"backstroke" poems
i'm not sure what happened
to those beautiful women
i used & let live in my
shivering veins
synchronized swimming in my circulatory system
sunken eyes brimming
with that chlorine concoction they used to dip in
i dug them & ditched them
but i still recollect their quivering lips
as i dispensed the final kisses
& surrounded the spa with walls & fences
i mean i wonder if they still exist
with no lifeguard there to witness them?
Feb 7, 2010
Feb 7, 2010 at 7:47 PM UTC
dreaming sunshine
soothing elixir
backstroke swimming
tranquilize
open seas survivor
floating feelings evacuate
sea salt shake and roll
1,000 stroke communion
turning over and over
nothing much has changed
side stroke view another mile
Oct 20, 2014
Oct 20, 2014 at 7:18 PM UTC
I sit
Helping my mom
Sticking stickers on various ribbons
I look back on today's swim meet.
During freestyle, I was put in a heat only with a girl who hardly knew the stroke
I touched the wall over five seconds before her, scoring a new high score for my freestyle time; 42 89, which is 42 seconds and 89 milliseconds.
Next, I had backstroke to do with a friend of mine a lane over
Although I was placed for success, I barely came in last for my heat.
Then, all I had to do was read.
Pretties, by Scott Westerfield sat open in my hand, with me absorbing all of the words as if I wrote them myself
Tally was watching her former friend Shay become a monster. Nice story.
After awhile, I started helping my mom put identifying stickers on ribbons.
How lovely
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 8:38 PM UTC
we smile like sunflowers,
spitting our seeds through our teeth.
they taught high winds to swim across
glaciers onto my skin, backstroke,
trying to shiver down my spine.
Indian summers save my hydrophobic
structure from the flooding.
i like to drive recklessly under the
speed limit, leaving a sense of
significance tanned inside my lip.
today feels like Indian summer
and your sunflower leaves keep
me warm until the next northern
attack provokes, down my backbone,
where the shells are where we left
them
sink.
Oct 23, 2011
Oct 23, 2011 at 4:48 PM UTC
Ask me what it feels like to be dead inside. Go ahead. Ask.
I know you're curious.
It's like swimming in circles.
You can't see the shore and you can't see past the surface of the water. You're moving but you're not making any progress and it's frustrating. Your muscles are on fire and you're hungry but you keep going because what else is there to do? You could stop and just wade but you know that if you do that you'll give up that much quicker. You wonder what it would be like to surrender and let the water wrap you in it's unknowable depths for the rest of time. You wonder how deep it is and what it's like down there but you figure you'll end up there inevitably someday anyway so you keep going for the time being.
You can change the way you move through the water and how fast you go but you never stop swimming. There's a variety of weather and waves you experience. Sometimes it's nice and the water is calm and you can forget about the emptiness you feel inside and do the backstroke to feel the sunlight on your cheeks but other times it's cold and the choppy waves smash into your face and sting your eyes and all you can focus on is your breathing over the burning in your joints. Nevertheless, you swim and swim and swim without any destination, waiting for the next change to come.
You do a lot of thinking. You wonder what it must be like to feel anything other than longing and discontentment and exasperation. You ponder the big questions and answer the little ones and you try to fill the void inside you with complicated concepts and pretty words. You thoroughly analyze yourself, coming to terms with everything that makes you what you are. You're not happy but not sad either. You're not even somewhere in between. You gave up crying a long time ago because it never helped anything but you still laugh when you get the chance. You're very practical and proud of your cognitive abilities but you also suspect that they are the reason why you don't experience emotions the way other people seem to. You once read "Those who are sensible about love are incapable of it" somewhere and you think just maybe that applies to all the feelings you don't feel. This almost makes you feel distraught, or maybe you just want it to. Regardless, you contemplate anything and everything to distract yourself from the never-ending circles.
You swim and swim and swim and swim because that's all you can do and all you want
all you've ever wanted
is to feel alive
but you don't know how.
And that, my friends, is what it feels like to not feel anything at all.
Swimming in circles.
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 7:07 PM UTC
~
*stationary now
duct tape loves
mouth and hands
inside removable interiors
heliocentric discontinuities:
the racket club
and the backstroke
the rabid club
and the hallucinogenic backchannels
swallowing too many placebos
on his balcony
facing away from the sun
blank diary entry
open on the table
'from despair to where?'
stationary in the trunk now
he says it will all
make sense soon*
~
May 26, 2023
May 26, 2023 at 7:44 PM UTC
I'm not sure how much of you I know yet.
I know that 75% of you is a river
while the remaining 25% of you remains unknown.
I am making you sound like a science text book.
The other day, I called you music, and flowers,
and everything else I could think of that
would grab your lips and make them curve upward
to smile.
I'm not good at writing poems for people
who have made my veins into a swimming pool
to backstroke through.
I'm not used to being warm like this.
I know that we can sometimes be identical and sometimes,
it's hard to convince you that you're breathing
but let me put it this way,
you are hurricane Katrina, the shredded buildings,
the ceramic plate my mother made for me through the aftermath.
When I was 15, it was hanging on the wall and fell
from a thunderclap. Yellow, with my name on it.
I have called you baby on an estimate of four times a day
and we are trying to fix it.
We will slow dance in the living room and
we will not notice the windows whistling
but what you do not know it sounds like a storm
but love, I hear you name through the cracks in the doors
when the rain sets in.
I haven't said much already.
Hurricanes are awful and you think you're more like the
sound the sky makes when it's upset.
But everyone likes the name Katrina anyway.
Metaphors don't get me anywhere but listen,
hold me like I am the only building you do not want to destroy.
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 10:38 PM UTC
Floating out in infinite space
Far above the sadistic human race
Drifting in the cosmic flow
No knowing which way I'll go
But I'll be free
As the galaxies
Way past Neptune
Out in space I'll be immune
From sadness and corruption
Way out there, there will be no interruption
From my happy thoughts
From all I forgot
I'll keep on sailing through all the galaxies
I'll do as I please
I'll dive into the stars
Resurface by Mars
Backstroke through the cosmos
I will swim to the utmost
Will I come back
To feeling like I lack
I doubt it
Not without a fit
A fight
Till this world fits right
Till then
You find me on a heavenly wind
I might never come back again
Unless it's on a whim
Jan 20, 2016
Jan 20, 2016 at 5:47 PM UTC
Shepard Leopard print not calligraphy double "L's" lively as llamas lily roll roots lull underwater dreams felt from the events of hypnotized by the words of the orator, an ores rating is the basis of the all purpose flowering behind the veil, human as satiated, red as sunsets lewd as an anagram of wed rings marry Saturn on this mourning of the death of time, rocks felt sediment may ties tan in the Sun pelts peeled layered in the wind steaming serpentine smokes coils in the sky Clouds the equipment of the buster Organs play louder than church hymns reigns power blood men straighten in their pews at the sound of the root of all evil the mouth of the whale begging for the message more "S's" in saliva drool without one of Oh now bow before the bow arc in the Know a Self flooded urge elevated surfaced by the pit of the concrete, open your abstract the path leopard prints in the mud escape the boar snarling winters Solar is the limit speed time for the Scarab dry enough for the role of matter being dense as ****** In no sense cures us from our aged protractor, human after all is how I robot rock.
I am earth breathing fire hearing wind moving water beneath my meat eating feet. I stare through the ghost riding I am Equine the warship of the Poised den at landings end I devour funnel cakes within the three circles, I merge the warmth and cool blending the reflections with its shadow commanding paddle cyclical backstroke the Frog's moment chosen amp powered transition form and fathom an alternate realm, I dropped a meteor on a puddle world displacing half of all livin; Lanced a Wasp's nest as a Dragoon steals an egg as a test.
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 10:05 PM UTC
*I'm not a very strong swimmer,
I'm trying really hard
to keep my head above the water.
My soul is exhausted,
my body and my mind
are going through absolute torture.
Me, panicking,
makes it even harder
to stay afloat...
I ain't going out like this!
Hell no!!
I ain't going out on this note!
I'll keep trying to swim
through the rising swells and waves,
I'll paddle and backstroke
my way back to shore,
I'll do what a survivor does,
I'll keep swimming
until I just can't swim no more.
I'm usually as warm and bright
as a little ray of sunshine...
But, lately,
I can't even seem to radiate
as much light as the dimmest glare
of moon shine.
I've been a warrior
all of my life,
my history is my proof,
But I'm not as strong as I once was,
I'm not as resistant as I was in my youth.
I'm gonna make it back to shore.
And if I happen to lose my pen
along the way...
I'll be alright!
I'll write my message in the sand
using my finger - in hope that God in heaven
will read it, and bestow upon me
some mercy, by shinning upon me
some much needed courage,
strength, and light.
By Lady R.F ©2016*
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 6:13 AM UTC
She is beautiful beyond measure, excellence
She is gorgeously brilliant,
Her skin reflects the heavens dark canvas.
Her essence illuminates
like the stars lighting up the skies,
journeying across the galaxies many years away.
I backstroke deep within the depths of
her ******** celestial milky ways. Wet Misty ocean spray erupts, splashing all over my body and face.
Her u ni versal magic causes all kinds of havoc.
She ferociously drags me under submerging me, deep in her underwater ballot. Keggle rip currents pulling me deeper into the depths of her dark melanin hole.
Behold I can feel her heartbeat.
Exhale, with asthmatic like breathing as we engaged together, unified harmoniously simutainulously. I can feel the vibrations of her eccentric, electric current flow.
I plugged into her slow, submerging into her soul. Surging to converged as one, Matrimonial we shall dance forever from dawn to dust until death do us part.
Feb 15, 2016
Feb 15, 2016 at 10:10 PM UTC
Holiday: a man backstrokes
oh so gently in the hotel pool.
It’s breakfast time. Bean juice
coagulates on my plate.
I watch the man’s languid, enchanting
backstroke and, for some reason,
it inflates my heart with sentimental joy.
This semi-corpulent middle-aged man,
is, right now,
The Most Beautiful Thing On Earth:
His arcing limbs do not slap or thrash,
but plop into the drink like skipping stones.
He is a babbling brook. A water feature.
The splish-splosh trickle-truckle of a spa waiting room.
And what’s more, this forty-something baldy
gliding through the water
fills me with love for all humanity,
because he seems blithely rapt
in absolute peace
(despite the room rates at this place).
But then, I realise, all of this might be
free association of the mind
linking this moment to a scene in
the Oscar winning motion picture:
Forrest Gump;
when a legless Lieutenant Dan
makes peace with God (for taking his legs),
and backstrokes with the same carefree beauty
into a pink and orange sunrise
(funny how the mind does that).
And suddenly the bubble of beauty is burst.
The portly swimmer becomes just that
(FYI: legs intact),
and my wife returns from the buffet
with a plate of vibrant fruit segments; Cheshire melon
and the greenest kiwi I’ve ever seen.
Lo! Only now have I tasted true kiwi.
And I remember: I’m on honeymoon!
And my wife, in this moment, and forever more,
shall be the only human to be known as:
The Most Beautiful Thing On Earth.
Similar to the way Forrest felt about Jenny,
in the Oscar winning motion picture:
Forrest Gump.
Jan 8, 2019
Jan 8, 2019 at 5:26 PM UTC
i tried forgetting you so hard
my liver's collapsing
& i've got these bruises & cuts -
contusions & concussions -
from my aggravation, concentrated
on the wrong people in crowded places
but we all need ventilation.
so i spilled out abuse
on whoever was willing to take it,
combining fists with faces -
call it distraction or entertainment,
whichever way you phrase it,
i won't remember...i was wasted -
i was swimming in liquid sentiments
the backstroke of the blind
as i'm blacking out my mind,
turning off the lights
on the portion of my life
you partially defined.
Mar 3, 2010
Mar 3, 2010 at 8:30 PM UTC
Seven days straight, the sun rolls up,always from the same
side of town and just the same way it gives up and lays down
The same buses run on the same old routes.
No letup.
So dream a dream.
Next day,instant replay.
Know what ? I know the drill
Sunday.is like Halloween, Rubber faces and trick or treat with Reverend Ike.
Fire and brimstone. Please turn down ya cell phones.Pass the plate.
payola to heaven's gate.
Monday.Back on the grind, Blood,sweat and tears.
Grinding mental gears.Pop the clutch,Earn so little
Pay so much.
Tuesday.? just locked in. The Lotto is calling, cant win if ya dont play.
Teasin me bout easy street. Gimme my lump sum Then watch me fly.
Keep missin me with that later, greater noise.
Keep it real son.
Wednesday. Looking of into the sunset now.All ****** up
getting up for the down-stroke.Sweat of my brow. Feel me NOW ?
Take a deep breath blow out slow. If you dont tell it then the devil wont know.
Thursday. Gettin closer to shore,Go for your backstroke cause yer starting to
fade. In through the mouth and out through the nose focus your gaze on the
circling crows? Crows ?
Friday. Ah snap yer ends came up short. Tax man just waxin yer ***
Ghoulish?. Foolish. Some ends might not meet.
Sat-Day. Not so fat day. Pullin pocket lint by 6.PM.Chump changin.
is changin your mind. Gettin glimpses of stressin the old bump and grind On Moanday. ****
expletive deleted.
Stun-day. Hungday?
Rake your sh%@t in a pile day ?
No Doubt Assed out.
Hello... Monday.
Oct 2, 2013
Oct 2, 2013 at 1:39 AM UTC
Agitation, despair and its winged variations, you name it
all repressed but still rise to test me
What is my recourse?
I tread lightly on this Escheresque concourse
It’s repeated often, I know
but the pen and keys are my most cathartic release
they’re magma to emerging flames
they’re sedatives for demons and angels alike
that reside on corners of this clavicle
How many steps could you take through my lens, my concave mirror?
Have you felt what I felt?
The brimming, cerebral cauldron bursting, putting volcanic geysers to shame
the questions outnumbering seconds spent since Earth’s nativity
the emotions ripping a rift through which rationality deep dives
it becomes Phelps in unknown depths
your body becomes both a Vatican and a Colosseum,
place of worship and place of war
and you walk the tightropes your vocal chords have morphed into
careful to seem like another replica, don’t wanna upset the blades they all balance on
don’t wanna scare the rest hollow, no,
best to follow and best to follow the regimen:
coffee beans and spice of delusion in the hazelnut syrup,
sip slow
follow the same cycle because change is a cocoon and cocoons ache like the past
keep on pretending to love the workplace
love the norms held over you
puppet strings bring warmth after all
in this solitary world cold as winter missile silos
and just as destructive
So I ask again, have you felt what I felt?
Do the few days in utopia offset the majority on rodent wheels?
Have you risen so high, to satellite peaks, to the best you’ve ever been
only to have the worst waiting on the coin’s parallel?
We flip like saltwater fins and backstroke till a back is left broke
I’m learning to discard hope but breathe in the alternative
I believe in better days, I will carve them from local stone
and build a home upon their surfaces
I now know paradise is a set of blueprints
happiness is no state of mind, it’s a direction to me
you may not notice when you arrive
but you keep going
and that’s the beauty of it
you let it be the wind
It’ll find you on your journey
Tell me again,
have you felt what I felt?
Dec 7, 2021
Dec 7, 2021 at 12:05 PM UTC
you're pretty like them eyes
but i see right through your lies
your lipstick your dispose
i cant let you hypnotize
please just be nice
i can't be your rise
you get me way too high
and i forgot what thats like
swimming pools i can surround you
like i never left you
let you come back
only cause i let you
swimming around in the lies
i can feel their eyes
no shame
no shame
only one to blame
May 14, 2018
May 14, 2018 at 11:08 PM UTC
As the line between our private lives,
& the public eye blurs,
all the old paradigms dissolve,
& nothing becomes as it was before,
only a few months more,
to get this riddle solved,
feeling like The Batman The Joker,
& Lois Lane all rolled in one,
my new name is Nigiri,
on a roll hot like wasabi,
my threads are all designer,
& my hobbies are all hobbies,
I am definitely not sure at all,
well at least definitely not probably,
babbling’ with talking heads,
while jousting with the walking dead,
because we’re up right now up right now,
that's right the life of the party,
& you all probably already know all this,
because the whole time was Live recording,
Instagram Live Streaming all the time,
I'm dreaming at the same time touring,
every moment recorded,
even when it's not at all important,
off script but don't trip,
because we're still part of the program,
so before I even wake up,
you already know the whole thing,
you already know what happened,
the night before the morning,
the Knight Before The Mourning,
sounds a bit prolific & prophetic,
at least a little bit don’t you think,
but what’s it matter the least little bit, if no one takes the time to think,
they’re just getting their nails done,
in the salon in the bottom of the boat,
as it sinks & we just think,
“Well I hope at least the lifeboat floats”,
in a bit of a panic,
like Leo in the Titanic,
searching for my romantic Winslet,
before we both sink in this disaster,
see I see you drowning in this sea,
& I still love you even after everything,
so I swim over & my hand I outreach,
hoping you'll grab hold before you sink,
so I can backstroke with you on my back,
& swim us both to an island beach,
specifically Leo's island,
you know the one Blackadore Caye,
he actually asked me to run the island,
said it was just a bunch of palm trees,
& I know this is reality,
even though it all feels like a dream,
so I close my eyes pray for better times,
then open my eyes to focus & blink,
blink,
blink,
blink,
blink,
the camera is always on,
the recording is always running,
this is layer cake no this is pound cake,
no this is the first ring around the onion,
onions in the sink,
got my eyes running made me think,
turned the water off got a wash cloth,
then took a moment to blink,
blink,
blink,
blink,
blink,
as the line between our private lives,
& the public eye blurs,
all the old paradigms dissolve,
& nothing becomes as it was before,
only a few months more,
to get this riddle solved,
feeling like The Batman The Joker,
& Lois Lane all rolled in one,
∆ LaLux ∆
from The Sydney Sessions
the follow up from multiple # best selling author Aaron Lux
new book available for FREE here: https://www.scribd.com/document/367036005/The-Sydney-Sessions-12-Steps
Dec 13, 2017
Dec 13, 2017 at 10:37 PM UTC
I'm addicted to her cause
you're pure uncut dope.
I'm high off her feminine potency
Her love is so breathtaking its like
Taking a ****
She stole my heart.
No ski mask on, no gloves.drawn
No weis drawn
She blew my brain away mental ****
Now my mind was blown.
She's got that straight drop
Got me fiending for a taste of her love.
She so dope I'm addicted to her love.
The current energy flowing straight from the plug.
Flooding every inch of my mind-body
And soul.
She covers me with her love.
Shielding me from the storms.
Providing nourishment for growth making me strong.
She is the reason why I hold on.
When I feel like letting go.
I fall deeper into her hole.
I mean so deep in love.
Backstroke, deep stroke, breast stroke, deep throat.
Oct 9, 2016
Oct 9, 2016 at 4:55 AM UTC
Originally filed under
sad little number
who's heart was broke
but...
you can now see me
in the sea
of your regret
happy doing the backstroke :)
Jan 14, 2016
Jan 14, 2016 at 12:02 PM UTC
This Apocalypse Summer
has really got me down,
but then I'm up running
through what is left of town.
I never got to swim the backstroke
before Brunswick Basin bled
Lake Olympia from amidst her oak,
before Deer Creek went dead.
*The streets'll burn, the bodies break
and the blood washed away by beer.
The streets burned, bodies broke
and we're still here.*
Shadow people wander the sidewalk,
been here since the bombs dropped.
Never got no noisy television,
just watch the streets and shadows in them.
I'm pushing up just like daisies
and pulling them up for fun.
Convinced that I'm going crazy
from the trips that I get on.
*Jane says she cannot get it:
"something hidden...back when children."
You're always looking for the road
where we used to drink too drunk,
where you look to have again
what we had so long ago.*
Do you feel it coming?
on Earth His will be done.
Collapse a long time coming—
still nothing new under the sun.
Summer is for the living.
That's a bubble-bursted, sun-dried reason.
It's the end or I am fibbing,
still live up the rest of the season.
*First came the flood then spilled blood.
Had anyone caught on of that to come
you know we'd never have let it begun.
But it had:
got you, your mother, and dad.
Surely there was nothing we could do
but hunker down, get a job, and rue
the day they brought us into
the Old World and buried the New.*
I hear tell that downriver
the water gets warmer;
I hear tell that valley below us's
a hotter n' hell, body-ridden bowl of dust.
—
I hear tell that upriver
the trout they run thicker,
the water cooler, air smoother, and **** sticks thinner.
I wanna flee up that river
but I'm not that good a swimmer.
How do we know?
We think we're smart,
in fact we're geniuses.
But we're still sitting
and can't stop talking about...
This Apocalypse Summer
has really got me down,
but then I'm up running
through what is left of town.
Aug 17, 2013
Aug 17, 2013 at 1:20 AM UTC
Now for too long drunk in your past,
dunked in your past
and you know I can't swim,
thrashing like an epileptic puppet
as each wave gurgled over me.
I guess you were a magnet,
hurling me toward you like
a cricket ball in the air,
except I was never caught,
the shiny maroon sphere
nowhere near your fingers.
Had to go and ruin it,
spoil it, but there wasn't an 'it',
a malleable object
for us to **** and poke
into our chosen shape.
You can't swim back either I suppose,
for the city screams
at you like an ambulance
and my head bobs above the surface,
I see silhouettes
move no nearer, no further.
Mar 6, 2013
Mar 6, 2013 at 12:06 PM UTC
“These birds are the most singular of any in the Galapagos.”
Charles Darwin.
Volcanic up swell,
tick mark,
tiny dot in the middle
of a blue map.
Stationary ship,
belly of the earth
like a backstroke swimmer
in a blue-black sea,
where erratic rains run away
while a Cactus Finch (Scandens) has gone
black to mate, so black that shadows cast
blushes back. So black,
more silhouette
than a black beaked bird
Daphne,
on your barred black belly,
this fine breath’d bird, this
penumbra of feathers and flight;
demonstrating divergence and drift,
so proud he sings aloud
the song of the Ground Finch (Fortis).
O befuddled bird
bereft an opera coach,
sans score of Scandens, the bird song
bindery gone bankrupt, loose leaf
scores littered, learning a neighbor’s
second hand sheet music.
Amid the volcanic dreams
of Finches, and bird shaped voids,
singing atop cacti, amid these small
dark commas set against a bluer
than blue sky, he sings the wrong song
but it's been a good year and she comes,
the star crossed lover, Lady Fortis.
And before the rains return, and they will return,
a small clutch of stars.
And when the rains return,
they will return
with long lost letters from London.
Oct 16, 2017
Oct 16, 2017 at 12:05 PM UTC
The guy at the diner failed to mustard Jake's hot dog
As he was eating it he felt as cold as a marsh frog
Yucky was the flavor without condiment
Chomping it down, a tasteless torment
As the fries on his plate were doing the backstroke
Having a jolly swim day in a puddle of oil
Asked for industrial towels to wipe up the slick
Before it caught wind of the Environmentalists
A complaint has been filed about their bill of fare
Nothing served over the counter would we wish to share
Placards will be shown over the Diner's facade
Warning customers of this ecological disregard
They won't water down their words like the Diner their drinks
Before you enter in you'll stop and think
About the Blue Plate Special with Salmonella on the side
Do you prefer your Botulism broiled or would you like it fried
Gastronomic delights such as they will make you pay
A stint in the infirmary is sure to come your way
With a tossed salad of pain, relievers, and antibiotics
Which none of the above will be deliciously exotic
If you can take the cooks looks and stomach the smells
Along with the service that's slower than snails
There's normally a coupon in the daily mail
Buy one get one free!
Ahhhh.....what the hell
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 9:14 AM UTC