Home » Poems » Best » Adriana Thompson » Best Adriana Thompson Poems

Best Poems Written by Adriana Thompson

Below are the all-time best Adriana Thompson poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Adriana Thompson Poem

It Still Moves

IT STILL MOVES

the earth complains
of heartburn in California
ulcers in Iraq
chicken pox in Afghanistan
sneezes and wheezes hurricanes in Atlantic
acid reflux somewhere in Mexico
it has chills at the poles
fever at the equator
sweats at the tropics
shakes all over in Japan
severe dry skin in Sahara and Gobi 
vomits monsoon rains in India 
its cells are dying in the Dead Sea
it foams at the Yellow River
in Venice it has a sunken feeling
some scars still hurt in Hiroshima

you’d think that the earth suffers – 
it just lives the way it knows 
and everything is normal
as it was a hundred years ago
or a thousand
or a million
if it complains 
it’s just to grab our attention
the earth was a show off from the beginning – 
it put itself together with a Big Bang

Details | Adriana Thompson Poem

The Poet's Sestina

THE POET’S SESTINA

The poet put the pen to his head and killed himself;
 he shot the leftovers of an ideal in a second of no-thought.
 His girlfriend found him rolled in a splash of ink
 with his legs and hands wrapped in political correctness.
 His room in its emptiness, a vacuum sucking rhymes,
 had musical scales carved into the plastered walls.

                                    ***

 His girlfriend layered beds of marigolds against the walls, 
 she took care of his meals as if he couldn’t cook for himself.
 He was too busy with obsessed words to cluster into rhymes.
 His words crumbled like grains streamed along the thoughts
 poured in a bottomless basket not concerned with correctness,
 but he tried to build anonymous legends rippling the surface of the ink.

 He sold his words – like a cheap whore – in books with fresh ink,
 he ripped off pages of re-lived dogmas banging against the walls,
 he used an hourglass as a symbol of human tragedy’s correctness,
 and he tried to grab a crumb of eternity without being himself.
 A notebook with crippled verses extracted from et cetera was a thought,
 but they were all put together in knots and then broken with rhymes.

 When he was with his girlfriend between her breasts he found rhymes;
 her white large forehead was sweating bubbles of vivacious ink,
 he caressed her neck pulsing with life, “green life”, he thought,
 and the procreation restrained him in her vagina’s walls.
 She wasn’t all that, so he used a condom to please himself
 because he wasn’t what he thought he was. Finally he was correct.

			***

 The mourners viewed his peaceful body laying in its correctness,
 moving slowly, in orderly fashion, as if themselves became rhymes.
 They were a confused herd of black sheep when they had to face him.
 A few giggles and chuckles hidden shyly behind spots of ink,
 reading the ribbons on the mortuary wreaths that hanged on the walls,
 they gathered in the corners with grandiose eulogies in their thoughts.

 His poetry wasn’t to be in the eulogy (but it was a thought),
 because they tried hard to find a line to please their own correctness
 and they talked some more, bounced ideas against the walls
 trying to understand the dead poet’s scheme of rhymes,
 but all they could see in front of their eyes was wasted ink,
 and they decided that none of them could understand him.


 “He was old, and he was bald. (This is a thought that might rhyme.)
  Everyday he drank at least a gallon of that incorrect ink,
 and because he isn’t Christ we don’t put his pictures on the walls.”

Details | Adriana Thompson Poem

Some People

SOME PEOPLE… 


some people beg in the corners of the streets –
cover themselves in rags of ex-clothes thickened by the streets’ slime
dig in trash for spoiled foods and dirty empty bottles
huddle above the sewage covers in the cold nights
and I hide my hands in the pockets

some people are shot in the alleys for a few coins mixed with lint –
they forgot to hug the loved ones before they left their homes
and die fast or slow and their blood thickens in the dust
lives are draining without a decent warning
and I hear about them in the evening news

some people spend their lives in prisons for justice or injustice –
they grab the metal bars of the windows with impotent anger
inhale and perspire their food with shifty eyes
tattoo their bodies with emblems hoping to get out alive
and I don’t love them as if their misery is foreign to me

some hairless children die of cancer still dreaming of fairytales –
they learn complicated medical terms along with the ABCs
eyes are half opened toward the tearful helpless mothers
pale lips shiver with the shock of a body giving up
and I want to be comforted shifting my thoughts from them 

some people are old with shrinking bodies –
hunchbacks without cathedrals as if they carry a load of guilt
unfashionable clothes smell of piss and flatulence
wrinkled bodies fold onto themselves like broken accordions
and I keep away from them because they slow me down

some people…

Details | Adriana Thompson Poem

One Night Stand

ONE NIGHT STAND


juicy tomatoes
mashed potatoes
firm grilled shrimp – no garlic please – 
soft bread aligned in a basket
steamed glasses 
frozen margaritas – 
unorthodox dinner

plastic cactus
on a bed of pebbles and sand
stares at me from the windowsill – 
innate happiness 
we smile idiotic – 
ignorant unscheduled cascades of laughter

my finger follows the pattern of the checker table cloth
shrinking it 
squares become circles – 
primitive night of pleased sighs 

we mimic a dance for the rain– 
the thunder a symphony with a déjà vu print – 
the lips move with mute symbols
of a forgotten civilization
the rational thought  
pushed in cuddled hibernation

my arms are in breakable cast
and I wear my glasses but I can’t see my dreams

Details | Adriana Thompson Poem

Venice

VENICE 

In a gondola
with a handsome Italian 
whispering in my ear
“Ti amo”.
He caresses my hair,
my soggy hair.
Drenched kisses.
Rain.
The gondolier 
soaking wet.
Droplets of water
escape his hat’s rim
splashing.
He doesn’t sing
“O Sole Mio”.
The grayish buildings,
take a shower.
The soiled water drains
into narrow side walks
and further into the canal.
Under every dripping bridge
another kiss.
Water everywhere.
Romance drowns.
“Ti voliglio bene,”
my date whispers.
“I have to pee,”
I answer.

Details | Adriana Thompson Poem

Loser

LOSER


my parents
taught me to walk and they made me crawl
taught me to talk and they said be quiet
they tormented my mind to slay my imagination

their vociferations of scrawny advice
a fragmentation of a thought hospitalized
getting ready
for a more robust job
to mock my ideals


                   *

my teachers
taught me to write and they cut off my thoughts
taught me to read and they took away my books
taught me geography and they pointed the enemy

they were radiant
with a vivacious
inconsistent preaching
that curdled with every word
and left me
tired
hungry
cold

                   *

my leaders 
taught me to love my country and they gave me political slogans
taught me history and they didn’t want me a hero
they torture my body to kill my will to live
trashed my humanity to build in me the hate
forced me on my knees to slobber on my head
they put me with criminals to teach me how to kill
they destroyed my files to erase my existence
they spitted me out naked and hopeless

my parents, my teachers, my leaders 
a spiteful reminder
that I should squirm
in front of their frying words

and the meaningless guilt grabs me
insipid
achromatic
odorless
still there
pressing 
pushing
drowning thoughts


they planned my life and I chose freedom
                 
                 *

I don’t have old parents
to care for and to cry 
over their shrinking bodies

I don’t have roots 
shoved around as a leaf in the wind
caressing the ground
but I am part of a tree

I’m a nomad
unwelcomed writer 
with tired wrinkled eyes
holding old forgotten songs
of love and hate
waddling to the kitchen
for a hot green tea

I write fossilized verses
the murmur of a thought
a tribulation to the language
common sense and logic
repulsive notions

I drown in verbalism 
wasting my soul’s value
atom by atom
while I wait
to grow white wings
but my heart and arms
are in breakable cast
I am a loser
with cardboard ideas 
and I project my mobility in a short poem
charged with captive gods

yeah, I’m a loser
and that’s fine with me.

Details | Adriana Thompson Poem

Scared

SCARED


… when I jumpstarted my thirst for sin
danced young
whistled with the wind
sold short my youth
burnt like the witches of salem

scared

… when I was the one with crooked smile
he chose to stomp through
as if I was a ghost town
with flowers and chains
with good will and free will 

… when the wind sounded like winter
he exuded calm
my hands were callous
and he cut my breath

I still have cuts everywhere

scared

… when my psychotherapist
wants to change me because
I put my ear to the ground
to hear the earth’s heart beat

… when I am tired
of jeans that don’t fit well
of people shivering
of paid and unpaid bills
tired of being a survivor

… when the road lies in front of me
and I go on an adventure
by crossing it
I become commercial
with only one dimension


… when the trees become
prime material for caskets
I feel their hardness 
on my back and sides
the dry wood cracks
waiting for my body’s moisture

… when I become a comic book
next to my wilted lips balloons
filled up with words
as if they are rivers or veins
and a bored reader
decides if my life is rust or blood

Details | Adriana Thompson Poem

Patience and Nicotine

PATIENCE AND NICOTINE


“coffee, two sugars, hold the cream please”

home made filtered cigarettes
bitterly cutting the cost.
too many books on the floor and the walls.

he cooks dinner – chicken and au gratin potatoes –

“put more potatoes. it lasts longer.”

cars speed on M-72 – noisy speed – 
the dog licks herself desperate 
with nothing else to do

birds chatter from one cage to another
and I am lost in normality
with my freedom strangled 
in dusty curtains and a sinkfull of dirty dishes.

“do they have cats in Baghdad? CNN didn’t say.”

car insurance is due – life is due.

he cooks dinner
“did you put more potatoes?’

I wait for what is mine,
maybe a knock on the window
in the morning or at midnight,
but he kisses me and rushes in the kitchen.
today I look old with my life at a lent starving
I’m unplugged from today – no spices
“how was your day?” “fine. yours?”  “fine.”
slice, spice, butter, bake.

I didn’t laugh or cry today

no twittering of blue birds
just screams and groans of a mad beast
that bites foaming, clawing the wrinkled skin.

we are two old statues in the park
and pigeons shit on us
because we forgot to be drunk on foolishness.

Details | Adriana Thompson Poem

The Mourning Dove

THE MOURNING DOVE

The car hit the dove. The driver knew it, but he kept driving, without even slowing down.
It was a case of hit and run accident. The dove lay on the side of the road lifeless. His mate came to check him out. She knew it was nothing she could do.
She screamed for hours and her loss lacerated the day.

Details | Adriana Thompson Poem

Prison Dance With Gypsies

PRISON DANCE WITH GYPSIES




the guards’ rifles stab the thick gray air – 
under their eyes shivers of rain 
wash our faces – beat our bodies 
with needles of water

hollow metal buckets – instant drums  
an echoless mantra slowed by fading hope 
raise our hands with rhetorical questions
praise the beans in our thinning stomachs

the buckets’ full sound 
springs us onto our feet – 
we throw our clothes in mud
breasts jump startled
nipples harden in the cold 
in our patch of freedom 
we jump – stomp the mud
model and remodel its silky softness

mud embraces 
caresses our nakedness
with open mouth kisses our thighs – 
our toes wedge it 

in lightning we are silver
like slippery fishes
swim in our guards’ minds
we burn their eyes 
insult them with gleaming flesh
we crush them 
with the air that touches our hips

we cast our nets 
with fingers of rain 
and catch our guards – 
their veins are broken 
with tired impotence
when with wondrous hands
we map a woman’s topography
the guards with their rifles
with slightly opened rodent mouths
are smothered in our movement – 
we foam their fantasies
we blow the swampy water

long hair wet 
slither in the air 
like whips 
crack the guards’ faces
splash them with mud
in pagan dance