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Busbar Dancer Jan 2017
There’s a menacing chill
on the air
this evening.
“Had I the wherewithal
I’d leave this place,”
I think to myself
as the first warning is issued
by that unfriendly cloud
hanging low and dark
over the mountain.
While once I thought that
the rain would fall with purpose,
I’ve come to understand
that floodwater has no manifesto
except to place the scumline as high as it can.
We can stack these sandbags tall
around our hearts
without regard for what’s on either side of the dam.
They’re only transient monuments to ineffectiveness anyway.


An assassin stands at the corner
wondering if I’ll ever leave my house
and its warmth.
I have news for him, though…
There’s nowhere to go, and
the weatherman thinks we’ll have a storm.
Hoping your gutters are clean.
Waverly Nov 2011
"Have you talked to dad,
since you've been at school?"

"Nope."

"Are you coming home
for thanksgiving?"

"I don't know."

Josephina
breathes in a crackle
over the phone.

New York,
a cacophony
in the background.

A background of cold,
and
people talking
while walking
while hailing a yellowcab with a left
and slow-rolling heads locked
onto the phones in their right.

These people enter taxis,
not knowing if they're ever
going to reach home,
or the airport,
or union square,
just going
on the promise
that they won't become
road-****.

I can't feel it in my yellow apartment.

If anything,
my yellowcab
idles.

Through the receiver

A squad car
rings nervously,
then
after a lungful
of garbage-smelling air,
it becomes a full blare.

A pause
of
noise
always ensues,
just for a second,
the entire corner
becomes a silent silo
of human beings.

"How's new york?"

"you know,
dad called me
and asked about
how to get on a diet,
can you believe that?"

Yes,
I can
dad is a fat ****,
a pink, white belly
of a man. And a few
sandbags for chins.

"That's good."

"So I'm not going to see you?"

"Probably not."

"Well, you should call dad,
talk to him,
he loves
you."

Some conversations,
acheive nothing.

The same
tired, dead things
get run over.

Road-****.

Josephina believes she is the spatula
that will bring back
pancake squirrels
and
pancake relationships.

As much as you don't know
about me and dad's relationship,
I can give you a kodak moment.

A snapshot,

of a hovering man,
pointing at his son's neck,
searching for the misplaced vertebrae,
the lack
of fear for the world
--"the right kind of fear,
the fear a man
should have
of himself"--
and a son,
hunched,
small hands in fists,
a heavy haul of muscles
pulled into a dark brow
right over black eyes.

This picture
will suffice.
there's too much to this poem. Sorry if it loses you in places.
Aa Harvey  May 2018
Chernobyl
Aa Harvey May 2018
Chernobyl.


A nuclear disaster, in a town called Chernobyl;
An odor-less killer, the invisible force.
As the radiation escapes, from the crumbling reactor,
We must cool it down, before it blows.


Evacuate Pripyat, the employee’s town,
The town of 35000; first on the list of infected people.
No warnings to the town folk, no evacuation,
The town’s men in the know, know the town is in trouble.  


People bathe in the sun’s rays, soaking up the sun,
Whilst the dizzy and sick, fall with blackened skin.
But the only burn you'll get, is a nuclear radiation,
That will **** you in the end, as it will lead to infection.


Send in the investigators,
To check the biggest nuclear explosion ever.
The rumble outside a final warning, the fire brigade are now here.
The firemen are next, to fall to radiation.
The workers wives at home, are still oblivious.
But now they see the smoke rising, over the town.
So they close all the windows, an in vein attempt to keep the radiation out.


The workers cry, as they learn how bad it is,
The horrifying sight, of a nuclear cloud.
All things infected, poisoned by the air,
DNA is mutated; the time to panic is now.


The bride and groom walk through the town,
Unknown to them, there is poison in the air.
3.6 on the scale, leaves no need to worry,
But the readout is wrong, as the gage goes no higher.


Do not wear masks, it will cause suspicion,
A press conference is called, 15 hours after the explosion.
The men in charge are scared of the truth, so do nothing,
The situation is now, worse than they think.


Faces burnt, comrade’s panic,
The nuclear core is burning, it's radio-active.
But panic is worse, than radiation,
So there will be no warning and no order for evacuation.


22 hours after explosion, think we'll leave it to burn,
But it will burn for 3 months and poison the air.
We must find a remedy, quickly and quietly,
Thousands of helicopter runs, to cool the burning hot core.
We must put sand on the reactor, to stop it burning,
Evacuating the town is nonsense;
Wait until we know what's happening.


First thing in the morning, we must evacuate only a day late,
The people must view pictures of their family
And kiss them goodbye.
The biggest nuclear explosion, the earth had ever known,
The town will become a wasteland, everyone will be gone


17000 kids, infected by the air,
Another 116000, people are evacuated.
The nuclear explosion in Russia, will radiate into Kiev
And Northern Ukraine will be uninhabitable,
For anything up to a century later.
And the towns people,
Could take the radiation with them into a new place,
So send them to Kiev with the poisoned nurses;
Infected by radiation, it burns their face.


Leave the pets behind, to become wild animals,
The army shoot the pets, because they can't live anymore.
All the people wear masks, to help themselves,
As they leave on the bus, their former lives are no more.


The skin folds down and falls from their bodies;
The men in the control room, at last begin to die.
The people are collapsing, all over the place,
The tears turn to burns, as the women begin to cry.


Drop sandbags into the reactor,
From helicopters whilst being infected,
We must cool it down and stop the fires burning.
We’re heading for meltdown, truly scared of the apocalypse,
'Count lives', means how many can we sacrifice.
Finding how many lives, it will cost to get the job done,
Unquestioned sacrifice and they were willing to go.


2 volunteers needed,
To swim under the reactor and open the valves by hand,
Swimming through poisoned water, this could **** you man.
If the water was cleared from inside,
There is no immediate threat of thermal explosion,
A million lives saved, said Gorbachev the president.


The A.Z. button was pressed, to lower the rods into the reactor,
But just the tips landed inside and shut it down.
A thermal explosion is on the way, to level 200 square kilometers
And wipe out Pripyat, Kyiv and 3 million citizens.


By day 3 they thought it must be a design fault,
By day 7 the radiations gone up and it’s getting hotter.
14 explosions in the past, were covered up,
This could take us years to clear up and make better.


60 days after the explosion, Moscow are told to shift the blame,
Chernobyl’s bosses had known, flaws in the design were classified.
Sat before the world in Vienna,
They blamed the men in the control room,
Even though they were ignorant, as to what would happen.
Not prepared enough, for a job so important,
A million lives in their hands; in the hands of the thoughtless.
Faulty design, in something so dangerous,
Will lead to our end, as were infected by rays, so radiant.


2 years after the accident, the inspector speaks out,
But his voice is covered up and his findings are not written down.
Valery Legasov, the inspector.  The man who made the reports.
The men in charge of the reactor, were sentenced to ten years.
The incidents of tumors rise to more than in Britain all together.
This will last for about a 100000 years,
The radiation will be there for almost forever.


(C)2013 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.
Kafka Joint Apr 2021
I throw my sandbags
Into your ocean,
Unexpectedly, it works.
Thomas Newlove Jun 2012
It approaches swiftly.
A monsoon of rain readily setting off
Naive natives and their tiresome routines.
Shutters shroud the windows with irrational security,
Sandbags too are placed; it must be a big one!
Clouds roll and tumble into position.
A sunset evaporates quickly,
Yellow to orange to red and BANG,
As quick as a flash of lightning it blackens.
Pure darkness, but for humanity’s scars.
Another scar takes their places
As a deafening crash collapses the eardrums,
Seconds after its divine light pierces the sky,
The soul and that artificial light.
Darkness now, but for lightning,
Blinding flashlights and candles.

Dewy droplets descend into view,
Dripping hopelessly through a silver fork.
Frightened faces too are seen,
Made more frightening by flashlight.
Rain, lightning and thunder
Can’t silence children’s cries
But can still awaken the waves –
Serfs turned warriors in an instant,
Harassing the horrified sandbags,
Overpowered and silenced.
The satanic storm battles on
Callously battering a weary world.
The sickening sun shines into the eye
And a torn green turtle begins to cry.
About a bad thunder and lightning storm that pre-empted a hurricane. The Turtle in question refers to the turtle on the flag of the Cayman Islands.
Eric the Red Aug 2018
I recognized your storm
Even before your clouds
Began to form...

Now left with
Empty Sandbags
Cleaning up your flood
And tidal wave
This aftermath
Of you...
Stephanie Turner Apr 2015
I don't love my body.
I don't love the curls on my head,
the way they become frizzy at the drop of a hat.
The way they get in the way when I do my dishes.
The way that they have a mind of their own in the morning.
You call me 'curly sue'.
You pull on my brown ringlets and smile when they bounce back into place.
You like the way my curls smell when I get out of the shower.

I don't love my body.
My *******.
The way the hang from my chest like sandbags.
The way they restrict me from buying the clothes I like.
You named them.
Alessa and Alexis.
The way a little girl names the dolls that she loves so much.
Desire flashes in your eyes when I take off my shirt.

I don't love my body.
The first time you saw me naked
I wrapped my arms around my tummy
so that you couldn't see my belly.
You grabbed my arms and put them by my side,
and smirked
and said "beautiful".
I never hid myself from you again.

I don't love my body.
I hate the way my sides roll when I move.
You came home from practice,
bruised and bloodied.
You told me that your friend
tackled you to the ground
and you saw your life flash before your eyes;
you said
that my **** body
was the last thing you saw
before you momentarily blacked out.

I don't love my body.
I hate it.
I look in the mirror and see the most pathetic pile of
flesh, fat, muscle, bone and hair
that ever lived on this earth.
I waited so long to share it with another,
because I thought that this body,
this vessel,
was not worthy of appreciation.

You look at me the way a starving child looks at a five course meal.
You touch me like a homeless man sleeping on Egyptian cotton sheets
for the first time.

I don't love my body.
But the way you love my body,
the way you love my lumps and bumps and scars and flesh,
gives me hope that some day soon
I could grow to love it as well.

You make me feel things that I never thought I deserved to feel.
Colten Sorrells Jan 2019
a year of training and I'm still unable

to lift these sandbags from my eye curtains
at 6', 179 lbs (19% body fat) I can hold my own, but I still find myself losing the battle against fatigue, especially on mornings when I decide to fast.
bones Jun 2016
Carrickfergus (1937) - poem by Louis Macneice.


I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantries
To the hooting of lost sirens and the clang of trams;
Thence to Smoky Carrick in County Antrim
Where the bottle-neck harbour collects the mud which jams

The little boats beneath the Norman castle,
The pier shining with lumps of crystal salt;
The Scotch quarter was a line of residential houses
But the Irish quarter was a slum for the blind and halt.

The brook ran yellow from the factory stinking of chlorine,
The yarn mill called it's funeral cry at noon;
Our lights looked over the lough to the lights of Bangor
Under the peacock aura of a drowning moon.

The Norman walled this town against the country
To stop his ears to the yelping of his slave
And built a church in the form of a cross but denoting
The list of Christ on the cross in the angle of the nave.

I was the rectors son, born to the Anglican order,
Banned for ever from the candles of the Irish poor;
The Chichesters knelt in marble at the end of a transept
With ruffs about their necks, their portion sure.

The war came and a huge camp of soldiers
Grew from the ground in sight of our house with long
Dummies hanging from gibbets for bayonet practice
And the sentry's challenge echoing all day long;

A Yorkshire terrier ran in and out by the gate-lodge
Barred to civilians, yapping as if taking affront;
Marching at ease and singing 'Who Killed **** Robin?'
The troops went out by the lodge and off to the Front.

The steamer was camouflaged that took me to England-
Sweat and khaki in the Carlisle train;
I thought that the war would last for ever and sugar
be always rationed and that never again

Would the weekly papers not have photos of sandbags
And my governess not make bandages from moss
And people not have maps above the fireplace
With flags on pins moving across and across-

Across the hawthorn hedge the noise of bugles,
Flares across the night,
Somewhere on the lough was a prison ship for Germans,
A cage across their sight.

I went to school in Dorset, the world of parents
Contracted into a puppet world of sons
Far from the mill girls, the smell of porter, the salt-mines
And the soldiers with their guns.




Louis Macneice
I looked for Louis MacNeice on HP but couldn't find him, so have posted some of his poetry in case someone else comes looking too..
r  Apr 2014
Swim
r Apr 2014
Somedays, the tide only laughs
at the sandbags we put up.
When the ocean of emotion
breaks with waves above our hearts,
we swim or drown.

The swell of current overrides
and riptides pull us down.
Move parallel to shore against the tide
till firmer ground is found.
Swim.

r ~ 4/6/14
Brandon Barnett  Apr 2012
HORNET
Brandon Barnett Apr 2012
prepared for any kind of fight; rifle, helmet, knife, even glaring teeth
she comes at me like I'm a hive of bees
but who can blame her, after all, who's really adequately prepared to handle me

she only cuts shallow and jabs, never stabs for the heart
unlike me, she won't ****, unsuited to play that part
she's a survivor, she heals, I'm a comet in it's one bright radiance before breaking apart

anxiety makes you shudder like a dump truck coming down a bumpy street
depression dictates who you call, when you work, what you eat
if you're not bipolar then i'm afraid the three of us will probably never meet

punching clinched fists through doors is a cheap circus trick
but taking out the anger is dangerous without something to hit
because it pours it up, tries to drink itself down, and drowns everything around it

my remorse stiffens me in bed next to her sleepless I wear the darkness, rigamortis and black suit
I feel my poison wilt her, bend her stems, dull her colors, shrink her roots
i have burned all the wood in her pile just getting started a fire the size of my selfish pursuits

carrying sandbags roped onto me one parent and sibling at a time
dragging the chains of days barely survived still hooked into my skin like the other memories of their kind
I stall her pace, hold her back, make her trudge uphill, I make her climb
but her undaunting patience somehow persists in her, in me: still, calm waters sublime

She comes at me like I'm a hive of bees prepared for any king of fight
only wanting to save me, to heal me, to give sleep back to my nights
bread for it, I show teeth and cut for blood and she continues to be the definition of grace in my life

— The End —