"barreled" poems
The riled route master and the hacked off hackney carriage weren't bothered by the boris bike, they simply barreled along the bus lane oblivious to the wobble, blind to the blindsided and bent on beating the amber to red, til they were halted by the growth factor of a chelsea tractor straddling lanes and field testing the choice of right or left and failing the screen test set by the sat nav, thereby giving opportunity to the swarm of office staffers snatching their chance and chancing their luck, dancing past with their fat chance of swiping in before nine and avoiding the chagrin of the boss who's been the bane of their short sojourn through the city of lost dreams, chance encounters, thin fortune and rushed hours. This is London.
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 2:03 PM UTC
It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen.
I was murdered 100 years ago on Halloween.
A man accused me of vandalizing his house but I didn't do it.
I told him that I was innocent but sadly, I could not prove it.
He grabbed his double-barreled shotgun and I was shot.
He threw my corpse down his well and there it would rot.
When I was killed, I became a ghost.
Revenge was what I wanted the most.
And I got exactly what I wanted.
That man committed suicide after being haunted.
I haunted him for months and he couldn't take it anymore.
He shot himself in the head and his corpse fell to the floor.
I haunt that man's house on Halloween, I haunt it once a year.
If you come to this house on Halloween, you will experience fear.
That man murdered me and when he died, he went straight to Hell.
Stay away from this house on Halloween or I will haunt you as well.
Oct 31, 2022
Oct 31, 2022 at 8:41 AM UTC
You saw by panes held by thin wire.
Two-ways seeing crumbled fire.
I remember autumn
Checking at the bookstore
In your vans on film you wore
No conception of bottom.
A kid from Mexico, 15
Convincingly my age unclean
Walk summer down West Sylvester
Powder sugar walkway, tester
The ******* **** is blue
Wild eyes tell me you knew.
Back across the fairchild lot
He slid to drive; I told- we bought
They'd taken off without their lights
He barreled lone known route recites
As I scream STOP
IT ISN'T WORTH IT
I'LL GET YOU BACK
PULL OVER, ****
No one taught us how to quit
We rotten without teeth to grit
Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 3:51 AM UTC
Bright buds hang precarious on their limbs. Their hundreds of digits green and supple sway as the winds try gently at first to shake them from their perches. They snap back, their ties elastic, always bending.
The wind struck harder the third time. It caught them off guard, swinging back to face the sun. It barreled over them like a train, limbs snapped like bones under tons of industrial revolutionary steel, the cracking brings tears to the eyes of passersby.
They were so green, so verdant was their exuberant friendship, covered in rosy flesh and sturdy bark, ring after ring of tribulation and triumph, but it fractured like a wish bone. She, Persephone, prosecutor of Her, Demeter, was judge of them both, prisoner of herself.
Solitary confinement.
She tugged at her half, she needed the wish, She need for Demeter to see that She needed wishes just like the rest of us.
Demeter, jury. 12.
Her crime: attempted impartiality, balancing a utilitarian ideal that we can divide our attention based on who needs it most. She cannot be tried on account of her inability to read Braille ciphers in gestures, ****** expressions, and Tumblr posts.
Demeter tugged at her half, but only enough to show the other that she was there,
but consistently there.
It wasn’t enough.
Snap.
No marrow could be found.
Where flesh was meant to be dripped rot, an odor of resentment filled their nostrils, it choked Demeter, as Persephone had been choking for years.
This resentment, this cancer, this jealousy, it grew inside of Persephone like a tumor, days from metastasizing, the spread could have killed them.
Amputate.
You two are a tree. Bright buds dangling from every limb, they are still soft and green and supple at their ends.
You two are still growing.
Persephone will cut out this cancer, and She will heal herself, scar tissues covered by broadleafs.
You will soothe them for her. And you will see past the rosy flesh what pain it may hide.
And you two will grow. Roots firm, faces braced against the wind, and limbs always turned towards the sun.
May 3, 2013
May 3, 2013 at 5:36 PM UTC
a e i o u and opposing thumbs
my woman, she's a
snuggler and spooner.
burying herself on my,
no, in my
double barreled chest,
her blonde hair,
my field of gold.^
she landscapes my life,
paralyzing me with the
simplest of gestures.
she sleeps holding my thumbs.
locks me up.
locks me down.
so I cannot transcribe
the lines of poetry mindful,
landlines shut,
land-mines of verse
unexploded,
till these now,
hours later.
a few notes ago,
a few days ago,
heard an octet,
eight voices singing of
five letters, five vowels,
a e i o u.
you can hear what I heard too.
after you listen,
better understand
vowels are the butter of language.
the anointing oil of connectivity.
more than a line of code,
they are the keys to the code,
that make words and life musical.
I suppose we could mange without them if we had to.
spsz v cd mng wthot thm ff v hd t.
but not so well.
I suppose we could manage
without opposing thumbs.
learn to type with my nose,
paint with my toes.
but not so well.
here is how it comes all together.
a e i o u and opposing thumbs,
never give them more than a
never thought, passing over, assumed.
oh yeah, on some tv show,
you can buy a vowel.
these glues are the things that
give me the chance to tell this:
this poem it is a bit about me.
this poem it is a bit about her.
this poem is really about you.
I could live without
a e i o u and opposing thumbs.
but I could not live
without her landscaping my chest.
but
when I share this knowledge
with you friend, it becomes a
verified, realized, acknowledged truth.
So you see this poem is about
a e i o u and opposing thumbs,
but really about you.
In fact, I am thinking,
that if I did not love the title
a e i o u and opposing thumbs
so much,
would entitle it instead,
a wholesome democracy of love.
you, a registered voter,
vote then with both all the
a e i o u and opposing thumbs
at your disposal.
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 2:42 AM UTC
I've known heights, aimed like a bullet
to the top of the head.
Forbidden songs, jagging
placid landscapes.
Waterblood waterbone --
my body cries out to me.
How long the abuse, how long!
In the barreled pit of my sober life
up from common sense--snapping into it,
my soul came alive.
Alive I say!
By grace I breached.
Free in the wind!
Kingdoms of water, alive kingdoms --
hear now the words of my tears.
Mea Culpa!
I slam on the brakes, tear off the roofs
of steel compartments.
I see sky and feel in daylight every hidden star.
I declare -- the emperor of death
has no clothing.
I scatter forgiveness
across all the fattened streets.
Oceans of me are singing.
A spinning angels' symphony.
Over the graves of ancestors, I vow:
Water, I shall love you.
I shall speak up, shall protect you.
I shall fight for you and die
if I must.
Ten times ten give my very life
-- that you live.
Sep 20, 2018
Sep 20, 2018 at 12:29 AM UTC
Sunrise-Sunset-
You were my every sunrise-
You were my every sunset-
You were my eternal happiness-
You were my eternal regret-
You were my everlasting joy-
You were my everlasting tears-
You were my only hope for security-
You were the only thing I feared-
You were the blood that barreled through my body-
The blood that barreled through my heart-
You were the cold steel against my temple-
You were my light in the dark-
You were my reason for living-
My reason for death-
You were my reason for exhaling-
My single last breath-
You were my first thought in the morning-
And the last thing I thought at night-
You were the song in the wind-
You were my reason for life-
You consumed my mind with demons-
Ate my soul away with hell-
Showed me heaven under covers-
But you kept me trapped in a cell-
You hit my heart with the panic-
Let me in all your thoughts-
Kept my soul with your ***
Kept my mind at a loss-
I let stupidity realm-
While the Devil he walked-
Dreaming of escaping-
When karmas been sought-
Alone in my room-
With my heart in the dark-
Richard A. Itskovich
Sep 23, 2011
Sep 23, 2011 at 5:20 PM UTC
Hey , come here baby
Let me touch you over there
Oh , my !
Your so cold
Let me warm you up
With some gentle care
Let me strip
Off your wrapper
Let me lick you there
Uum , you sure
Taste so good
When your stripped down bare
Oh , my !
Your melting so fast
My hands are getting wet
But don't worry baby
A couple of tiny licks
And one giant slurp
And you'll begin to quake
Oh , my popsicle on a stick
Your sugar tastes so sweet
Your doubled barreled
Swing lock action
Has got me come complete
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 10:07 PM UTC
by
rgpage
I never cried in viet nam,
I just seemed to take it in.
The missing limbs and twisted flesh
friends one day and gone the next.
Was I too young to understand?
And need someone to take my hand?
No mother there to hold my hand
no father there to teach me ways.
To lead me through the day by days.
Just left alone, and alone I stayed
Instead I found my bottle friend
to stay my tears and hide my fears.
Back then “charley” felt they owned the night.
With blusterous thud the mortars hit,
Of saying hi it was “charley’s” way
then to be my friend by day.
From no where came the dragon ship,
and tipping his left wing
as a polite executioner saluting his victim just before unleashing hell.
W/ firery tongue lapping up the earth while mini-guns
roared, eagerly devouring all living things,
leaving “charley” w/ no where to run.
All clear, a small visit w/ my bottle friend
and back to sleep in the alcohol deep.
I was no John Wayne, I didn’t fight the war
a target yes for “charley’s” sights
when the sun gave way to night.
But no, I didn’t fight.
I never cried glossary:
Charley=VC=viet cong=enemy: by day he acted like any of the population, some were even employed around the various bases. But at sundown he would turn…
Dragonship=C-47=2 or 3 several barreled mini-guns mounted on left side of the plane capable of firing a few 1000 rounds per minute each w/ a phosphorous round placed at every 6th round a tracer. At night this made it look like a steady stream of fire coming from the plane, hence the name “dragon ship” or “puff the magic dragon.” To aim the pilot had to dip his left wing and fly in a counter clock wise fashion. Very effective weapon…
Written for a special friend A.S.
Apr 26, 2013
Apr 26, 2013 at 12:00 PM UTC
A heart beats monotonously,
Like a leather-encased clockwork, a spring-wound toy
It ticks away the hours until the moment
When, with a silence like a stone, it stops.
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 9:42 AM UTC
A slow-rising migraine seeps into my head
As toxic floodwaters that fill the rooms of my home,
Seeping into my skull with powerful fingers
Like heat-seeking needles to pierce the calm quiet
Of a relaxed and peaceful reverie.
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 10:50 PM UTC
if it were left up to me
this whole poem could be worshiping
the shiny puddle of silver light the stars stained
onto your heaving collarbone when
we made love & connected souls first
under the third eye pyramid tapestry then
on a rough bed of flat canyon orange dirt
in summertime georgia
but it's not & can't ever be
because people don't know you
like i do for example they aren't aware
that you dance with a summer breeze
like the lighthearted yellow butterfly
i can never catch in a net or
that you're the reason
i became a writer to begin with
they probably aren't prone
to remember the october morning
you found me huddled just before dawn
in a half-lit safeway parking lot
burning my clothes & yellow wooden pencils for fuel
chewing the pink bubblegum erasers or when
you said i have a beautiful pristine voice &
i melted giddy into your wet violet
hair as the wind whipped it
i was around nine & in the third grade
so i sat patiently crosslegged & camouflaged
a lizard with my tongue out savoring
that moment like an unexpected
rainshower in the pre-puberty desert
listening to the rhythms of your salty blood
pump waves of breath out of your lungs
& they still don't know about
later on when i was walking home
shoulder bones barreled against the long fog
you picked me up again in the
immaculate rust wagon your brother left the keys in
you bought me firewood at a gas station got me
happy drunk on hot kisses & so paranoid ******
listening to thin lizzy on tape in your garage
you laughed hyena hard
when i asked you to marry me
that starless purple night on your daddy's farm
& so did he but he never really said no
& neither did your eyes they just glistened
like they were floating in olive oil as
you ascended the stairs to your bedroom alone
covered in magic enormous light
Aug 27, 2015
Aug 27, 2015 at 12:48 PM UTC
Wrapped in a blanket against the cold night
Like a paper-wasps' nest
in a black-and-white birch tree
dusted with snow;
Like the wick of a hundred-times-dipped beeswax candle,
awaiting the flame.
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 10:48 PM UTC
lightning pulses through my pitch
strike me with your presence, stitch
the gaping ridges of the aftermath.
dark, is my prism.
weak, is my shell.
loss, is my repetition.
my gaze is shallow water
as the sun begins to bend.
when nothing grows, we hunt each other.
attempting satisfaction of the flesh, we eat meat.
carnivorous campers hiking through hail, we retreat.
parting clouds,
beams,
breaking through our moisture.
the rays build our spirits to cast
shadows.
evening arrives.
flames draw our photographs
and we're captured in thought.
candid sweetness, through darkness we fought.
today is the first rain since those memories
and everything I swore I couldn't feel last
winter comes rushing, swinging limbs,
swinging branches and I'm barreled.
all boxed up in the lack of things.
swinging gently before the snap,
my body descends
as I open my wings for flight
there's no surprise in my eyes
as the past repeats itself for I am
punished by gravity every time
I surrender to survive.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 10:31 AM UTC
I saw a chariot
with the mare in it
making a man carry it
I saw Marie Antoinette
and Judas Iscariot
abdicate an abortion
because they weren't married yet
I saw aunt Harriet
barreled over bones in a casket
gasping
begging them not to bury it
I saw words on a page
that made no sense
I saw leopard prints
I saw tents with tenants
unable to pay their rents
Aug 1, 2011
Aug 1, 2011 at 8:34 PM UTC
Confined to the minds barrels,
trapped inside four white, wooden walls
that wash me with light;
creating eternity. An eternity
where your face is forced forth
with splintered teeth, wood grain whispers.
Air evades my lungs
breathing in, panic, locked
away. To stay and rot. My tongue
may become a meal; I don’t need words in here.
This chambers grand design
is an endless emptiness.
My mind’s faced with this shameless
white graceless space which
aggravates my dark creativity.
This great sin in me is great and willing me
to spill the hate hidden deep.
The rays rebound perpetually. The silence
perplexes me. Perplexes me. The silence
confined to the double barrels.
Your face, perpetually, stretching its imprint
across these walls. Blurring, screaming terror.
Eyes open, burning, comfort in the darkness
learning the eyelids inner charms.
Not the vastness. Eyes open. Terror.
Tear away these fantasies;
isolations imagination identifies with my demons.
The blank space is filled with cacophonies,
agony, smiles in the emptiness stretch beyond capacity. Silence.
Whispers, these wood grain whispers splinter my eardrums.
No matter how I try to pick (axe) them out,
this imaginary pencil doesn’t dig deep enough.
I hear no calligraphy. No beauty
finds me in here, this box of light
holds my plight and creates a world where I know no night.
I hold no right, I cannot wrong,
there’s nothing left, I hold no rite,
there’s no day to escape for sleep,
no knight to bring me dreams, no left to take me to the right place,
I am so bereft of time. Am I dead?
Dying? Lying here in wait, lying to myself,
declining in health. Declining life.
The silence is hexing,
dissecting each piece of what’s left of me.
The canvas screams, it wants to know my nightmares,
to feel their bloodied paint on its flesh.
I’m the worm in the water.
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 1:29 PM UTC
The close of the week,
Like an old familiar house you have vacated
And stuffed with memories still as fresh
As burnt Monday-morning toast
That still blues the air.
Nov 30, 2014
Nov 30, 2014 at 11:27 PM UTC
discard the paradox
of an un-living existence
one exhibited in daily life
by unfeeling masses
the blind and deaf walk the streets
perpetually exist in waking sleep
attack with knowledge
burn them with thought
break out the hand-pens
and long barreled books!
explosive rounds of conversation
they shuffle and groan
wave after wave
grasping and clawing and
consuming the living
turning free thinkers into
the brainwashed undead
moaning be like us
embrace the convince of
this thoughtless dictation of "life"
barricade my mind
a safe house stocked
with radical ideas
brace for the onslaught
read and write!
a fight for my life
Oct 16, 2012
Oct 16, 2012 at 12:58 PM UTC
Of course, there are distinct disadvantages to surviving a scandal:
You lose your friends.
You lose your trust.
You lost all credibility in what you dearly love.
You begin an intimate, five-day relationship, seducing a slick-barreled gun that sings your name.
But after a while, you unwrap your lips from around the gun. You grab your pen. And you write. Because when it's all said and done, that is what you do.
Write.
Jan 27, 2014
Jan 27, 2014 at 6:27 PM UTC
A Grande Iced coffee sweetened with whole milk always
supplied Trey, the Zombie, with energy. On a bright yellow morning
Trey sat down on a canvass deck chair outside of Starbucks.
He puffed on his e-cigarette. Then he took a sip from his plastic cup.
And as he tasted the refreshing creamy coffee, he remembered
what it was like to be a human being. Before the infection decimated
the world’s population of men, women, and children, everybody
was killing each other with double barreled shotguns, sleeping
with their best friend’s girlfriend to prove that they were not
in love with their best friend, forcing girls and women of all
ages into cramped basements leaving them with a bowl of
white rice and a cup of water, telling them that they had to sleep
with strange men who lived in America and other countries polluted
with lust and desire, or else they would get sent to the bottom
of a swamp where the Alligators roamed the muddy shores in
search of flesh. Trey remembered that he had been a college student
living at home, working as a tennis instructor part time at the
rec center down the street from where he resided at.
This little girl Amy bit him on the ankle. It was the first time
he had taught her how to hit a topspin serve with such
velocity that the tennis ball would bounce off the service box
and rise over the chain-linked fence, where the zombies were, crawling
over and up onto the hard courts. As Trey drank his iced coffee
he realized that life was more pleasant now. People didn’t shoot each
other anymore. Closeted gays and lesbians didn’t sleep with their best friend’s boyfriends and girlfriends just to prove that they were heterosexuals. And wicked men with shaggy hair and yellow teeth didn’t buy young girls and women from cramped basements and **** them because they had the money and the motivation to follow their lustful desires. No. None of this happened anymore. Now that the Zombies had taken over. Everybody just went to Starbucks, and drank iced coffees sweetened with milk.
Aug 16, 2016
Aug 16, 2016 at 10:26 AM UTC
Sleep comes to me now
Like a lover, faultless yet wronged,
ever forgiving, crawling silently into my bed;
Like a heavy monsoon-soaked night
Descending on a decrepit, third-world city.
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 10:54 PM UTC
As a sensible,
As a logical,
And a well informed fellow
I asked that when you meet the Devil
Where do you draw the line?
Quick wit, to leave me assured
You affirmed, my friend, I'll never cross this line
Persistent and fiendish, as Devils are
He barreled through the line, with evil in his eye
Thankful to have a friend, I asked, is this enough?
Uneasiness overcame me when you said it was okay.
Quick wit, to leave me assured
You affirmed, my friend, I'll never cross this line
But he truly was hell, this ****** Devil
Carelessly he pushed right through, past the line again.
Worried, I asked, well surely we're in danger?
Of course not, he replied, siding with Devil and his plan
Quick wit, to leave me assured
You affirmed, my friend, I'll never cross this line
With no limit, his forked tongue just laughed
Storming through again, no one in his way
Terrified, I pleaded, this nonsense had to stop
My friend, now foe, said this is the only way
How foolish I must be to,
To ever believe a line that couldn't be crossed.
And to think you'd stand by me.
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 8:44 AM UTC
a month ago, i got in a car accident that totaled my car.
i was making a left turn at a stoplight
and the driver of an suv was paying no attention to her red light.
she barreled into the front end of my car at full speed before i even saw her coming,
and then everything was shattered glass and metal colliding and screeching tires
and suddenly my airbags were puffed out like sinister clouds and my engine sounded like a death rattle.
when i opened the door to get out, the hinges grated like a scream.
but i wasn’t hurt.
i cried for six hours that day but i went to school the next one.
everything was fine.
it's just that since then, everything in my life resembles a car crash.
i smelled burning for weeks.
i still blink and see spiderweb patterns of broken glass.
i cried for two hours when i realized i lost the cd i made
just so i could listen to my favorite songs in the car.
when i hear the song that was playing, i have to turn it off.
my father picked up the shrapnel still on the street a week later
and gave me my charred, crumpled, unreadable gravestone of a front license plate.
he straightened it out and put it on my new car when we got it.
i broke up with my boyfriend three weeks ago
and as i left i heard sirens from inside his house.
the day after that, i was talking to another boy
and his promises sounded like ambulances with no paramedics on board.
last week there was a fatal car accident half a mile from my house
and i couldn't breathe for the rest of the day after i heard.
i have to turn left at the stoplight where my own accident happened every day
and when i turn i clench my fists around the steering wheel
like it wants to tear itself out of my hands and maybe it does.
i still check left and right and left and right during turns
even when someone else is driving.
call all of this a reaction to trauma,
but honestly i don't know what's wrong with me.
all i know is i cried with frustration, immature, pathetic,
when my mother and my father couldn't find a new car.
all i know is i grieved for my ford focus
like it was my only friend in the world.
all i know is i keep talking about this accident
even though i’m even getting annoyed by myself
and my fingers on the keyboard sound just like the policeman's as he wrote up the report
as i perched on a plastic backseat, shaking, face covered with tear tracks,
waiting, alone, for my father to arrive so i didn't have to be an adult,
waiting, alone, for an explanation of why this happened to me.
all i know is everything in my life resembles a car crash,
and there are sirens in the distance,
and i'm still waiting for the smoke to clear.
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 6:21 PM UTC
He came one day, and suddenly vibrant reds collided with brilliant orange, warming the heavens and filling her vision. He kissed her pink, injecting a soft sweetness into the flaming sky. She fell into him, encased in his swirling indigo's, brushing her skin and giving her goosebumps.
It was bliss.
She opened her eyes, then, and startled to see him far from her, his dazzling light embracing the peaks in the distance and running over the fields ahead. She felt cold without his touch.
Was it all a dream?
She ran to him. Chased the shadows he left, in the hopes that they would lead to him. They evaded her, skipping beneath the trees and hiding behind the hills that undulate across the land, like waves on a frozen sea.
How long she ran, no one knows. She barreled through dark forests filled with thorns that slashed her face. She crossed frigid rivers that numbed the deepest parts of her. She screamed his name as she trekked grasslands that threatened to crush her under their seeming infinity. She pursued him like a sailor drunk on the song of a siren, unaware of his fate.
Through it all she held close the memory of the light he once gave her. Through this she found the strength to go on.
Onlookers watched, saddened by the spectacle she had made of herself.
“O, pity,” they say, “for the girl that runs endlessly, chasing a thing that will forever elude her.”
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 4:02 AM UTC
Roughly six-hundred-and-two packs of cancer sticks later,
I don't feel as sick as therapists have said I am to be.
That means twelve-thousand-and-fifty-three cigarettes have been consumed
in the past three years by me,
in which I'm surprised my lungs haven't had to be exhumed from my barreled chest.
I'm surprised I haven't died,
or contracted a malignant growth in my throat,
or excessive tar in these lungs that hold me up,
or haven't choked on the smell,
or haven't wrecked a car while dropping a smoke into my lap.
Now all of my cigarette burns are marks from the slight curve
of smiles I've found in sad people spending their valuable seconds on letting smoke settle in.
I've been using stupid cancer sticks to curb this constant anxiety I brought upon myself.
In prison they use cigarettes as currency, I always say I want to be wealthy with passing away faster,
it makes me feel oddly sentimental knowing I'll be closer
to friends I once hid away with and shared moments
over cigarettes.
But back to my point,
way back then, when I met you.
I didn't want to smell like smoke,
I didn't want you to hate it on me.
I didn't need to curb the anxiety.
I didn't want to taste like lung cancer.
I didn't want to remind you of what you hate.
It's late notice, but you were my nicotine sprinkled with cyanide, arsenic
(rat poison), butane, ammonia, menthanol, carbon monoxide, and paint,
but you weren't cancerous, contrary of what you always say.
I was the carcinogen that would've made you die if I had stayed.
You don't know I wanted to, though,
I wanted you addicted, but I'm a cigarette with remorse;
we both wanted more,
and I miss you like eight hours away from the seven minutes I take off of my day.
I didn't want to **** you, though you may be scarred,
I wanted you to be alive and generally unharmed.
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 10:15 AM UTC