"arthritic" poems
Albert had an ARTHRITIC knee
which gave him curry
The core of a BOIL is oft hard
to extract
Yesterday June experienced
a server stomach CRAMP
Too much dry weather
can cause the outer DERMAL layer to peel
Never read in a poorly lit room
for you'll have EYE strain
After eating spicy pickles
dad had bad FLATULENCE
Some twenty eight years ago
my friend Helen had her GALLBLADDER removed
They say that a glass of water
will stop HICCUPS
From end to end
our INTESTINAL tract is thirty foot long
On Sunday afternoon John
broke his JAW playing football
Some people have
very boney KNUCKLES
One of my work colleagues
is prone to getting LARYNGITIS
Colin suffers terribly
with MIGRAINE headaches
Sometimes people tend
to endlessly NAVAL gaze
A woman's OVARIES need to be checked
on a regular basis for any abnormalities
The PANCREAS secrets a hormone
known as insulin
QUININE once was extensively used
in the treatment of Malaria
Since my sister has put on weight
she cannot find her RIBS
The STIRRUP bone lies
within one's ear
Dan Aykroyd the famous comic star
has webbed TOES
Should you bump your ULNA bone
it may give you reason to groan
The VARICOSE VEINS is great aunt Ruby's legs
were very pronounced
Does anyone know of a good remedy
for unsightly WARTS
At our local hospital
we have an antiquated X-RAY machine
As tiredness and weariness sets in
one YAWNS quite a lot
****** ZOSTER can make
a person constantly itch
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 1:31 AM UTC
It turned cold quickly
Almost skipping Autumn
Reluctant to wear a jacket
Or a hat, or gloves
Too distant for my arms
To keep him warm against my chest
He said he never wore a scarf
But if he did, he would go Dr. Who style
I had to laugh as i looked up the reference
Fifteen feet of mismatched stripes
Maybe not the stripes, he said
I happened upon a huge skein of yarn
It felt like a warm blanket in the oddest,
Most interesting colors
Manly, neutral, and perfect for Fall
So i crocheted a scarf and pictured him warm
The pattern in those colors was a mess
I chuckled at why they would make such an ugly pattern
I crocheted every stitch with love
Through arthritic hands that felt no pain
I crocheted a scarf, stopping only when it dragged the floor when i put it on
Two feet short, but ridiculously long
I bordered it in shades of green to match
Not realizing it was variegated into Brown's and maroons along the way
But it matched the odd mix of colors
And finally made it almost pretty to me
I covered myself in perfume
And put it around my neck
As I turned I caught a glimpse in the mirror
It wasn't a horrible amalgamation of hideous colors
It was camouflage, with a matching border
I laughed so hard, and felt so bad
My hillbilly in camouflage
Wearing a scarf way too long
Maybe he would hate it
Maybe he won't wear it
I knew better
So, I packed up his bag of gifts
And sent it to the frozen mountains
He never wore a scarf
He opened it and put it on
It smells like You, he said in blssful remembrances
It's definitely camouflage, he laughed
It's perfect baby, I'll wear it whenever it's cold
And in the picture he sent
I saw its beauty
It wasn't in the patterns of crisscrossing colors
It wasn't in the accidental way
The border perfectly complimented the body
It wasn't in the fact that he would be able
To wrap himself up in me to stay warm
It was in that picture
It was the joy that filled his smile
It was in his eyes that danced in love
It was in the fact that he believes
Because i made it, it's perfect
Yes, i accidentally crocheted a thirteen foot camouflage scarf
And he loves that I can keep him warm.
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 4:23 AM UTC
good morning, my angel
my living lullaby
i glide across the fairest skin, you are the fairest one
of all. Good morning, my mother
my broken candle
you gave me the wax that has melted on many tablecloths
i feel I have lost you now, as I had lost you then.
Good morning, my first love
my little bridge
your mittens were warm when I needed heat
when I was so cold the tears froze onto my cheeks.
you ran me a bath a being
of divinity
we held each other in your father’s tub and laughed
at the bubbling abundance, burgeoning in overflow.
I wake to the puddle of your memory
That has grown since we last met, since I have wept
For the love I have not kept in place. Good
morning hindered lover, who worships me in forbidden light
a thousand songs have yet transpired born
from a single thought of you.
Inhibited inspiration,
camouflage constellation, I kiss you now
though I will always be
Years away from where you lie.
Good morning dear father, a forester
Braver than the lone wolf and his
solitary howl. The lesson of the arthritic toe shows you
True appreciation for the pain of existence.
You are the most loyal flame, my gratitude is overwhelming
Each time I embrace the past and the mistakes, unconscious
From the broken record
And its echo off the wall.
Good mourning to the loss of a lover, an ephemeral flame.
Good mourning to the death of a friendship, to the longing for a ****
Good mourning to the future in its casket,
That awaits a new life for me
In song.
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 8:59 PM UTC
Health reflects plateaus,
Thick tears running like rivers,
Arthritic mountains,
Wrinkles ripple at beaches,
Plains welcome the exhausted,
Suburbs look peaceful,
Rural childhood decomposed,
Urban amnesia,
Roads outline the senile brain,
Destination: nostalgia.
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 3:14 AM UTC
After the first astounding rush,
after the weeks at the lake,
the crystal, the clouds, the water lapping the rocks,
the snow breaking under our boots like skin,
& the long mornings in bed. . .
After the tangos in the kitchen,
& our eyes fixed on each other at dinner,
as if we would eat with our lids,
as if we would swallow each other. . .
I find you still
here beside me in bed,
(while my pen scratches the pad
& your skin glows as you read)
& my whole life so mellowed & changed
that at times I cannot remember
the crimp in my heart that brought me to you,
the pain of a marriage like an old ache,
a husband like an arthritic knuckle.
Here, living with you,
love is still the only subject that matters.
I open to you like a flowering wound,
or a trough in the sea filled with dreaming fish,
or a steaming chasm of earth
split by a major quake.
You changed the topography.
Where valleys were,
there are now mountains.
Where deserts were,
there now are seas.
We rub each other,
but we do not wear away.
The sand gets finer
& our skins turn silk.
4k
I lived my half dictionary life before I could
comprehend compulsory compromises.
Collectors arise, disguises and devices beeping,
chastising my blindness.
Gather geography from Afghanistan and Myanmar
graciously growing gold gilded gift horses,
gleefully gloating about floating far away.
My hoof beats above concrete match my heart’s defeat
across borders and mountains
embroidering cardboard cut-outs
calling deserts, decorating front covers.
Exhaling handcrafted letters for my missing half,
half demanding highest caliber commanders and half commanding completion.
Jade jays joyfully lay arrays of bouquets
fragile flowers decay faraway
in jawbones and jail cells.
Begging farewells in a hotel’s lobby
began my hobby,
early morning coffee and carbon copies
concurringly cocky around his dead body.
Gang ciphers for cartels are
Christmas bells hissing at collars,
half dollars embellishing bar crawlers
godfathers hollering at car haulers.
Atrocities across cities attack,
attachable atrophies audibly ambush arthritic anthologies.
Anomalies begin apologies between apostrophes,
advancing autonomy arousing ancient animosities.
All eluding Antarctica,
giant frozen crests, multi-coloured ice
hidden in my illustrations
anxious for my distant half.
Friday cassettes and cigarettes
deliberately making bets following “M”.
Breaking bindings and finding “beta” in alphabet,
may feasibly end in debt.
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 1:51 PM UTC
I’m singing the blues
Saying good bye to my shoes
The red patent high heels
With the shine that appeals
The shoes that made me feel hot
Whether I looked it or not
Made me walk with a wiggle
Made my back side jiggle
Gave me a **** demeanour
Made my legs feel leaner
Helped me walk tall
On the days I felt small
The same red shoes, so sweet
That are now tight on my feet
Which squash my big toe
And somehow, they know
That I’ve got dickie knees
So I’ll never wear skis
Not to mention arthritic hips
Which cause a total eclipse
When I bend over
And moreover
I walk just like I’ve got off my horse
So I’ve got to bid farewell, of course
Part company with my lovely red shoes
That is why I’m singing the blues
…..They should sell on ebay pretty quick
….. I’ll spend the money on a walking stick
©Nicki Tilston
Oct 31, 2015
Oct 31, 2015 at 9:13 PM UTC
In the Boondocks of the Ozarks
Salty caramel smelt of August
Swathes stench of rotten trailer parks
Imprisons barren mid-west dust
Feral fevered kids a hunting
For to cool; shoot up, or drink
Arthritic railroad; tie and shunting
Ferrous old town wretched on the brink
Since the cease of mine and logging
Depletion of iron lead and zinc
Nag horse too dead for flogging
Folks futures draining down the sink
Some respite in the summer heat
RV’s; tourists and campers for trails
Like blackfly plague pick off the meat
Fly fast; escape as another harvest fails
Dark currents pepper darker mood
Intolerance grinds in the daily way
Resentment bread as only food
At someone’s door the blame shall lay
In the graveyard of the Ozarks
Rednecks dance on industry tombs
Burn brown smoke spice. Moonshine sparks
Oblivion; no life. Back to mothers' womb
©pofacedpoetry (Billy Reynard-Bowness 2018 – All rights reserved)
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 8:06 AM UTC
in the clay *** by the window
the arthritic orchid
unsticks its tongue
and with fat-knuckled roots
pokes the dust for water
the crayon sun emerges from the clouds
and draws the water from the garden
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 4:46 PM UTC
The sleet is drawing boxes 'round
our mud-and-snow sashed towns.
We'll check 'em off
with crunching footsteps,
slash our gallows grins through static
weather. Nervous laughter fights off winter
while somnambulist nights
hold the anthill days at bay.
And each repeated conversation
coats a thrumming undercurrent
echoed by the groaning rivers
in their arthritic fatigue.
where the ice piles up
like car wrecks.
And, out of those disastrous angles,
jumps up and trips back down.
Blinking eyelids, right then left.
Sunrises. Sunsets.
Dusks and dawns in places familiar
wading through liminal space.
Circles darkened. Footprints filled in.
The heat just circles lazily.
Our flushed and clammy brows
will **** askance
and sweat while footsteps
melt our swaying way through boiling
sidewalks. Nervous laughter dulls the impact
of seared, rapid fire nights.
"Ha." "Ha." Shrug off another.
And all repeated reminiscence
does is hamstring overthinking
of the closing jaws of traps
in these rusting western towns.
where winds breathe dust
by mouthfuls
So, into our familiar mishaps,
***** up and falls back down
melting into neighborhoods
dress down, upbraid us.
'Til our feet do not walk circles
'round these wilting Western towns.
Jan 9, 2015
Jan 9, 2015 at 6:09 PM UTC
The message is simple, the delivery hard,
even as his eyes cut holes for it to enter.
White rims that flash, like beasts that spar
Natural strobes flicker, to thicken the black center.
When intent is replied with padded knuckle intent
Ungraceful, his neck turns past comforts vector.
I turn away to close a window from the storm.
Thought pathways like drunken footprints stepped
but a spark in the cloud of numbness replies.
My clenched thumb releases his bicep
And the arthritic cogs inside us violently un-subside.
Those muscle strings in my handwriting
to the letter the red bull replies,
but rain breaks my gaze to the window.
Knuckles like bruised alps in formation;
the boy’s got blood lightning in his eyes,
And so have I. ***** in the sockets I’m pushing on,
to revel in colors of my ****** mind’s sky.
I hurt myself to try telling that one ****** idea.
Tasting the punch, spitting iron, my Boxer I despise.
The classic writer’s hand ache makes me relinquish my pen.
Those axons, which lead to nothing,
they have now reached it.
Flayed to the winds.
The eye’s blinds closed completely.
In darkness, rasping breath resounding
and the lungs like strained gluttons for life
are clearly mocking the hearts desperate beating.
I put the pen horizontal to the desk.
It possesses all the use of a dead man’s organs.
But the sway, rains sweat from hair down to skin,
Then to polish the padded domes of pain.
When flesh rolls like thunder, bones crack like lightning.
His legs, my pen and both our minds are jarred from this refrain.
And upon the strike,
I’ll polish words and pad their meaning,
Punch the reader,
And enjoy the force that they contain.
Aug 25, 2013
Aug 25, 2013 at 7:18 PM UTC
In a world where traumas are written all over our bodies
He has a bipolar jaw line and a suicidal knee cap,
collapsing and shaking
and reverberating his thoughts through his PTSD lip.
It quivers, and she looks away with an autistic eyelid.
See her a deaf cheek?
Their blind foreheads fluctuate, and their arthritic fingers vibrate.
Reynard’s Disease. Or Disorder IV. Perhaps,
one we’ve never heard before consumes the heart that’s about to break.
....
This was read at the University of Kansas in May of 2013: Read more about this event here:
http://shannonathompson.com/2013/05/10/contest-winners-and-poetry-from-my-ku-reading/
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 4:41 PM UTC
Writhing, the screeching leviathan demands
And I cave to save the aching from tricky time slopes
Pained craving
Wavering but
Hit and
It’s all loosey goosey goodness
Sensing silent magma pulse, whoosh the tummy tingles
Droopy ears gape-face giggle no more nowadays
A stern turn in old age the silly phase of
Too bright, neon common numb tongue rambles
Secedes into introspective
Crowded walks, broken talks strung into threats clustered and
Flung like monkey **** at many-stabbed ego, Brutus?
Strangers will eat you
The professor thinks I’m funny because
I know the answers in class
The other day Dingus
And Whoseewhatsee tried to alley mug and hurt and end
And money!
No, rocked nose ran dude! Fine
Trying not to fear the outdoors, though
The arthropods and phantoms tell me ***** jokes
And not to eat my candy
Books melt into soupy mercurial elixir
I slurp them and belch
Educating myself in a barn ******* knowledge
On loud faces; empty meat
Where you can hear the jingly metal
Thing when you shake it, it’s dead no flower
They don’t always like me
But
I’ve got the jeepers creepers behind my peepers
And a million lightyears to burn
Truth is worth dying
Four **** sow
Izzeny thing these daze
Maybe it was a bust from the start but there’s
Always art
Quieting the plague that revealed
Not so good after all
Tiny thorns and all-consuming
Waves of red-get-out wrenching, gutted like a fish
Overcome, that never went away or found
A place to sit
Memories arthritic grind a grim gray whetting stone
Reduce with juice-cloud, grape teeth cough will never find a home
Dec 23, 2012
Dec 23, 2012 at 4:51 PM UTC
These hands have done it all
They're tough as wire rope
They've fought to defend freedom
They've carried flags of hope
They've wiped away the salty tears
Of a mother, full of pride
They've folded up our nations flag
For a son, with honor, died
They've held a newborn really close
They've birthed a newborn calf
They've taken down a hundred men
And a hundred more, by half
These hands don't represent me
But, these hands have done it all
They've done eight seconds on a bull
And they've broken through a wall
These hands are soft as leather
And as hard as Georgia Clay
What they did so long before
They can not do today
These hand are all arthritic
Crippled up, and full of pain
But,you know these hands would love just once
To grab that rope again
These hands are full of memories
Built for strength, and not for speed
These hands are built to hold you
Even now, that's all I need
These hands, they tell my story
My life, is in these hands
I don't look at them as crippled
I just look and think....These Hands....
Sep 7, 2015
Sep 7, 2015 at 4:46 PM UTC
I sleep in my cardboard cottage
That is my current job.
I keep it neat and clean as I can
I am not a slob.
I have my own place staked out
Everyone knows it’s mine.
It keeps the wind off as I doze.
It isn’t perfect but it’s fine.
Part of my job these days is easy;
I set out a cup and sing.
It doesn’t make me a million
But it is something.
When the weather warrants it
I sleep in the park
In the bright warm sunshine;
Stay awake in the dark.
It seems the citizens and cops
All leave me alone
Even though they still talk to me
With condescending tone,
Tsking at my laziness in general
Give the charity buck
Or maybe a quarter when they see
Since I’m down on my luck.
There’s this guy Hay Soose
But he spells it Jesus.
He could spell it that way
If he so pleases
But that don’t keep him dry
Whenever it rains
And it doesn’t stave most of the
Deep arthritic pains
From sleeping under cardboard
As his only roof.
Watch him shiver in winter if
You want some proof.
People have gotten to know me
As I’m here every day.
Some of the even come by with
Nice words to say.
And, I am used to the noise here;
The horns and the noise
Of the workaday world of these folks;
These grownup girls and boys.
Some tell me to go find some work,
I don’t get mad and shout.
I understand they have some hostilities
They have yet to work out.
Some of my neighbors here in cardboard
Dwell here because they
Can’t seem to work life out for themselves
In any other way.
People fire them from any employment
Because they act weird.
Some refuse to bathe or maybe it is
They refuse to cut their beard.
As for me I have had enough of it all;
The rattle and the hum.
I know society has a lot to offer but
I already had some.
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 2:51 PM UTC
...---...
...---.... ...---...
...---... ...---... ...---...
my frantic fingers tap the telegraph
tapping tentatively , taking time
to repeat the single word
...dot, dot, dot, dash, dash , dash, dot, dot, dot...
---
tapping away like a cricket with arthritis
sending my signals and sounds into the night...
...dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot , dot , dot...
---
but the neighbourhood sleeps quietly
and no one cares for an arthritic cricket
singing its song into the endless radio silence...
because dots and dashes are nothing more than
humble beginnings in 96.09.21
and the life dashes by and flat-lines on
a marble stone
1996 - (pretty soon)
...---...
...---... ...---...
...---... ...---... ...---...
dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dot, dot
dot, dot, dot, Dash, Dash, Dash, DOT, DOT, DOT
dot, dot, Dot, DASH, DASH, DASH, DOT, DOT, DOT
DOT, DOT, DOT, DASH, DASH, DASH, DOT, DOT, DOT
DOT, DOT, DOT, DASH...-------------------------------------------------------
the drummers pack away their drums, the beat forever fades
the thunder stops to rumble, from now on only clear days
my finger stops its tapping, lies numb across the telegraph
and somewhere outside... and arthritic cricket...
turns silent from its wrath
and the dots and dashes ...
that's been beating all this time...
my hearts stops singing with them...
and ends with one flat line
WvWWvVvv-v-v---------------------------------------------------
Jan 1, 2014
Jan 1, 2014 at 7:40 AM UTC
(almost) 60:
So what?
It’s only
a lonely
number,
A digit,
A widget
A speck
At 60:
Some are happy
But some, alone
Without a home
Others widowed,
Divorced
or forced
into Invisibility.
We are who we are.
Some poor,
some rich,
some think it’s a *****
Black or white,
gay or straight
love or hate.
Life is what we make it
Growing older
has its perks.
There’s Social Security,
more maturity,
AARP.
Medicare,
blue hair,
Sr. Discount @ McDonald’s
Replace a hip.
Botox a lip.
The knee’s arthritic,
the stomach acidic.
Life is fragile,
And just like that!
Snap!
It could be gone!
Meandering down
the road of life.
Oblivious.
Lascivious.
A relationship, or two.
Stopping for a beer,
having a career,
driving with the top down.
Then… SLAM….
brick wall ahead….SIXTY!
Screech of brakes.
For God’s sake.
Sixty’s the new forty?
********
Deal with it.
Get your head on straight.
It was Pete Townsend
who penned,
“I hope I die before I am old.”
Truth be told?
Older makes wiser.
Wiser makes sense.
Truth to dispense,
and still a lot to learn,
Growing old “gracefully"
is an art in itself.
From middle age
to Sage,
we step into our skin,
and rejoice
our voice
is heard
I will be thankful!
I’ll thank the Lord each day!
For my three gorgeous girls,
the best friends in the world,
and a job that pays the bills.
Wealth,
My health
To love myself
At 60.
Sixty is ****
If I lived through the sixties, I can live through the 60’s.
(maybe a **** or two would help though)
Feb 14, 2010
Feb 14, 2010 at 7:18 PM UTC
This is a true story of Sniper’s ally
The old man carried a cello and a stool
Bullets divided wind
So many straight lines he could see them like sheet music
He sat the stool down in the middle of the street
Held his cello
And played under the gunshots
Until everything was quiet
And in the outdoor acoustics
Made by apartment buildings and the morning cold
He played a fifteen minute rendition of heartache
On a cello tuned to the key of thunder
His high notes were so much screaming
And the deep low notes bellowed his hunger
It was the simple sound of savagery
When people needed another way to know what pain sounds like
They could hear it in the way that the strings
Absorbed the rust from his arthritic fingertips
Scraping the sound of struggle
It was the most painfully beautiful music
He played to the soft continuous metronome click of reloading
Beauty like a rose that dies in the hair of a girl
Whose own rose is a blooming ****** chest wound
Thought maybe he could replant her
Like the earth might give her back
Anything plucked from the root dies shortly after
He played for her
He played for courage
He played like a prayer to be shot doing what he loved
We all wanna die doing what we love
She was shot picking roses
He played cello
On a playground of bullets
A song that begged
**** me
Where is your god now?
When all you wanted was to be a casualty of love and music
He finished
Beads of sweat like ***** diamonds
As the morning sun mocked him for living another day
Some of us get to walk away from this
Without a single scar
Even if we wanted one
He walked away
And shortly after
The bullets began to do what bullets do
When they pierce flesh
May 16, 2012
May 16, 2012 at 6:58 PM UTC
A full day's work
Has me feeling exhausted,
But as I take hard rights
And skirt the uneven pavement
I am a machine.
I am fused to my seat,
And two spinning plates
And one fork are
Extensions of my will.
The nine point five miles
Seem so much shorter at night,
After the suits have made Their daily rushed exodus,
And the streets and avenues
sleep, quietly.
It rained all day, so the road
Is wearing a blanket of diamonds,
And the motor oil wrinkles shine.
The downpour has filled the world
With fragrance,
And as I pass through
Affluence to arrogance
To intolerance to vagrancy
On my trek across
A divided city
I'm overwhelmed.
Honeysuckle and lilac
Give way to pine and dogwood,
Then car exhaust and a polluted river
Precede wet garbage, dog ****
And marijuana.
I saw my first rat in the District tonight.
Nine months in,
And I've only seen one.
It makes me glad I grew up
Where I did,
Where all you need for
A rat in your apartment
Is a baseball bat
And a Lightning Bolt record.
I'm glad I learned how it feels
To live with two feet
Planted firm to the earth,
To feel harsh 1930s sidewalks
Haphazardly littered
With broken glass
Burn my bare feet
Every summer,
To feel the cool
Narragansett Bay sand
Sleeping just under the surface,
And to feel the sole
Of my five year shoe
Finally give up.
I'm glad I've seen success
From the underside,
So that when my arthritic hands
Finally reach up and grasp it
I'll know what to do with it.
But mostly I'm glad
I get to pull up to my building
At ten past midnight,
Sweaty and tired,
Climb three stories with a
Bike on my shoulder,
Pet my cat, and crawl into
Bed with a warm soul
Who was brought up the same,
With no clouds
For her lovely head
To get lost in.
May 29, 2013
May 29, 2013 at 8:47 AM UTC
We gathered our water
and packs at daybreak
to hike hand in hand
toward the distant ruin—
a tall stone chimney planted
on otherwise empty acreage,
a kudzu-covered tower,
the ghost of a farmhouse
now a home to field mice,
black beetles and bats,
with bricks the color
of weathered blood,
vertebrae stacked
a century and a half ago
by a stonemason’s craft,
still solid and bonded
despite the slow decay
of arthritic mortar.
How long have we
walked together?
The morning
is all we have
left to ponder.
We walk for hours;
the chimney grows
larger at our approach.
I want to ask you
a question about
the night we met,
what you said
just before I held
you for the first time,
but then I catch sight
of my hand and realize
I am walking alone,
moving inexorably
toward a ruination
of my own making.
How could I have been
so careless? Unable
to stop, every step
strips something away:
my hair thins and falls,
as white and weak
as sickled wiregrass;
another step and my
body atomizes into
the stuff of stars,
pollen scattered
on a rising wind.
So this is what it
feels like to decay.
By the time I reach
the ruin I am mostly
cinder and ash,
a sorry vestige
sown in a quiet field,
a forgotten landmark
that strangers will visit,
if only to contemplate
how the evening fog
spindles like smoke
along the enduring
column of my spine.
Feb 9, 2017
Feb 9, 2017 at 4:30 PM UTC
I was once convinced
Everything would
work itself out.
Every problem had a solution
Every fixation, an axis
Every point? purposeful.
Certainly time was an equation.
Solving the question of final age
was merely the addition of years
and the subtraction of moments
our vices swallowed.
Everything was orderly.
Numbers in a row.
Empty boxes, waiting to be checked.
DNA strands coiled ceremoniously
into my exact composure
worried about me so I wouldn't have to.
Days flaking off like dandruff,
unsightly flecks of fragility,
floating toward irreversible fate.
I would live until I wouldn’t.
I would teeter
...skid
....careen
through hours, anxiously awaiting
never taking a breath to rest and reflect.
Death was algebra.
I was subtracted from morality,
added it back as fatality.
Evening out- solving for X,
My many quaking days
having lost their grip.
~
Life is not math.
Life is trash recycled into sporadic moments that won't last.
Simplicity was never synonymous
To consciousness.
Sentient beings will always suffer.
Words will never suffice
When the feelings are out of place.
Attempts at descriptive narrative
only feel like a forced hand,
a poor play.
My slippery fingers are arthritic,
clutching at the vapors
of moments before mistakes.
I've never kept anything I loved.
I have ****** out of hate
more than I have out of lust.
I was always what I wanted to be
never was what I needed to be
And when desire ran dry
I always settled in the dust of desolate decisions.
The bell curve never helped with my grades
And this learning curve can’t help me find my place.
C.e.M. Aug. 11, 2016
Aug 11, 2016
Aug 11, 2016 at 6:24 PM UTC
“The Mass is ended,
go in peace.”
the aged cleric said.
“Thanks be to God”
said some dozen odd
parishioners
who then fled.
The Priest dismissed
his server.
and had turned himself to
go
when he noticed still
one worshiper
kneeling in the seventh row.
She was an older woman,
her head swathed in
a blue scarf.
She was obviously in devotion
before the Sacred Heart.
He thought:
“There is no need to rush”
He shuffled towards the chair.
which is where the Bishop sits
when attending service there.
The aging cleric said a prayer
for the gracious soul’s repose
whose generosity provided
his vestments and his robes.
He next prayed for his friend,
a priest, who’d grown too fond of wine.
He’s consecrating grape juice now
the non alcoholic kind.
He thought:
“it now is getting well past time
I need to lock the doors.”
His urban church had been vandalized
a scant few months before.
He rose up on his arthritic hip
and didn’t cry in pain
He accepted this, his suffering,
in Jesus’ holy name.
As he approached the woman,
Her head bowed as before
He had a vague uneasiness
He experienced fear and awe
She looked up then and he said
“Mother!”
and fell, senseless, on the floor.
His housekeeper found his body
on the floor of fitted stone.
The police found no evidence of foul play,
The priest had died alone.
The M.E. said the heart had failed
Though not from shock or rage
The Lord had called his servant home
to grace a grander stage.
Dec 11, 2011
Dec 11, 2011 at 12:02 PM UTC
I don't promise to drive away your doubts.
I don't promise to drive away your doubts as if
they were shadows and I am the sun rising up out
of your darkness, I cannot erase past lovers or touch
you the way they did because I have never loved someone
beneath the covers, in amber rooms that smell like vanilla and
chicory, I've never took hold of someone and felt there, as
if the moment had been preluded by most everything in my life
we both and breathe and--
I would like to tell you that my love will be outspoken, but it will always be a whisper. A warm breeze that catches the hem of your
shirt and cools the sweat on your back, the soft remnants of a song--
the curious sounds that turn into music in the middle of the night
when the buzz of a hot summer sounds more like a choir, an undulating melody straying through the screen as if it never
meant to find you but it did, love did.
That I will not chase your fears to the absolute ends but approach them
slowly as wounded people, take their arthritic hands and speak softly to them, never recoiling from the faces of your past. Kiss your bruises and lay them out on the porch, every smattering of blue and moss green growing pansies in the garden--
When you tell me your secrets I will wrap them in lace and tell you mine, I will unbutton every layer of every girl i've ever been and show you the list of scars, the tick marks on these ribs where I once was captive in my own body,
I will not pick across your fields and uproot your flaws, I will sit beneath the trees you grew out of sheer anger and coax flowers to grow--Because your mistakes are not things to get rid of, only waxy residue I rub from the leaves with my thumbs, a better part of you that has always been there--that I'll move from the shelves and place on the dining room table, not for me to polish but for you to see--
That you are beautiful. That you refract the daylight just by shifting your head. That even when you are tearing into yourself in vicious rages, you will still be fringed in a splendid brilliance--
I will not take you by force, you are not an expedition, I am not a missionary. I will always ask, always from a distance. So hushed
and subdued,
for you.
Apr 27, 2016
Apr 27, 2016 at 9:29 PM UTC
When insistent morning
forces the cracked blinds
It finds my eyes stuck
Atop a stiff, angry neck.
I wake
And I rumble
My joints grind
the coffee beans
A bit coarse to dank the water
My callused hallux worries the floor
Dripping done, I pour with sore fingers
The steel carafe silver as a nickel
The kitchen sink ablaze and singing
Light reflecting
Last night’s ice cream spoons.
The warm mug soothes
my a.m. arthritis
My arthritic mind coughing cobwebs and sleep.
This moment stands
for itself alone. Truth
can wait until past noon—
it’s coming soon. The truth comes soon.
10/2/2011
Oct 3, 2011
Oct 3, 2011 at 1:25 AM UTC
Your hand fits in mine like it's made just for me,
But bear this in mind, it is meant to be
Since you've dreamed a vision of us together
And I'll love us, you and I, always and forever.
Cause when I'm with you, my world is so different from any hell I'm living
And when you're around me, your eyes light up like the stars have been spilled out along with all the suns of heaven into your eyes
You're the one who seems to love this wildflower so she feels as lovely as the sweetest camelias, and strong enough to push the planets out of orbit
As for you, I only know what you've said to me;
That my kisses are oxygen when you can't breath, and that
You feel such an intense desire to protect me from any potential harm
That you plan to marry and live with me for years to come.
But I know with less certainty than you that we'll be together forever to come
All I know is you love me and you make me feel so loved
More loved than the moon is loved by the sun, chased endlessly and almost futilely for a mere glimpse of her silver face
And I know this is a scientifically proven-to-be-incorrect metaphor, but I still love you
And will love you, until the sun falls into the sea of milk, the knees of those arthritic elephants shake and kneel with feebleness, and the great sea turtle turns belly-up, drowning the world in the Milky Way
And even past then
Past the time where men and spirits fade into ghostly memories, forgotten because there's no one to remember them
Past the time that the sun is finally swallowed and held in the sea, past King Arthur's return, and when the giant serpent finally kills Ra
Past the time when the gods grow tired of their human games, and fall asleep at their chessboards, one hand dipped in the Adriatic and a finger spinning the galaxies ever slower as dust and cobwebs of invisible spiders come to blanket the universe
And even past then, past all these mythological improbabilities, past Death's abandonment of his duties and his scythe while sand no longer runs in glasses and he reaps himself
Past then will I love you and think of the spilled out flaming stars in your eyes and the velvety sparks in your fingertips and lips.
Mar 10, 2014
Mar 10, 2014 at 10:12 PM UTC