iris of an eye, voids are commonplace
| Stubborn pervasive doubt, projects across the face
| Reassured again when mindsets find a bright place
| Still if one can’t see god, photons will bring a trace
| Filtered through life’s prism, heaven refracts apace
Dawn, and my bed comes ashore,
dripping fog-laden fronds.
I feed my mind
manna of minced shark
and Barracuda.
I dislike tuna,
so I make a tuna sandwich;
wet foaming waves,
aqueous globs of salty oils,
some mayo. I must be waterlogged
by sea-dreams.
The day swims around aimlessly,
time sloshes.
A rubber flipper
once lost off the Normandy coast,
briefly surfaces;
one sand-encrusted flip-flop floats by.
I may have to snorkel
if I am ever going to see
the sun go down.
I can’t draw,
but I paint
I still sin,
but a saint
I talk best
when I’m mute
All I’ve lost
in pursuit
I begin
at the middle
And end
at the start
To give back
to the silence
This thing
—we call art
(The New Room: March, 2021)
In various places, flowers will grow,
But thrive best in peculiar climates
Most suited for the particular variety.
Narrow margins can be most profitable.
Many flowers are picked in the early mornings
And commercially flown to distant destinations
Where their use is not a luxury but a necessity.
Narrow margins can be most profitable.
The fragrance must hold and be bold, because
Looks alone will not suffice regardless of the
Price if the aroma is not enticing and strong.
Narrow margins can be most profitable.
The merchants' margins may be narrow, but they
Remain worry-free if the flower's fragrance is inviting.
And like magic, profits in other areas are exciting.
Narrow margins can be most profitable.
021824PS
Dawn, a bed comes ashore,
dripping and fog laden.
Tuna sandwiches float
on foaming waves of nausea,
aqueous globs of salty oils,
surface. Punctured sea-dreams
float; flabby and flatulent.
The day paddles around aimlessly,
tides, rather than wait,
slosh about spongy ankles.
A rubber flipper mislaid
off the Normandy coast,
slipstreams through time,
one lost sand-encrusted flip-flop
bobs on by.
May have to snorkel longer
if there is any hope of seeing
the sun sink.
Eventually aquatic ghosts
depart for a younger past.
Back on the swaying deck
of a queasy reality
a fresh wind dries sheets.
Footprints in the sand
are spied through a fisheye lens.
A shipwrecked yesterday
is waving,
glad to be finally rescued.
"I would like to see you living in better conditions." Hafiz
Exiled and devoured by smart bombs,
The alchemy of history, rises above
The dazzling explosions, and the fury of shock waves.
Read the winds that blow in time’s face,
Of high struggles and passages of hope
Between the margins and the dreams,
Recurring parentheses in ancient books.
They live in their offering, their fists of courage.
Rain-soaked communities,
Flooded roads,
Muddy pathways,
Sleeping in solitude of silence at nightfall.
Neglected communities,
Uneven and pebbled roads,
Living in the shadows of civilisation,
Struggling to rise,
Weakened by the tranquillity of the unspoken.
Deprived communities,
Lacking the benefits of novelty of time,
Caught in the web of delayed progress,
Gazing into dark reflections.
Affable communities,
Where strangers are not lost in the meadow,
Awakening communities,
Still connecting the dots that brighten tomorrow.
April 21, 2026.
I looked at her pictures ,.
looking up at the ceiling... asked myself
Wasn't supposed to feel this...it is
Just another smile, right? Then
Why won't my heart shut up?
I care about her, .
Checked if she's online,
thought about her for a sec
checked on the last text she sent
Since when did I start waiting on texts?
Since when did silence started carrying a name?
I'm in love with her, .
Didn't mean to fall.
But she's in every poem now,
Even the ones I never wrote..
Archive May'25
While writing this, I remember feeling trapped between shock and surrender. As though I had caught myself committing small acts of devotion without permission. Returning to old messages. Staring too long at photographs. Inventing reasons to check whether someone was there. Oh This appears harmless in isolation but, when gathered together, it's not too healthy. Yk there is a strange horror in realizing that someone has become important to you. The moment a feeling stops asking for entry cz it has already moved in. Like finding a candle burning in an abandoned room and realizing someone has been living there much longer than you knew.