words are just words, spewed from a mouth
base and predictable, they try to resound
words come in cycles, like geese flying south
falling like rain, from the clouds to the ground,
all around when you look, all around when you don’t
words can be pretty, like presents in bows
words can be vile, a bad taste that won’t
disappear from your tongue, the disgust will compose
a residual feeling that slithers and slides
but sometimes the words are lovely and kind
as safe and unchanging as the changing of tides
more often than not, though, the speaker is blind
to the cleansing effect words have on a mood
to the death of a war, or the dawn of a feud
“Yes, master.”
A shrill groan slithers
Across the gray stones
Of the tower, spiraling upward
Until it is trapped in loftier cobwebs.
“The lever is down, master,”
And the darkness is whipped by electricity.
I beat out these lines with a bare
Foot, tapping to every syllable,
As the madman donning
Green-tinted goggles and
A tumbleweed of hair curls
Closer and closer to the cluttered lab table.
“Need more light, master?
I’ll hold the lantern,”
And the light begins to praise his smooth hands,
Sloping precisely to pink fingernails
As the needle dips into his
Experiment like an eel
Flowing beneath the sea’s wake.
“Are you close, master?”
Illuminated are the gashes that mar
The ridges in my knuckles,
The calluses etched into my fingertips,
The wiry hairs that strangle
My throbbing, grey veins.
A life of delicate accomplishment,
Filled with a strictly inward turmoil;
It has never been mine to choose.
“It isn’t fair, master...”
And his lips purse in the effort
Of affording me a cursory glance.
“...That your genius go
So unrecognized,
Sir.”
Grunting satisfactorily,
He grins only toward his beloved creation
While I continue pondering
How a pencil might feel against
The paper if I knew how
To make the words.
“I want to write, master.”
“Poetry?” he mumbles to the scalpel,
and I nod my head vigorously as
His rumbling laughter becomes
Smoke that snakes leisurely toward
The skylight.
I thought to those hands that draw my strings
why do ghosts only haunt the living?
Fear slithers down from the stains on my ceiling
coiling thickly around my throat
dripping feted sweat
from the tips of its' fangs
“To Spur You To Run”
so down the darkened hallways and
out to the dirty
downtown streets I flew
skittering fitfully between the alleys
for risk of being seen
before slipping into that same empty bar
me oh my, what dim corners you have
ducking onto that same crooked confessional
oh great bartend, what clouded eyes you have
where I am promptly handed
my glass of Sorrow
deliver me from evil
atop a napkin wrote with print
“All The Better To Drown You With.”
it seems I have forgotten
if this sip or the last
was bitter or sweet
but it burns my eyes
twists my ribs, thickens the wind
and in the moment I see that face
out beyond the foamy waves
that shore upon the dregs
oh hallowed face of Judgement,
it seems blackened ivy has taken root
around your eyes
"I Tip Your Service With A Nod"
every block that I stumble by
drips pooling
orange streetlight onto the sidewalk
which whetted feet find liquor slick
thus put nose to grindstone, idiom or no
I hear the whispered Fury
when I fall down far enough
when my ear is planted to the earth
addressing me curtly
burning up through the asphalt
and stretching uncomfortably underneath my fingers
she lifts me screaming from the molten gutter
"To Hell With Forgiveness"
I find none other than Passion
standing under a spotlight
always dreamed of becoming a star
on the next street corner
you burned out far below the heavens of the hollywood highrise
she beckons me over with knowing gestures
but you still wound up center stage
“I Am Cheap and Love is Dead
Buried With All The Other Fairy Tales”
to which I respond
“We Must Make Due.”
She came and left swiftly
departing with the last of the warmth
in this empty room
douses candles in gasoline
burning half as long but twice as bright
after which I rose and went to my window
listening to the chirps of Melancholy
singing of sin.
Copyright ©2010-2013 Sean Winslow All Rights Reserved
Time no longer falls quietly into order
the minutes and days have unravelled
digging their boots in the dust.
The hours and weeks stacked like rocks on your shoulders
as you drag time wearily along to nowhere.
Oh but to escape this ache.
Pain permeates the rocks and dust
soaking up through your soles
to lie like pebbles in a river
on your heart and mind.
But how do you run?
How to battle Time back into submission?
A solitary figure bruised and abandoned
alone in the wasteland .
Time weighs on you with the strength of ages
while the past snaps and slithers at your ankles.
Fight the claw and crushing restraints!
Emerge bloody and torn, yet victorious.
Tame the fickle measure of life
and send the past yowling back to its murky world.
Square your shoulders and lick your parched lips.
March on, you will conquer the wasteland yet.
my chest has become the home of a one-eyed boa.
when I was a child, this serpent was a child,
but now my vivarium has become exceedingly small
for this great snake as it grows and stretches my skin.
I am not elastic.
and as the mid drift coils around my black cavity chest,
part slithers up my throat,
causing me to gargle and choke,
silencing me into silence,
while the remaining 1/3 slides through
a short tube to my stomach.
I am nauseous.
this is the feeling when your boy
is playing soccer
and it’s all you can do to not think of
how he smells like grass and sweat and soccer
and how you would love to wrap your fingers around him.
and for a severed second
I am waiting for nachos.
and for a severed second I thought I was a warm, golden tortilla chip
that someone would want to crunch in their mouth.
This is the feeling when he gives another girl his jacket
and walks her to her car
and she compliments his eyes
and calls him by the nicknames you thought
were yours.
and for a severed second you think
of all the reasons you know you are inadequate.
like brown eyes withholding the freckles
and like the fact that you can’t command
your own skin or the way that it tears.
I am not stuck in a rut.
I am the grand canyon,
stuck in myself
without any water to drown myself in.
I am not made of acne,
I am a pimple.
and i’m every pimple
on all the faces
of my lovers who gave up trying or let me sink quietly
into the background as
doe-like females sauntered into the fore-
I am not a spot
I am a speckle that rides on the backs of spindly spiders
I am orange. I am poison.
I am not the geese but the pond.
dirty, overgrown and stagnant.
she is his rock and his river
and I though he was mine.
I’ve been expecting you.
I’ve waited an eternity.
Please sit
Thank you
I will now tell you things
I will tell you things I will do
Things I will do to you
Are you curious to know what they are?
You should be.
As I am curious to know
What compelled you to come here?
Yes
Everything in your conscious told you to stay away.
Yet, you are here.
Your friends warned you
But, you are here
Your nagging doubts, your conflicting reasoning all point to something else
Alas, you are here
And I can’t seem to understand why.
You know what I am.
I am an unconventional socialite of the most diabolic kind
I feed off the likes of you.
The sweet, tangible nectarine of modern serenity
The soft, lavender of incorruptible virtues
The delicate outer skin of savory delectability
My mouth waters at the very thought of you
I salivate with the very presence of you
I can feel my blood rush
My hands shake with anticipation
Let my touch
Caress you
Warm you
You don’t deny it
Because you long for it
You long for me to trace your lips with my fingertips
To suckle the flesh drops of your ears
To familiarize my hands with your supple body
To show you the darker side of forbidden passion
To welcome you into the bounty of vicious coitus
And depraved, animistic cunnilingus
And deep recessive fellatio
And blood constricted battering
With lines and whips
Chains
Belts
Leather and
Nightmares
And masters
And tormentors
And wicked shadows lurking in the room
Watching us as we display the ungodly exhibition
Of your forbidden desires
For me to savor the swelling peach of your pubic fruit.
This is for you.
Even as you proclaim your goodness to others
You have a side of your personality that demands unsuppressed copulation.
And why do you need this?
Why do you need me?
I can see it in your eyes.
It was because people in another world told you to hide your womanhood
To despise you sexuality
For it will make you weak
And vulnerable
What was your story behind your frailty?
It could have been the close-minded parents of the old age, who never tried to think for themselves; only allowing others with higher knowledge to justify their old-fashioned morals.
Or
The life you saw through popular culture and mind-altering media. The problem with pop cultivation is that is follows the wave lengths of susceptible hosts: the average, everyday citizens that “trust” the outside word; that “trust” what is said to them through dystopian and totalitarian subtleties.
You didn’t know better.
But you could tell it wasn’t right
How is it that a young child can truly know what is right and what is wrong
More so than the misconceived adults?
Because simplicity is key to filtering the complex
Now what does this have to deal with you sexuality
Because unless you do what is only natural for you to do, others will tell you what you should do.
Now, you embrace your emerging fruition.
As my tongue slithers around your sensitive clit
My fingers stretch and penetrate your wanting organ
Now
Is your chance
Overpower the host before you
It is a test
Your daunting task ahead is to overthrow the embellishment of your submission
Are you up to it?
We shall see.
The shadows on the walls are the ones that maimed you
Scolded you
Accosted you
Abused you
Terrified you
Rectified you
Molested you
Suffocated you
Punished you
Insulted you
Silenced you
Raped you
Why?
Because they are:
Afraid of you
Intimated of you
Worried of you
Scared of you
And
Enticed by you
Infuriated by you
Aroused by you
Alarmed by you
Entranced by you
And pleasured by you
Could you be all and none of what I said?
You tell me
Whisper it in my ear
Now bite it
Use your teeth and swear it
Tear it and devour it
My creature of the night
My child of ritual
My servant to flesh
My master to skin
My all to this and none to that
The embodiment of lust
The being of now
And the beginning of the end.
Maybe we’ll see each other again.
Follow this poem as it escapes my lips, smoke from a swisher. Follow before it disappears, slithers away into thin silky threads. Follow the mass, the transparent cloud. It’ll take you somewhere far from here, far from what you deemed necessary long ago, the pointless shit that drives your wandering mind, the pit opening up again within and underneath and above you, crushing you, making you less of what you are, less of your baser self. Follow this poem as it coincides with the wings of bats beating above your shallow head. Follow their darkness as they hide in barn nooks. Let them graze the tips of your dried draught grass hair, carry you away, and dissipate with the smoke.
See here this dark oasis
beneath the blinding noon—
the slenderest of spaces,
and it will vanish soon.
For now, the shadow lingers
where bright eyes cannot pry.
His sharp celestial fingers
will pass our shade tree by.
Could this be that tall walnut
we scaled with childish cheer?
The sign we carved was small, but
it still would show the year.
Time hisses as she passes,
and flicks her forked tongue.
She slithers through these grasses
we used to laugh among.
The word slithers from your mouth
Arsenic tone reverberating
Jumping on my eardrums and misting the fleshy insides of my skull
Dearest one, though unbeknownst to such a good intentioned heart
You are killing me
You lather onto her shame like oil
In your eyes she shines; epitome of all that you are not
Elusive seductress, skin tasting of intrigue
Entombment of that which lives in the blackest parts of you
Your brown eyes flashing ivy, becoming venomous,
Teeth sinking slowly with each syllable
slut
Dearest deer eyes, open up
She dwells in your recesses but in my repressions as well
She is the 6 year old child emanating innocence
Closing her eyes to the fact that some parts may only be visible in the presence of Mama and Dr. Mallon
Mistaking foul play for dreams
She is the 13 year old not yet skinned of her baby fat
Caressed like the infant she most certainly is not
Lips glued with guilt and naivety
My dear, dear friend, please
You are killing me
The 16 year old girl whimpering no
Pomegranate lips pressed to the underside of Narcissus' hand
The other digging in between quivering thighs
Sluts you sigh
They're pathetic really
A sea of serpents slithers dead,
Across an emerald plain.
As children step upon its bed,
It leaves a vivid stain.
Teeth and tails of vipers bound
And buried in the earth,
Holler loud yet make no sound
To weep for what they're worth.
Hush the hissing howl now,
Drink wind and water sweet;
And savor serpents’ scowling brow,
As silent sounds retreat.
