"autopsy" poems
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"
We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.
Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.
Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.
146.4k
I am alive by luck at this point.
I wonder if the gun that will eventually take me has been made.
Whose trigger will bury me.
How many bullets, like a flock of sparrows, will come carry my life to its final bed.
Today, I am alive but there is no law to thank.
If not me, then someone else.
Born into a game of chance we never asked for. Traded diplomas for obituaries. Traded graduation speeches for eulogies. Traded futures for an early grave. Forced to cash in their chips. We don’t want to play anymore.
And this too is eulogy. And this too is prayer. And this too can resurrect the coffin wood back to a tree. Can sing back alive whatever parts of you died with them. Whatever leapt in your throat at yet another headline.
Mourning until you, too, are a thing to mourn.
But we will no longer be martyrs.
We are the rude awakening to politicians who pawned out our safety, who bartered our lives for bribes.
You say “gun reform is not the answer” but all I can see is a bullet rattling like a pinball in an innocent student’s jaw.
You smell like gun smoke and
I can see the AR15 you're holding behind your back and
I guess it's easy to crack jokes about dodging bullets when you're the one firing them.
Give teachers books not bullets:
Kafka isn’t kevlar.
Bronte isn’t bulletproof.
And how sick is it that we must add school shootings to your list of proud american traditions.
Throwing opinions like punches.
How many more have to die before you decide your ego isn’t as important as you think it is?
And I, too, am buried alive
My soggy grave parting its greedy lips.
To you, my bones, when ground into gunpowder and mixed into water, taste like champagne.
My pulse, as thin as an obituary panting beneath sweaty palms, and sure
We are “just kids,”
But you are forgetting we are the next generation
And you autopsy your fists.
Call it reclamatory.
Lately, when asked “how are you?” I respond with a name no longer living.
And who knows if mine will be next
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 10:32 PM UTC
The baby goat's mother was shot.
And I was forced to listen to it cry.
Forever forlorn and distraught
And i stood there- hands covering ears
Traveling back in time
----------------------------------------------------
Your mothers heart stopped
And I was forced to listen to you cry.
Lost in a huge world, more alone
And i stood there- hands covering ears
I heard you through the vents
"My mom is dead! My mom is dead"
Falling to the floor I wished I still dreamt
But she had called me before her bed
I heard her voice message months later
You still cried yourself to sleep at night
Sleeping with earplugs....I wish I didn't bake
Because I thought I killed her that night
Peanut butter cookies:
She taught me the recipe.
And two days before she vanished,
I brought her a dozen.
Autopsy reports showed an hour before death;
She took two bites of my cookies-
Went upstairs and her heart stopped.
Coincidentally exactly four years later,
I finally made peanut butter cookies again
And the smell of sweet peanut butter roasting
Stopped my heart
Nov 15, 2014
Nov 15, 2014 at 2:19 AM UTC
Stripped down
For the World to see,
Beneath flesh and bone,
Deeper than marrow and blood,
Right down to the soul.
Let them see the veins,
Let them watch as my heart
P u l s e s
Nestled between heavy lungs,
Shrouded by an aching ribcage,
A heavy blow
That makes me stumble and fall,
Bruises,
Grazes,
Flatline.
Make another incision
While I lay upon the operating
Table,
I don't know what you are searching for,
Nor do I know what you will achieve
when you do find it,
But it isn't here.
Love cannot be found by extracting cells,
It cannot be discovered through
The translucent glow of an X-ray,
Not even an autopsy,
Removing each piece of me,
Could speed up the process,
It's lost,
It's incurable.
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 9:50 AM UTC
in the morgue
name tag tied to big toe
the autopsy
naked to the bone
you may let out a last moan
but that will be death, making itself heard
Sep 2, 2025
Sep 2, 2025 at 9:44 AM UTC
Sitting in labyrinths of cobblestone intestines
I’m learning to eat the entrails of sacrifice
only domestic, never hunted.
pick up spoon. put down
put down. put-down.
pick up. um . spoon.
um… putdown.
there are motions for eating and I do them.
soothsayer, look down
pay attention to positions, shapes
knife. butter. um…
bread. no. breadth.
better. no. butter-better. focus.
knife. better. bread.
knife, knife of haruspex. knife breadth.
okay… deep breath.
I have divided the livers
and the watchers of victims.
I have written on
the anomalies in my bronze living,
what I should look for,
what they should allow for.
my protruding viscera,
my ancient autopsy of starving.
Starving made me easier to tie.
easier to lift. made me feel
gutted out like finished
ice-cream containers
but, starving made me
full of household gods.
made me divine. made sheeps fly.
made days disappear and made cold cold cold seem like
simmering. made staying out of sight a piece of cake.
cake. starving made me rich when I found little
boys betting quarters for eating bowels of
goats. made me small enough to fit through
playground gates so I could swing
swing in earthquakes, and portents.
now, I listen to Memor, a man
who knows nothing of starving
talk about how starving I am.
tomorrow I have to advise
tomorrow I have to weigh
tomorrow I have to swallow
tomorrow I have to
tomorrow I have
tomorrow I am half
and starving made me whole.
Apr 23, 2013
Apr 23, 2013 at 3:49 PM UTC
They took you from the hospital
They didn’t know why you had died
They wanted to do an autopsy
It took 3 weeks
We couldn’t see your body
It wasn’t fit they said
And eventually we got
A Report
Brain - 2 and a half pounds
Body - healthy, unmarked - not emaciated
No needle marks on the arms
Liver - taken for analysis
Traces of Tuinal and Physeptone
They cut, weighed and analysed you
But couldn’t find the reason
Why you had died
Drowning on your own *****
In a mental hospital
My mother took you to her hometown for burial
To the cemetery hedge where you were conceived
Later she told me that whenever you cried
She shoved a dummy covered in malt into your mouth
And then she would leave you
Her bundle of idle words, looks and *****
Poor Dorothy looking for escape
The war child who knew no softness or comfort
Poor John a quick coupling in the dark beneath the cemetery hedge
Begotten from chocolate, stockings and a Burslem teapot
Jan 13, 2012
Jan 13, 2012 at 4:29 PM UTC
I envied the cadavers haunting my nightmares,
watching those before me
spread upon a metal slab
bodies are hand-me-downs of regurgitated poetry,
with wretched closets in which I take their place.
This ventilator called "loved ones"
forcing breath into anguished lungs-
tragedies belonging to these poets meant something,
a desire to save the words written,
but never the one who becomes a eulogy.
Agony burrows inside of me,
conversations with my mother's ghost
still,
the living are possessed by
the dead's shortened tomorrows.
To die by suicide wouldn't give,
authenticity to hurt.
I am learning the autopsy of a soul:
extracting a heart from the chest,
as it's sense of belonging was never there.
An inability to weigh the words bleeding from valves,
aside lungs I'm unable to breathe through.
How ungrateful is it of sorrow to ask for hope?
placed in a pill divider to swallow,
muscles within my throat so tight.
Wondering,
How many times did I diminish my voice?
Inside the brain,
schematics of labyrinths with no end to betterment.
Surgeons reach for a soul,
an iridescence small enough
held in a gloved palm,
watching it writhe.
Placed upon a slide,
but even a microscope
cannot perceive the pain a soul hides.
Once more,
stitched with needle and thread.
Wilting of my own garden,
comes one day-
an incision is made opening me up.
My heart showed the same
blood-red ink, writing apologies
on the marble floor.
They opened my arm,
displaying a noose of veins.
In this moment,
they removed my soul
only to gift it to another
birthed from torment
ripped out of the arm's of their mother
& into the embrace of woe.
—V.H.
Mar 8, 2018
Mar 8, 2018 at 12:01 AM UTC
(Scene 1)
Everything was all in slow motion after getting the call
Preparing myself for what it is I will witness next
Suddenly I find myself slowing my walk to a crawl.
I read it over and over through the graphic text
Precised detailed instructions with vivid accounts
Chapter nineteen was written in words that were perplexed.
In the protective cushion of my mind
A hidden secret that is buried deep starts to come alive
Am I awake or am I am asleep?
So confused for I'm beginning to think,
When I dream is it real and when I'm awake is it a dream?
I now feel something starting to trickle and secrete inside me
In the base of my skull I feel the pain.
A pine cone shaped gland is now convulsing and quivering
It causes me to dream at night and it always showed me the truth
It gave upon me the gift of prophesy
and all the answers to life's many mysteries
also in my transformation it turned me into a clever soothsayer.
Why me, why was I plagued?
I know it will happen for the last time in my life
A pleasant and peaceful journey it will take me
As soon as I give up the fight and race through the dark tunnel heading to the light.
An imaginary horror movie now begins to play
Given me visions of what I will see before the end of the day.
I know where I am going; I know what I am going to pick up
Yes I have a clue on just what I am getting into.
A dog whistles sound I hear the constant ringing in my ears
I always see the vapors around my face
Drifting like smoke in my peripheral sight I see them all dance.
I'm I hearing voices in my head or am I going insane?
In an instant blink I am catapulted into a cold room
Thirty nine bags deep in there frozen slumber they laid
No matching numbers with tags could be found
Through another set of double doors I enter
Exposing another four all sprawled out on silver tables.
My eyes now become fixed on the bizarre hollow sight
Of the one's with the harvest of their spongy matter.
Absorbing all the sights and smells
I now found what I came looking for
In a rush to see what’s in my grab bag
I race now to get him out the door
and to stop stepping on with my new shoes,
All the blood that is upon the floor.
To be continued.......
(SirCARSr. 10-24-12)
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 12:17 PM UTC
Bounced
a mother figure
to two, a name
on a Christmas card
to four
when I realised
I was still a
child
and bitterness
wasn't an
option
I grew up
like a broken
nose
out of joint
Bounced
at the service
there are tears
beside me
I imagine a
body burning
and feel
warm
the lick of flames
on gray skin
my indifference
grows like I
imagine the
fire roaring
behind the curtain
heating up
Bounced
the house is
empty and
smells
unusual
like something has
been left in there
too long
they are not
there now but
it lingers
I tried to take
her dresses but
she was thinner
as a girl than
I am now
jealously
is a feeling
I'm familiar with
and it's easier
to understand
Bounced
we are waiting
for a buyer
and I imagine
how it feels
to have a piece
of your heart
trapped in bricks
and mortar
Bounced
one time,
I wanted to ask her
how it felt to
take notes of
the war
if she'd ever thought
of waving a white
flag and crumbling
drowning in the
rubble rain of
The Blitz
I wanted to hear
her say something
human
so I could
visualise and
see a bit of
her in myself
Bounced
I'm still caught up
on the autopsy
like a piece of
fatty tissue on
a scalapal
and my thoughts
are metal and
cold
the number of
zeroes on a
cheque
Bounced
Aug 10, 2013
Aug 10, 2013 at 5:36 AM UTC
If I had an autopsy,
I fear that my heart
would be too heavy
to hold.
For it is filled
with raw emotions
and it weighs my chest down
with every last breath.
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 3:57 PM UTC
THIS POEM IS NSFW
read at your own risk
The dream
I had
last
night
Where I walked in
With only lab coat on
And langier
I see you
Where cleaning up
After an autopsy
I went up kissed
You
And pulled
Me closer to you
And take my
Lab coat off
Sep 10, 2019
Sep 10, 2019 at 8:26 PM UTC
What in the world is wrong with me?
Writing poems about gross stuff I see.
Like ***** matter and old underwear
Is there something odd up there?
Poems all about maggoty dog poo,
Popping pimples and what else did I do?
I wrote a poem about a piece of ****
And a guy blowing boogars in his soup
One about a pickled pig in a jar
Do I think this will make me a star?
About a guy who was stuck on a bus
Who had an accident and there was a fuss
I also wrote one about my pet cat
With tinsel in her **** What's up with that?
I also have a poem about picking everything
from teeth to **** and finger licking
I wrote about an autopsy that happens when your dead
Is there a short circuit inside of my head?
You know I had to write about farting gas
And what happens when something else you pass.
And about a guy killing a bunch of birds
Just because one, in his eye, dropped a terd
About inflamed hemroids and rotten, spoiled meat
And a terd eating dog. That's not neat!
One about a boy not bathing for a month
I wonder if that wasn't my millionth.
I even have one about digging up old poo
And one about changing diapers. Oh eww!
I'm sure that soon there will be more to come
With the way my brain works and where I'm from
So 'til then I think I'll end this tirade
And hope you'll read the next mess made.
Oct 3, 2012
Oct 3, 2012 at 11:49 PM UTC
She breaths octane
gas polluting my heart,
and paralyzes my emotions,
love straining to restart.
Blue blistering toes,
pneumonia-driven prose,
she aches the bone inside of me
delivering a cold.
Moving towards
my aching soul,
she finds my
emptiness, tenfold.
Gaseous toxic dust
confides within my lungs,
her selfish evil breath fills me,
permanent distrust.
She drinks blood through
my straw-thin veins,
detracts my serenity;
swallows it all the same.
Disfigured masterpiece discharged
and broken on a hospital cart,
you're jealousy tears me apart,
I wait for the autopsy chart...
Jun 19, 2010
Jun 19, 2010 at 8:53 PM UTC
If you prophecy the end of kings you are wrong.
Write no epitaphs, dig no graves, taste no grief.
The new czar, a rough and worldly killer firmly fixed
this very day stirs the cauldron of war to reset empire
Still, foxly friends of tyranny, who stab at weak democracy
praise the czar's autocracy, and mock free speech with treachery.
As modern judases, riding limitless swells of fortune, tease simple mobs
our old republic stagers and fades, mortally wounded by hypocrisy.
Perhaps, someday, freedom’s autopsy will show what transpired,
but if you prophecy the end of kings you are wrong.
Feb 22, 2022
Feb 22, 2022 at 7:14 AM UTC
I look into the box
Her fabric folds of flowers are blue,
mine are pink and periwinkle, I’m wearing lace socks.
Mother stands behind me.
She is the only person-shape I understand
I stand in the doorway
A hand on my shoulder
Lying in bed, she beckons me
She’s not wearing her wig today.
Gently pushes a teddy bear into my hands.
From the Queen Elizabeth II.
Later, person-shapes
I don’t understand yet
but I see her sift out the chimney
Scattering her to the sea lapping my feet
My mother, her sisters watch the sun sink
drink caipirinhas
My first glass of champagne
A neighbor finds her at the bottom of the stairs
They do an autopsy
—painkillers—
Gracie’s eyes are dead too.
We bring flowers, despite allergies
because it’s convention.
First time I am also a person-shape.
A repeat.
She lies there, no wig.
A few hairs on the plush pillow.
Another box.
More flowers.
This time I lose shape altogether.
This one’s farther away
more peaceful
I don’t know him very well
I hover outside their grief this time.
A teacher. My teacher.
Healthy.
Sometimes it surprises you:
he doesn’t look real—
only person-shaped.
But then, they never do.
Oct 26, 2012
Oct 26, 2012 at 12:22 AM UTC
The bullet was made by an expert
discovered when removed.
At the autopsy of a young guy
one of several just arrived.
Not a gang war it was known
but a ****** working alone.
The public scared out of their wits
the police under pressure.
Three dead this boy the latest victim
attacks in varied locations.
Was it by somebody from the military
an expert with a unique ability.
No clues was not good to hear
the public afraid to be here.
Tall buildings made them easy targets
when would the next strike be.
Though summer the temperature cold
through information they trolled.
As another victim was gunned down
more evidence was found.
Two teenagers saw a man with a case
get into a city works van.
Contacting with what they had seen
a new image came on the screen!
Every law officer was instantly alerted
a face found to fit description.
An ex soldier with traumatic stress
caution the critical word.
Quickly a sighting was received
the entire force relieved.
A gun battle ensued policemen hurt
not killed in the line of duty.
A swat team eventually shot him dead
in a disused ammunition factory.
News soon spread of the snipers demise
the gloom factor began to rise.
You can never argue with a bullet!
The Foureyed Poet.
Jun 15, 2011
Jun 15, 2011 at 1:20 PM UTC
I believe in myths.
Every naturel blonde was first someone else. By that I mean, she was known as Norma Jean, maybe Katy, in high school (see reincarnation below).
My teenage glory days, when I was the king of cool,
will revisit when I am 75 years old, the man-in-demand (wink), wearing his lucky wide cord corduroys and letting my man-bun,
all the way down, at the prom in the senior citizen home, getting lucky, say once a month...
God, yup, after all, ***** cometh to me regular-like,
when he needs a poet~father to take his confession,
and pays me most excellently for refusing him forgiveness,
with the most excellent poem suggestions or lesser valuable things.
Love at first sight, of course, happens to me all the time,
twenty, thirty times when I am walking home. I tell ya, it's exhausting, the stress of living in the big city
Not only will I win the lottery someday,
will take down both, Powerball and MegaMillions,
in the very same week the odds for which
there ain't enough zeroes in HP's servers. (See God, above).
Reincarnation. One time they Hale(d) and then hanged me (my "namesake") and I said: " I only regret, that I have but one life to lose for my country." Well, the selfies all show oh-boy-o-boy, was I ever grinning and winking.
Only boys are bullies, girls get off easy, by getting called
just mean.
One day my city's teams will win the World Series, the Stanley Cup, the NBA Finals and the Superbowl all in the same year but only after I die and me, well, only after they will have buried me in Wyoming or France, just for spite, and nobody will hear me screaming.
My children will speak fondly of me even after they find out I died broke, well maybe not fondly, but they will most definitely call out my name, regularly.
After my demise, all the typoes in my poems will magically disappear.
All these good things will come to fruition, because I am a believer, and walked the humble path. The autopsy will also show that my tongue was permanently stuck to my cheek.
Sep 22, 2017
Sep 22, 2017 at 3:32 PM UTC
Your fingers dapple the contours of my face,
like layers of a warm blanket
you peel back and
rest beneath my skin.
This sheer vulnerability.
I'm prejudiced to feel unguarded
and I'm afraid.
Not of you, but of love.
Of the things it would do to me.
Of the scars it will leave behind.
God, I'm trembling again...
Your kisses calm the waves
crashing against my skull.
I'm terrified
of love
and the autopsy it would do on me
once I'm lifeless after you've left me.
Still breathing but not alive.
I don't want to be a casualty of love again.
My stitched together brokenness will
surely break this time again under it's heavy toll.
But I'll do it again, for you and for me.
Because I love you. And Us.
I'll set aside the love for me, to love you more.
More than everything,
Because I love love.
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 10:43 AM UTC
“The autopsy will confirm no trauma to the body
no foul play”
Face down in the river
whose name means forked tongue
A crow investigates
where water frowned in flotsam
face down—muddied
hair, mustachio
jeans and striped tee
whose--
“name has not been released pending...”
...His loves
tattooed on upper arm
“Coroner awaiting the next of....”
He'll wait a while
for “Mom and Budweiser” to finally check in
He may have...
“He may have been... ...a resident of
The Cozy Care Home”
where he paid for the care
questioned the cozy whose agent demurs—
“The turnover here is just so rapid... steady current of guests
No one ever noticed....”
“...this is Jacqueline Henry with WBSH News”
“The autopsy will confirm...”
First of the month
to town on a mission
Just a short hop
from stone to stone
from day to day
from rock to a hard place
Looking for a short cut
to Tasty Cakes, bologna
Wise Chips and a 40
cross the gurgling,
glinting light and liquid laughter
...This river has a forked tongue...
...a resident
...a resident
who paid to get missed
who one week before
on the easy way of an April day...
Knocked down, gasping
knocked down
and yanked through his forty-eight years pulled through panic
by lean muscle of current
wishing for something...
for someone
to hang on to!
The autopsy will confirm
This river lies
Oct 30, 2017
Oct 30, 2017 at 12:13 PM UTC
one morning
Sunilettan came
with a puppy.
i was writing a grand thesis on the orphaned existence of discarded people.
when the tether was removed
i gave her a dry fish.
did not eat it.
gave a fulsome bone.
did not touch it.
gave the milk from the ad.
did not even regard it.
kissed her.
did not show any reaction.
because she came on a monday
i named her luna.
whenever i called her
she wagged her tail.
wagged her ears.
luna luna luna
i whispered thrice
in her ears.
like the golden peaks
of mookaambika,
he sharpened his ears.
me and he did not play
any game.
before we could,
she came under the wheels
of a vehicle.
without autopsy
without a second look at the body
i buried him
under the hibiscus tree
with many blooms
falling to the ground.
two of the flowers
went to a karnataka guy’s
father’s death rites.
some turned into hibiscus juice.
some were visited by butterflies.
frequently,
the earth where luna was buried
forgot her.
me too.
another noon,
a german dog named adi
was found playing a game
of placing fish bones
on luna’s tomb.
no dog will
cease to play
till the question hung in the air
“my little sister, you have forgotten me?”*
Kuzhur Wilson
Translated by Ra Sh
(( To S. Sithara who memorised Khasakkinte Ithihaasam (The Saga of Khasak) when she was still a kid)
Sep 4, 2016
Sep 4, 2016 at 11:06 PM UTC
*i'm a frozen tempest
there's nothing left to bleed
my body is hollowed
emptied of it's essence
a frozen burn from my touch
fire turned to cold ash
spin me
out of control
for i am cold and weary
a broken sculpture
i cannot hear your whispers
my head is split
the veins trail to my heart
where you left your mark
oh how you killed me
with torture
before the killing blow
you said you would grow old with me
but that turned to a lie
you're a desolate soul
looking for hope & love
yet you killed me
i turned to ice
frozen solid
but melting
i still miss you
i still love you
i still hate you
what can i do?
poetry is the only place
i can speak to you
your face reminds me
to
not to trust so much
keep my love at a limit
say "fine" when i'm not
i locked you out of my life
but there's still a draft
that carries your scent
& it lets me know
i'm still hurting
from you
you were my best friend
oh you killed me...*
Nov 21, 2017
Nov 21, 2017 at 12:48 PM UTC
she'd been placed
on a missing persons register
she was last seen
walking to the shopping precinct
her whereabouts didn't get solved
for some time
police had no positive leads
from the public
a full scale search was conducted
but nothing new
came to light
she'd just disappeared
like a wisp of air
some twelve months later
a jogger happened upon her
upper torso in amongst
the Taylor lagoon's
reeds and muddy sludge
this discovery was something concrete
for the police to go on
a forensic unit scoured the area
in the hope of finding further body parts
and other evidence
a state by state missing persons
search began
to try and identify the victim
who'd met with a ghastly end
in the autopsy report
it stated that she'd been
sawn into pieces
with a chainsaw
as the marks on her thoracic cavity
and neck
indicated this...
the detective sergeant
complied the information
he had on the lady
for a brief in court
as luck would have it
she had breast implants
and on them was found
a code number
by tracing this number
and the hospital who performed
the surgery
pay dirt was hit
she was a resident of Kentucky
who'd gone missing
in July of two thousand and fifteen
a chainsaw murderer
did the deed
as six female victims
were found
across three other states
Sep 22, 2016
Sep 22, 2016 at 8:11 AM UTC
An autopsy would reveal that I
swallowed too many stars,
and every incision would look
like hideously-done cursive.
The busing inside and out
would be treated like ink blots,
and my congealing blood would
scream about how cold the room is.
My liver would float up like a dead fish
covered in alcohol, and bad rants,
and my eyes would roll sideways,
and make the med students think
that they were following them
around the sterile-white of the room,
or they’d direct them where to put
the next piece of the leftovers as
they dissect me like the post-suicidal
frog that I am…
Like a frog? They’d probably bathe me
in formaldehyde…
That’s found in cigarettes, ya know?
I feel like cancer anyway, so
I gave them a shot or two, or three.
They’ll probably find those too in my
lungs; pickled, puffy, and black
with helium soot that made me fly
when everyone around me refused
to hold me up any longer.
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 1:02 PM UTC