Precariously Poems | Examples

Stain, Statue and Concert

Reading a poem about a horse
with a stain
on the author’s page. Patron

ate something saucy,
as he read of a war statue,
forking or spooning

probably pasta or slurping
poetry, precariously, I ponder,
as I wait for the oven timer

to deliver dinner.  Deviled
ham quiche - the aesthetic
embodiment of

eggs & cream, cheddar,
onions & cayenne
firmly held in its shell.

I’ll eat in the early afternoon
and get a lift
to see Cheap Trick &

Rod Stewart. Not the cheap
seats, but the special ones
saved for the limo driver’s guests;

he will be chatting it up
behind the stage or
just standing by.

I can’t get past a couple
pages, having stopped
at the blot. A library lie

that these hard-covered words
are all mine, well his;
a-muse-d at a blank page,

how I’ve filled its plate,
and how
I will separate
my pie from my eye.

The Seas Took What Couldn't Be Saved

Disconsolate obsidian waves crash over crumbling dunes,
Sweeping afflicted grains of sand back into the depths,
Dragging my paralysed soul with them.
Engulfed in despondent riptides,
I gasp for oxygen amongst rippling currents,
As a fiery moon hangs precariously overhead.
Blood-red reflections illuminate the stark waters,
While calls of the lost sing to me,
Like sirens beckoning sailors to their doom—
Louder and louder, until it becomes unbearable.

Flaring arms fill with cortisol,
Burning, tangled within suffocating seaweed.
Farther I get pulled from the shore;
The horizon is growing fainter now with every somber beat of my heart.
Isolation shrouds the thickening atmosphere.
Saline leaks into my mouth, drying my tongue as I frantically spit it out.
Hysterical laughter escapes through lips without realisation.
Dehydration overcomes.
Sanity slips with each sip of water.
My larynx sharply tightens—
Barely a noise can be uttered.

Yet the siren calls of the irretrievable continue to crescendo,
Pulling me into an empty expanse, everlastingly.

The Sheer Gravity of Uncertainty

When poised precariously,
balanced on the edge of a precipice,
choice can’t wait for clarity.
For the mass of uncertainty,
tips the balance just enough 
to topple you off the cliff 
into the valley below.

The sheers gravity of choice,
is unrelenting and absolute,
in the face of uncertainty.
You're blindfolded by fear, 
bent over, to leer, too long,
into the valley below.

Uncertainty and urgency
conspire to force us
to decide,
to leap before we hear
to leap before we know
or to wimp and stutter
and step back, 
and make a hasty retreat,
into the valley below.

Fear of The Unknown

~ akin to dangling precariously on the edge of mystery. ~

Memory Loss

Fold and make origami
Pieces lost in the folds of time
Ripples in crystal waters of stillness
A riddle searching for responsiveness

Zipline through the playgrounds of my mind
Inverted skies stretch beyond grey
Clinging to air thick with silence
Shaped by a hope refusing to conform

Sleepily sauntering down an alley
Directionless shadows endless in their growth
Opaque walls murmuring their speechless weight
Flickering with thoughts not comprehended

Unraveling the knots of oblivion
Words hang precariously in suspense
A burst of color breaks through the frame
Slowly fading to the edge of a forgotten dream

Sick

Slowly, sanity slips through fever-laced dreams.
Layer by layer, I fall deeper into unknown rabbit holes.
What was up is now down.
Colours melt, dripping from the night skies,
Pouring onto my fracturing cranium.
Hallucinating, I walk upon a fragile field of wilting roses.
As each petal dies, so does another memory in my delicate mind,
Leaving behind nothing but specks of dust floating within empty space.
It's getting harder to tell if I'm still alive in this nightmarish scene.
Beads of sweat mix with humid navy breezes sweeping across me.
My breath hangs precariously all around.
Voices trying to wake me grow fainter,
Disappearing amongst delusions.
Ties that bind my soul eroding,
I feel my flesh burning, puckering.
The illness wraps its tentacles tighter around me,
Refusing to let go, dragging me six feet under.
As the ground cracks open, the faint thread finally snaps.
No longer can my soul return to my mortal coil;
It will be left to rot among the foxtail and weeds,
Consumed by Death's cursed grasp.

Poetic Practice

The poet is a physician of sorts
tending care to the physical 
of his craft -- His patients, the
hearts and souls of humanity -- 
Latching belts on sleds of words
a-summit he descends, precariously
no safe tracks when in lyric free-fall

Altitudes and scathing depths
are the wails and screeches of
his siren journey down -- when and
where, a dicey pit travel...critics
offer no parachutes...and his lovers
often unavailable, amending their
own wrong steps.  Can a writer really make
it safely to the other side, through the creative
pressures of ever revolving mantles and imperative 
crushing cores!?

Organic

If love were 'dark matter'
it would be the size
of a small kidney stone.

Hate is
an intestinal tapeworm
that gnaws at our vitals,
though most folks
remain unsure just what 'vitals' are.

The human brain
does not write poetry,
it merely crouches inside one ear,
while shouting into the other.

Poetry abides at the center
of an ever-expanding constellation
deep within the pineal gland -

that physical presence
manipulates, as many as
ten fingertips or toes
plus, a sloshed Calliope
swinging back and forth,
as she clings precariously
to chandelier-like Adam's apple.

Lips learn to think for themselves,
with the help of undocumented
angels.

Thus, naturally
organically produced poetry
can easily be manifest
while a nose dips deep
into a foaming glass of beer.

Hypnotized

Good heavens,
   It's beyond
      my comprehension
         what you just did
            to me.
It's a mystery
   hidden fathoms deep
      within your eyes;
         i n e x p l i c a b l e
            what came over me
with just one nictitation.
   Could it be the bells
      hung on your eyelids?
         Intense curiosity
            precariously
dangles at the tip of
   my tongue
      refusing
         to tumble out.
            I'm tangled cap-a-pie
in your web of seduction.
   Could it simply be
      your powerful magnetism?
         I'm left
            hypnotized.

Twig of love

Its not the revile
in the morning
its about your tears
and how you wish
away tomorrow
When today is the stet

Its not the sound of  zephyr
that plays occasionally
Its the truth blowing precariously

The branches learn to bend
We took the side road to Bexhill
We saw the flames of our love dissipate
that  early spring

The Woman in the Portrait

A woman hangs on my parlor wall
Perched Precariously in her picture frame,
A garish feather placed upon the hat upon her head
Her dress, a ruby red, ruby red.
Cobwebs kiss her ivory face-
Spiderweb cracks trace her glass eyes and porcelain nose.
A mouse or a moth chewed a hole in her side
Anachronistic blue tape hides the embarrassing blemish with a worse one.
The children who scamper through the halls of the old house like painting eating mice-
Make up ghost stories about her.
“She was murdered by her husband”
“She was poisoned by her maid”
“They say she walks these very halls…”
“Waiting..”
“No..”
“Hunting.”
I watch the painting day and night
Perched in the same chair,
Nothing to wait for
Nothing to want.
I Whisper in the children’s ears as they pass me by-
Although they never hear
She is here, she is here.

will he get here soon

the porch boards are precariously weak.
water runoff has warped and damaged them again.
we have had this porch rebuilt a few times
one board has a giant hole in it.
I put a garbage can over it, so the dogs will not break a leg.
Our handyman says he will come and fix it soon.
Yesterday I noticed two spots that felt like they were giving way.
Will he get here soon enough or will I be the one with a broken leg?

Wild Side

Picture # 5

The rickety bridge hangs precariously 
Over the river's troubled waters
Come all those adventurous souls
Explore the tree filled wild side
Each audacious spirit come here

I could not whisper the story

Tongue touched, 
a diaphanous zephyr of ephemeral desire, 
rustles the parchment of our sepulchral scripture, 
where our connubial covenant is inscribed,
in the cryptographic ledger of the damned, 
and the whispers of the ancients,
echo through the labyrinthine corridors,
of the underworld.

Your lips, 
a vermilion velvet of hyperemic passion,
anoint our union with the haematoid blood of Elysium, 
consecrating our entwined destinies,
within the cryptic cenotaph of the heart, 
where the lethiferous weights of existence,
hang precariously in the balance.

Together, 
we waltz, 
hand in hand, 
through the tenebrous tapestry of Chronos, 
our love an ephemeral eclipse of solipsism. 

In this eternal, 
ephemeral dance, 
we are the cryptic ciphers of the nocturnal, 
our love a funeral pyre that illuminates the desolate, 
luminous landscape of the Chthonic River of Styx.

Raindrops

After an hour’s incessant rain,
On this cloudless evening,
With the face of the sky
Washed clean,
Globules of water
have speckled the oiled surface,
of leaves on arching trees.
They glisten in the evening light,
reflecting kaleidoscopic colors.


Lying on my bed, curled up,
as I look on, they quiver,
dither, wobble and flutter.
In their effort to balance precariously,
each drop, rolling and spiraling
flops down one by one,
with a sad refrain-
Flip… plop, flip …plop
leaving ripples in the puddles below.


In the deep hush of Nature,
on this twilight evening,
their distinct tinkling,
falls as music to my ears!

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