"arrhythmia" poems
writing songs sans artifice,
that grow better different,
different better,
the lyrics of a man growing older,
insides out, featuring his slips, all showing,
eyes squinting from hard lifestyle experience,
taking on wearied shades of beige yellowing,
a tanned blackness, time edits them, so now,
they sound the same but holier,
from the hazing of hazards
one builds for and by himself,
drilling & extracting the spit-shine of
all that all is fine,
but liquor & cat's paw black shoe polish
just can't quite cover 'em up (2),
the stabbing itch each of the every time
one quests and questions
his ego,
always another test…
why would I ever want that?
his fingers create tinkling at rapido pace,
tinkling an arrhythmia of rhymes
previously perviously (1) unseen,
self exploration, that we all realize
is an unforgiving, never ending,
source of melodic crying out loud;
and when the sensual, arrayed pleasures,
begin to bore
holes of no important consequence,
the querys~to~self get even harder
to explicate what they intimate,
who they implicate,
which parts of you,
failed to answer satisfactorily…
why would I want want that
forever?
Aug 2, 2025
Aug 2, 2025 at 2:11 PM UTC
words fall
like hapless fledglings
tossed from a cliff edged nest
with much screeching, squawking,
countless feathers lost
and then an awful thump
or hopeful, glorious flight
first love is tachycardiac love
all adrenaline, sweating palms
and stutter-stumbling sqeakings,
ungainly gropings,
when not with you, mopings
unrealistic hopings
for happy ever after endings,
breakings, bendings,
awkward mendings,
repeated leavings,
repented lovings.
heartfelt givings,
of broken hearted rendings.
lendings,
of time stolen from life
tearing, teasing,
tantalising teamings
crying, begging,
pleading strife
and then,
the metaphorical knife
cutting, slashing,
wordblow bashing,
screaming, reaming,
end to loves life.
til eventually, words fall,
like old birds leavings
to settle, unremarked upon
at the base of the tree of life.
first love's loss, is slow dying.
arrhythmia to flatline
in a multitude of laboured breaths
and long lingering sighs.
a loss of warmth,
from breast and thighs
and water copious,
falling from red rimed eyes.
sobbing, murmuring,
don't know whys?
from lips turned
toward,
bleakset skies.
as one settles firmly,
into black dog muck
no longer able to give a f▼ck.
tucked in tight to sadness,
lost all sight of former gladness,
caught up and shackled tight,
to the badness
around and around,
the carousel goes.
then,
at last,
the blessed silence,
as you die
one of many of....
life's little deaths
Apr 4, 2015
Apr 4, 2015 at 8:25 PM UTC
a gift for Aladdin Aures H
from his 3rd follower...
<>><<>
the inescapable need,
unformed firmament
inquiring; am I capable?
the impulse palpable,
the urge to urgent,
to gorge and disgorge?
instead of morning prayers,
precomposed and ordered,
morning poem plucked from
morning fog, gusted breezes,
early-on, newborn sun rays,
progeny of disheveled skies
words fused, in irregular sizes,
senses censured by drowsy eyes,
but the chest beating arrhythmia
means bursts of free verses
superimposed on reluctant eyelids,
jigsaw puzzlement be re-conformed
and the first poem of the day,
emerges from the intersection
of mind, pale dreams, and the
first is special till the neu morrow,
when fresh bursts explode inward
to windward, and the first is just
yesterday's mesh of hash,
once formidable, now last,
pinned, yellowing, purely a
**descendant of the recent,
but always, ancient past*^
Jun 19, 2025
Jun 19, 2025 at 3:13 PM UTC
I am but a single
dry dead leaf
laying beneath an endless willow tree
around the waters bend
close to the toadstool pow-wows
only inhabited by the faeries.
& the moon- she still shine,
captured but by a sphere, yet so free
her light may breathe
a chilling, frigid touch
between the memories you
have buried so deep.
So please do not fret your wondrous mind
over all of your insecurities,
though she may shine with a chilling reminder
I promise that in your eyes
a beautiful soul
is all she sees.
As my mind races I feel
I am unable to describe
the exact emotion you
have gently
injected into my mind.
My eyelids grow heavy
my minds afloat to space
all that is left in my world as I know it,
is the perfection on your face
You see darling,
I am a hija de la luna;
the stars will align with
Castor & Pollux
Cancer, Aphrodite, & Fortuna.
They greet me as old friends,
join me in my nights of fantasy.
tell me darling what do these strange constellations mean?
Oh how I pity thy cataracts
eyes white & glassy
but I promise the warmth will melt your frozen gaze
& in time, you will see.
The horizon shifts as I do to you,
how long do you wish to be at sea?
Alas, you know my poison
doubt seeps into my skin
like an 80 patch.
Through thick & thin,
even on the sorest of feet
I will skip merrily along your path.
Round my head I gaze,
The sky has been stained
with fuchsia & clementine
among the blues.
tell me again, how may I find your presence within the hues?
Wrap yourself within my blanket
of ease & security.
Trust me with your life or not,
for I want to be
there, when you most
need me
You cannot help
you are a broken bird
I cannot deny my psyche as it worries
*does a dove not care about her nest back home
when she soars above
the sea?*
Next to the beating arrhythmia
you try hold dear ‘twixt your ribs
my favourite poem of yours has changed
where I will weave a small nest
dream of your lips
& the sound of rain.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 8:16 PM UTC
Do you like science? Cause I've got my ion you
we're a dance of subatomic particles, you get my cardiovascular system worked up
"Nerd," you declare with a smile sweeter than C6H12O6
I glare at you and giggle louder than 194 decibels, we break all the laws
I'm so attracted to you, scientists will have to make a 5th fundamental force
we fit together like sticky ends of DNA
I fall in love with you every time I see you, faster than my DNA replicates
being in your arms feels like homeostasis, we'll last longer than thorium
I think I'm kinda maybe trying to say
every time light reflects off of you and onto my retina the sudden protracted cardiac arrhythmia I get tells me that gulp Iloveyou
Aug 10, 2016
Aug 10, 2016 at 11:01 AM UTC
Your naked fragrance darkens over my skin...
Intoxication;
A scent of Autumn-eyes
Spilling colours upon
Willing flesh;
A slave to silken smooth,
He sways...
Dancing beneath jewels of lust,
Softly weeping...
Soft;
The quiver pulse
Tangles tender ache,
His touch'
Skin blushed
Breathless, beneath arrhythmia's void,
Fire-lips,
Tongue bathe the swollen-flower,
Licked wicked...
Slow;
The shades of ever moon
Fill her yearn,
A dark warmth,
Her own heartbeat,
Impatiently submissive
To his fire-tongue velvet;
And throbbing wild
The pulse of passion
D
R
I
P
S...
Breathless;
His wet of fevered song
Smooth, across satin thighs,
Parting;
Her river's pearled release
Cascading...
Open mouthed
He tastes the rippled, hushed
D
E
S
I
R
E
A blushed-pour down
Rhythm, bucking hard
Against his eager tongue;
The unexpected silk of orchids,
Lip feed
Whispers through her heart skin
And
Surrender,
Quivers,
Warm against his mouth..........
Oct 9, 2012
Oct 9, 2012 at 1:55 PM UTC
I reach deep inside of myself
hoping to pull something out.
Tickling, teasing,
A game I like to play.
I know the risks:
Dehydration, fatigue, tooth decay, osteoporosis, anemia, hypotension, arrhythmia, cardiac arrest, death.
I roll the dice, because in this moment
I know I’d rather die than keep the Poison inside.
So, I dig, deep, into the dark,
Until I hit it: X marks the spot.
Tease it out. Force it out.
The treasure spills from the core of me.
I win.
I am emptied over and over and over again,
Until there is nothing left of the Poison and nothing left of me.
Feb 4, 2019
Feb 4, 2019 at 4:46 PM UTC
I first noticed my abnormal heartbeat
in Duluth, Minnesota.
Standing across the canal from you
separated by water
and the waves waves waves.
I still swear to this day
that it was your breath I heard
mingling with the hush of water.
The next time I notice my heart
we’re at the hospital.
You tell me to uncross my ankles
and hold out my wrist
your thumb brushing over the more delicate part of its skin
and your stethoscope cold on my throat.
It’s only a
one-two-three
four
before you’re pulling away
my pulse going with you.
I don’t care if I have to live with arrhythmia
live with the pills and the appointments
and the lack of a steady thump thump thump
in my chest.
Just the ghost of the feel
of your thumb on my pulse point
on my wrist
on my neck
curving behind my ear
and my hand on your heart
with your thump thump thump,
will keep my blood flowing.
I’m a girl with a broken heart
and I’m in love with a cardiologist.
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 1:39 AM UTC
<6:36 AM>
~for Joanne Louise Veronika~
patches of light, snatches of sleep,
cumulative tallies of every 24 hour arrhythmia,
detect heart alarms ringing, watch warnings screeching beeping
who cares!
new commitment, self imposed!
greet the early ones with sooth and java,
a combination, “all across the nation,”
ease them in from sleeply lyrical dreams,
to a clear sky, renew anew, bay waters
running new tide fast, tiny tendrils of water points,
etch-a-sketch paths to a calm souls restoration
the smoke haze bad dream departed,
sun rays warmth for the invisible innards,
waves look like the EKG of human at peace,
resting heart rate steady and rhythmically sweet
and I laugh at myself, preposterous!
this is my secret path to restoration,
please laugh at me, join the raucous joy
of not-taking-yourself too seriously,
meaning of a new light, fresh waters,
of an old friend, the same diurnal perspective,
a new alphabet that spells but a singular duality,
a two-word~poem of
meditative perfection:
calm sheltering
Jun 10, 2023
Jun 10, 2023 at 7:05 AM UTC
i fell in love with you
once
long ago
with my eyes closed
and the dream-screen drawn
we danced
like music notes across their barred landscape
we danced
the loveliest late-night lullaby
you became my hiding place
lilac and lace linens
stretched over a lumpy matress
my indiana jones
waiting patently and poetically
in a long-lost temple of slumber
you come back to me in waves
softly and subtly
while i'm half awake
you're kissing the broken down shorelines of an insomniacs holiday
i wish i could keep you
like an empty bottle in the window-sill
or a heart arrhythmia
this lonely romantics cardiovascular waltz
let me snag you up from my dream-dust
and stitch you to my sole like a lost boys shadow
let me find you in my reality
tip-toeing over an underlined paragraph
of a beer stained paper-back
i'll find you
someday
after a long-over-due nights sleep
perhaps in the guitar strings
or type-writer keys
or at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey in the ever-humming freezer
be mine
evasive valentine
i'll even let you hide in the curls of my hair
or under my fingernails
i'll keep you
if you'll let me
just don't forget me
come sun-up
when you gallup away
from my sub-conscious escape
take my heart-rate with you
tucked into your breast-pocket
like a floral handkercheif
or a photogaraph taped to the dash
come back
to the grey matter kingdom
tucked behind my eyelashes
i'll meet you in the idiosyncrasies of my synapses
writing love stories that never once happened
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 12:56 PM UTC
<Sun May 14 5:00 AM PST>
Let us be smart about this departure,
time unscheduled, yet leaving inevitable,
the sound of fabric torn, a rent performed,
a ripping, a release of the gripping, connecting
tissue of weft and weave tying parent and child
*(All of us poets, all of us comprehend,
there are two points, two buttonholes
that offer escape or farewell, when we
commence on something new, when we
pen our chest’s demands to exhale, cease the hammering*
*Perhaps, here, just after the third stanza,
the brick enormity of our selected task, on chest,
weighs heavy, boulder difficulties ahead, now fastened
and faster and faster realized, begs us, quit this essay,
return to placid, from an arrhythmia of imploding loss)*
So many fabrics, so many tears, wet and dried,
but upon commencement, the only finish line,
is another commencement, when the (mine-own) rendering
is finalized, beyond repair, when guilt gulfs overflows, flooding
plains of forever pain officiated by signed scar, “here was”
So many separations, varied and variegated,
surficial shallow surgical or plunges, widths of trickle,
depths of deadly plunges, records of inches, dates,
names, new heights inscribed, measured on a door jamb,
lost, erased, when child’s door closes permanently
Came today to the West, to Pacific Ocean entrance,
to celebrate a good boy’s ritualized threshold crossing
over into manhood, both symbolic and and realized,
but tear-up seeing the small child-man leaning in and on
his father’s larger frame, a coinciding giving & taking
no bonds are eternal, for such is life, the weft must be
warped, sundered and separated, so many reasons,
experience speaks, scars are like bandages,protecting
but deceiving, what they cover can never be excised,
a space created, that only oxygen can touch both sides
but never, ever be reperfected, mended,…or finalized
2023
San Francisco
May 14, 2023
May 14, 2023 at 10:07 AM UTC
Whether storms are all numbered, counted, and expelled from heaven's manufacture as sensational, furious strands of wind and rain, who can say? As they arrive, however, it is nonetheless clear that they arrive as effects to sets of circumstances.
I sat up straight as an arrow, freshly awakened from a stirring dream of madness as the latest one arrived, watching the black clouds like mighty arms, struggling and arguing against the trees outside my bedroom window. I had been torn by an invisible hand clutching me by the throat, snatching me from the murk of an ephemeral bedroom.
Engulfed in unsatiated fear, powerless to convulse even the tiniest flesh patch or creak a bone, my body was wrapped in only a gray silken **** cloth. As I lay awake, speechless, thunderbolts cracked.
As I was rendered helpless to petrification, I was surrounded by strike after strike, a confounding series of white bolts striking seven times in each place, following a path of concentric circles around my small bed.
I struggled to move, feeling a moving static across my body like jellyfish stings from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, as I felt the cold chill from each bolt setting my face into a freezing strangulation.
I was pulled away. I faded away from the smoking holes surrounding the bed, the sub-zero chill outside and the torturous heat of fear and arrhythmia pumping spews and spurts through my arteries inside, and I was left to wander in my own fantasia as I stared up to the ceiling above me in my real bed, daydreaming of its meaning in epistomological fashion.
Feb 25, 2013
Feb 25, 2013 at 4:03 PM UTC
And He fetched for my heart
Gentle
Fast
That was beating,
Lub dub
Banging until cracks
Weakened
into a hole
Around my chest.
No longer
Lub dub
But a panicked
Hop hop,
Leg-less run marathon
Out of my rib cage.
Lifeless,
Pumping worry
And jealousy,
Replacing my blood,
Until anxiety rowed
broken sail boats
In my veins.
He grabbed it
Said "Stop."
"Patience."
And that's how the heart learned
How to play the waiting game.
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 12:26 PM UTC
The first day that I met you
My heart was pounding in my chest
But it could have been because
I ran there, to the Starbucks
On the Ave
The one you used to work at
But maybe it wasn't because I was
In such a rush
It could have been the coffee
I've heard that can increase your
Heart rate
Or maybe both of these are wrong
You see, I was born with a slight
Arrhythmia
Which messes with the way my heart beats
But maybe it was my hearts way of saying
This one is the one
There's no way of knowing
But ever since that day
I've been smitten;
Scheduling my whole day around
Getting to see you
And I even remember the first time
I rode in your car
Because
You were worried about me
But it became a regular thing
You drove me home on the nights
You worked a close
And each and every time I fell more and more
And you started to feel like home
Because home is not a place
But a feeling in the heart,
And maybe it was my arrhythmia
But I've felt it since the start
And then you up and left
You moved so far away
But you needed to be with your family
I just wish you could've stayed
So I guess I had to visit
Because I was craving you so much
You see, you're like a drug to me,
You're my ******
My crutch
Because I wouldn't make it
Through every day life
Without your voice to hold onto
And our conversations replaying
Over and over
In my painseeking mind
Play it through
Then rewind
Again and again
I reminisce you
And every time we're together it's like
The world stops
And as we lay together
You tell me
"I can hear your heart beating are you okay?"
And maybe you heard
The arrhythmia
Which is why you were concerned
But my heart pounds in my chest
Like the timpani in an orchestra
And every third beat is half the length of the others,
But that's just the arrhythmia
Feb 7, 2017
Feb 7, 2017 at 10:52 PM UTC
I feel the heat
upon my neck
sparking fire,
just a peck
liberated,
what the heck
kissing lips
& moving hips
touching me
with fingertips
hot and steamy,
& very dreamy
skin of gold
smooth & creamy
inked in breath
& just like death,
come to take me
then forsake me
words you utter,
make me shudder
afterthoughts
a coming morning
& even though
ample warning
your way inside,
you are horning
romancing
of the coming reaper
our feelings go,
so much deeper
not so much,
a peaceful sleeper
cannot wait
or take a pause
surgery needed
for the cause
releasing me,
a lovely clause
plunging knife,
causing pain
cutting out
the ugly vein
taking hold,
a waving mane
telling me,
familiar songs
come inside
where you belong
even if,
they think it wrong
darkened hearts,
climbing walls
a melancholy
southern drawl
like a wanting
Vodoo doll
pounding sound
inside your chest
Am I cursed
or am I blessed?
buried in a loamy nest
heart arrhythmia
taking start
take a blade,
remove my heart
taking love
& pull apart
I hold it beating
in my hands
relieved at last
of its demands
as shadows fall
low in the deep
of promises
we'll never keep
curling toes,
as blood it seeps
colored in cascading red
of endless nights
that I have bled
laid at last, telluric bed
I'm melting slow
into your arms
dissolved into
the haunting charms
glad that I,
just bit the farm
lying in
a field of wheat
covered by
my linen sheets
a **** place
for us to meet
& burning
in the guilty heat
I'll write you here,
inside my room
skies apart,
forgiving gloom
push aside
impending doom
or what dangers
wait & loom
I wait for death
& love
...to bloom
Cherie Nolan © 2016
Oct 9, 2016
Oct 9, 2016 at 4:13 PM UTC
Got home from the hospital late last night
Still can't seem to find my appetite
I can't seem to sit still
There's a hole that I don't know how to fill
I've listened to my ipod non stop
Headphones so loud I feel my ears are gonna pop
The dice will fall as they may
But at the end of the day
I know that they were always loaded
I feel like my life has always been encoded
Protected by a cipher I could never completely break
I never truly understood what was at stake
Until that day last week
When you and I were hanging by the creek
We were laughing and tossing rocks
Just relaxing having good long talks
When my vision started to go hazy
and I know this is crazy
But i knew then that I was dying
And you started crying
I felt a sharp tightening in my chest
I lost consciousness as the attack progressed
I woke up in my hospital bed
The doctors told me that I should be dead
They used phrases like "suffered major cardiac event"
I asked what that meant
I told me that I had a heart attack
I was immediately taken aback
I was only seventeen
This was almost something that was unseen
Arrhythmia was the name of the disease
They said it was easy to manage with medicine and their expertise
But now I can no longer rest
Knowing that I have ticking time bomb in my chest
May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013 at 3:12 AM UTC
my heart is a gasoline guzzler
running on the fumes of burned out
memories, thoughts, and breaths.
my veins play jump rope with my bursting capillaries
and beneath the seam of every heartbeat
is an arrhythmia that smiles back.
no longer is every intake an oxygen a dutiful task.
rather i, as a sovereign animal
convert the anguish into carbon dioxide
because i don't care for the proton pumps
or the electron chains. i am negatively charged
and hidden inside this bubble is a dark cycle
beseeching for the spotlight.
May 6, 2015
May 6, 2015 at 11:54 PM UTC
Intertwine our pulmonaries
Pull tight, tie together our coronaries
My superior vena cava resting near yours
Hear that, the sound of opening ventricle doors
Beautiful looking aortas fixed
Winding together as a double helix
This heart of mine will skip a beat
Just so my arrhythmia and yours might meet
This ticker will only continue to tick
If next to yours it may stick
Not a murmur because of bad health
A murmuring of loves bountiful wealth
Atrium to atrium, heart to heart:
Blood's continual pumping, so long as our valves never part.
Dec 24, 2012
Dec 24, 2012 at 6:44 PM UTC
the post-mortem will say:
sudden cardiac arrest
(medicine cannot quantify
death by a broken heart).
i thought it was sweet,
the arrhythmia you gave me
(at least the butterflies
dissolved harmlessly in acid).
you knew me, invasively,
a mortician's secret autopsy
(you counting my scars, ribs,
was it more habit than desire?)
curiosity is what killed me;
mine and yours, ill-matched
(i would have preferred cruelty
to your cool detachment).
the post-mortem has found:
i died of natural causes
(which makes you, my heart-
breaker, a force of nature)
Sep 3, 2018
Sep 3, 2018 at 7:15 AM UTC
At times it happens that I sleep for days
wherever I am
in an absolute, uninterrupted dream.
Almost no one notices, I myself
Don’t notice it half of the time
At times like that, I’d sit with you
With a quiet blue feeling
I’d be morose or joyful
I’d breathe you
Relaxed
And be afraid when there is a reason to be.
I would tremble with my new found arrhythmia,
Faint over devils,
Over beautiful lads with sunny eyes
Because my body follows my mind
And my mind is patching together a long time now
Strength
For new attacks,
From past attacks.
And it can’t seem to gather more than a cord
A ******* cord, umbilical
From when I was born
Stored in a drawer in the bedroom
Which formerly had paint brushes but
Lately, after my mother makes more mosaics
Than paintings
There is only years’ worth of junk
The other day, I opened it,
And found the cord
In excellent condition
I considered selling it on an auction
so I have more money for a dress
But realized that people don’t normally care for
excellently kept umbilical cords.
Then I decided that I’d tie it around my head
Like a turban
I figured it would bring me back the connection
It would erase my independence
In the past twenty years
That it would make me less alone
in myself.
But what it did was:
It wrapped tighter around my ears
Forcing me to hear my cry
Right after I got out of there
Right after I’d taken my breath
And believe me,
I haven’t cried like that since.
Feb 27, 2013
Feb 27, 2013 at 3:21 PM UTC
Festive friends
We flourish in a flurry
Of stellar staccatos.
Crescendo of chemicals
Starlight suspended
Marvel at moonlight
Dance of dust
Airborne arrhythmia
Lachrymal lust
May 15, 2013
May 15, 2013 at 4:09 AM UTC