"bathwater" poems
Somewhere between eggshells and landmines
Were the creaking floors upon which I played
Carefully, for her wrath could be detonated
At a footfall, just a bit too heavy
From a word uttered under the breath
A mess left too long in the sink.
But her embrace was warm,
Wrapping around me like sheets from the dryer
And when she put on pause her own life
To tend to me at my sick-bed,
Her eyes showed only tender love.
“My baby goat,” she would say, affectionately,
And leave a kiss upon my feverish brow.
She is a living contradiction, my mother:
Churning disapproval shattering the gleam
That she put into the hopeful eyes of a child
Just a moment before.
I lived in perpetual uncertainty,
Never knowing which mother I might see next:
The raven or the hen.
And now she looks at me with disappointment,
Wondering aloud why her children fear her.
Her capriciousness eroded away any trust
And much of the fondness as well
Her hot-blooded adoration
And her ice-cold tantrums
Have mixed so long now
All that is left is
Lukewarm like the bathwater
Left over from when the
Baby was thrown out.
Sep 11, 2023
Sep 11, 2023 at 7:16 PM UTC
Just stick it in
Pull it out
Blow your load
Gag her mouth.
Bound and fist it,
Cut zip-tied wrist then,
Bathe her in warm blood bathwater.
Watch her bleed out as an oozing cow mother.
This is how we do it.
This is how we **** ****
Boiled **** and ***** nitrates,
Bonging buttchug, grease infesting.
This is how we ****
This our mental state.
Disgusting epoch,
The party *** phenomenon.
Drunk girls, drugged *******
Pearl necklace confection, gourmands,
in stitches
Plagued with itches,
Stemming from ****** abuse.
This is why I ****
This is how I crutch.
******* on the inside.
******* on the inside.
******* on the inside.
Mar 27, 2013
Mar 27, 2013 at 2:04 PM UTC
grow a beard...
buy a jazz double-bass...
start stroking it...
attempt to look
pensive...
and then write some
Cockney
comedy... and?
**** Oxford.
**** 'em good;
can't be,
******* arsed...
where's a *******
jazz double bass
the kind i need to stand up
to play?!
where?!
gone, "nowhere"...
Achilles would sooner
find a tortoise,
you ******* half-whit
bull bullock base catcher...
yummy yummy...
no ******* double whammy
if there ain't
a greasy dough nnnnnnnn
in my mouth oozing a squid's
mating call...
from the Jules Verne estimate
of how...
big the ******* could become...
oh please...
**** is a conjunction
word...
akin to and...
spew effect,
regurgitation, founded upon...
so...
so... farting in a public place
is less offensive than
uttering a word of oath?!
**** me...
more ****
less ***** images...
i guess that's how you
habitually attack Christian
h'america...
**** **** **** and impose
a curb of a ***** show me the puppies
kitchen ***** Kentucky style
****
******* wankers...
dreaming up some ****
in long lost Cockney rhyming
slang for some:
willkommen zu verirrt amstetten...
....................
...................................
..............
................
SCHMILE...
boorish ******* gnomes dancing
the leprechaun gamblers' dance...
skivvy *************
sure...
censor the words...
but god forbid you censor
showing all the *******
because... if you do?
guess what...
i might forget my farming impulse...
of imagining a
a cleavage to also imply
a pork buttocks...
funny...
how a show of cleavage is synonymous
with a show of pork
buttocks...
and then i begin thinking of
milking...
which throws a ***** **** out
with the baby and the bathwater
and... i'm shinging...
what's that name of the place?!
New Orleans!
yeah...
like some minstrel in that
part of the world that
part of the world that's
a ********
what?!
you spew on me...
i spew on you...
we can at least exchange...
what we "love" about each other...
but i implore!
i implore!
visit Warsaw!
alone... no, not with other people...
ah-loan - a-l-o-n-e....
i'll be your companion,
when you peer at your shadow,
and attempt, to pretend,
to disappear.
Sep 11, 2018
Sep 11, 2018 at 8:48 PM UTC
Set the cheetahs on the loose
There's a thief out on the move
Underneath our legion's view
They have taken Cleopatra
Run run run, come back for my glory
Bring her back to me
Run run run, the crown of our pharaoh
The throne of our queen is empty
We'll run to the future
Shining like diamonds in a rocky world
A rocky, rocky world
Our skin like bronze and our hair like cashmere
As we march to rhythm
On the palace floor
Chandeliers inside the pyramid
Tremble from the force
Cymbals crash inside the pyramid
Voices fill up the halls
The jewel of Africa
What good is a jewel that ain't still precious?
How could you run off on me?
How could you run off on us?
You feel like God inside that gold
I found you laying down with Samson
And his full head of hair
Found my black queen Cleopatra
Bad dreams, Cleopatra
Remove her
Send the cheetahs to the tomb
Our war is over, our queen has met her doom
No more she lives no more serpent in her room
No more it has killed Cleopatra
Big sun coming strong through the motel blinds
Wake up to your girl for now, let's call her Cleopatra
I watch you fix your hair
Then put your ******* on in the mirror, Cleopatra
Then your lipstick, Cleopatra
Then your six-inch heels
Catch her
She's headed to the pyramid
She's working at the pyramid tonight
Working at the pyramid
Working at the pyramid tonight
Working at the pyramid
Working at the pyramid tonight
Working at the pyramid
Working at the pyramid tonight
Working at the pyramid
Working at the pyramid tonight
Pimping in my convos
Bubbles in my champagne
Let it be some jazz playing
Top floor motel suite twisting my cigars
Floor model TV with the VCR
Got rubies in my **** chain
Whip ain't got no gas tank
But it still got woodgrain
Got your girl working for me
Hit the strip and my bills paid
That keep my bills paid
Hit the strip and my bills paid
Keep a ***** bills paid
She's working at the pyramid tonight
You showed up after work I'm bathing your body
Touch you in places only I know
You're wet & you're warm just like our bathwater
Can we make love before you go
The way you say my name makes me feel like
I'm that *****
But I'm still unemployed
You say it's big but you take it
Ride cowgirl
But your love ain't free no more
But your love ain't free no more
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 12:23 PM UTC
poor, slumped over and broken strangers
for a penny, share their paltry stories, one by one
snippets and scatters of half-truths and fables,
so raunchy they'd make Aesop blush.
don't deprive me of your salacious souls.
rented sea views with mirrors and doors,
unlocked drawers and white ***** floors,
with freshly dead ***** in claw-footed tubs.
rich luxury rich luxury rich luxury rich luxury
does that second home taste too sweet?
ears swallowed by bubble bath suds
head underwater, eyelids crushed and
stinging from the acrid chemical perfume;
drinking the bathwater in an unclean tub,
tasting notes of freesias and ***** green-blue.
Apr 13, 2013
Apr 13, 2013 at 4:57 PM UTC
Summer raining on the Eastern seaboard
I liked you better before November, personally
There are metal shards floating in this bathwater
Their own tiny islands of pain
A mirror in shards face up on the floor
Guess that is just another 7 years of bad luck
Pennies are dropping into the bathtub
Copper going plink plink plink
Tiny rivulets running their paths
That's just the sound of my lifeline going down the drain, again
Smells like metal and tastes like pain
Red river gushing from my veins
Locked door trying to staunch the flow of secrets
Head swimming to the tile floor
clink clink clink
Scars these days open so easily
Like the Raven said, Nevermore
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 5:03 PM UTC
You have heard it said that
A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
But truly I tell you that
I am that I am that I am that I am
Dripping with Jehovah and stardust we fell to earth
Pieces of atmosphere pieced together
And who can trace the mythology of our chemical compositions
Or rewrite the narrative of our anatomies?
I fell to earth soaked in Yahweh and covered in snakebites
Black holes where the fangs sunk into the astronomy of my freckled skin
All the galaxies of my body each with their own elliptical orbits
Connect the dots to form two wolves in my milky way
Romulus and Remus –
My ******* bear venom white as the purest lamb
Whisper astrology and
Remember the day we built Rome by stacking corpses
Remember the day when all the stars burned red for us
But that was millennia ago and
I’m not your Venus anymore –
I’m nobody’s ********* Venus anymore
It was the age of Pisces and we came out drenched in Messiah
You found me picking painted roses on asteroid planets
With a blonde-haired child and a fox
In the garden green snakes and white roses
Thorns and soft pink ribbon-tongues
Fangs and velvet petals
Two drops of blood in the white sand like Mary,
I bore a son and named him Ares
I named him Mars
I named him Set
Boys will be boys will be boys will be monsters, you know that
I am that I am that I am that I am.
Swim down deep enough into the black waters and you’ll reach the heavens
Keep drawing blood from thorn wounds and you’ll drag out the atmosphere
Stare out intently into the abyss and the abyss will stare back into you
These are the things we knew
When we reached the outer boundary of the cosmos
And realized how hydrogen is nothing but celestial amniotic fluid
We, motionless
Smothered by God and Carbon and perfume and poison
In this ****** we named universe
On this fetus we named Earth
I am that I am that I am that I am
Truly with you until the end of the age
Until the afterbirth of star matter gets tossed out with the baby and the bathwater.
You have heard it said
A rose called by any other name wouldn’t smell as sweet
But truly I tell you
A rose is only as beautiful and fragrant as its thorns are sharp
And if you want to know what fills the space between protons and electrons
The gaps between breaths
The light-years between planets
Then listen to the sound of your own heart beating
Counting down the gestation period of our own reality
I am that I am that I am that I am
I’m more than a Rose.
Aug 25, 2015
Aug 25, 2015 at 7:14 PM UTC
CARNATION: Every frill in her dress is another piece of your heart broken. She withers in the winter but heaven forbid you see her at her loveliest in the spring.
VIOLET: Her voice sounds like steel cutting through velvet. You squeeze her tightly until she blooms in petals of blue and purple.
DAFFODIL: She's a field to run across but be careful that doesn't take you by surprise and lull you into daydreaming for the next 200 years.
SWEET PEA: By the time you lean close to her an inhale her scent, the sky will have already begun falling; she will have already transformed into vapor and taken refuge in your lungs.
LILY OF THE VALLEY: You'd expect to see her floating around in twos and threes, but she'd rather be hidden behind tangles of ivy, where you'd never find her.
ROSE: Be careful that when your hands are grazing her hips that you don't cut yourself because a woman hides her most important weapons under a layer of secrets and maybe there's more to the waistband of her skirt than you'd like to believe.
WATER LILY: A siren of the sea, she is lilting, singing a sad song and hypnotizing you, but you don't know any better and you want to see if she floats in your hands like she does in the water.
POPPY: Kiss her softly and when she collapses into pieces at your feet, scatter her in your bathwater and pull the drain plug and forget about her forget about her forget about her forget
MORNING GLORY: She stretches in the morning and sunlight rushes to touch her and the stripes of rays on her skin make you remember all the reasons why you woke up everyday for a reason other than habit.
MARIGOLD: Beware of the girl who covers her mouth when she smiles. Sometimes, it's because she doesn't want you to see that her heart is in her throat, but other times she's just trying to hide the fangs.
CHRYSANTHEMUM: Her clothes fall like petals in the depths of secrecy, but if you plucked them off the ground one by one, you'd still never know whether she loves you or loves you not.
NARCISSUS: You only love her because you see your reflection in her eyes and all she ever wanted to do was drown you gently.
Nov 25, 2013
Nov 25, 2013 at 10:15 AM UTC
1. Loss of Motivation. Check.
2. Procrastinating. Check.
3. Lowering Grades. Check.
4. Health Problems. Check.
5. Exhaustion/Lack of Energy. Check.
I can't help but stare at the F.
Like a crime scene photo of the ****** of my grades.
I missed classes. Deadlines.
Struggled with anxiety and depression.
And yet even though I am haunted by these feelings.
I can't bring myself to care.
I thought it was so many things.
but perhaps I have just fizzled out.
It just me.
My problem.
There's no foul play,
My brain just decided to commit academic suicide.
We threw the toaster into the bathwater,
and jumped right in.
Nov 3, 2022
Nov 3, 2022 at 3:02 PM UTC
I exhale
As I watch the blood slowly mix in with the bathwater
You deserve this
In the winter everyone wears long sleeves
May 24, 2013
May 24, 2013 at 11:19 AM UTC
"granday"
its not a *******
twang,
like a rubber band loosened up,
you're like a white sheet
with absolutely no
wrinkles no
lint no
culture.
its not a droop of letters,
like the syllables are carrying old bathwater
on hunched spines;
you sound like dusty paper
left on the shelf too long.
its
"grande"
poner un verano en tus palabras.
put some summer into your words.
fill your mouth with mid-august sweat
and belt it out like a pistol,
bullets ripping the fabric of blue
sky.
you are a flame in snow,
your tongue is supposed to be dancing on the top of your mouth
when you say it,
"grande"
roll your 'r's like you would to tamales in
corn flour,
like you would your body in mud
carpeting every inch of your soul in dark, crusted
veneer,
stuck between your toes.
your tongue is supposed to be ***
exotic chocolate,
french rain.
your tongue is supposed to be like a wild motorboat upon
the raging ocean,
hitting the 'r's with savage animosity
"g-rrrrrrrr-ande"
none of these
"grandays"
words like plummeting wrinkles
under tired eyes, your lips like dead fish floating
shallow and flaccid
in lukewarm
soup.
like rotting fruit left out too long,
squashed, useless, a waste.
do not fill your mouth with
mierda,
****
poner un verano en tus palabras.
put some summer into your words.
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 7:44 PM UTC
You are a full moon rising.
You are a bitter cold winter morning where I have to crawl out of bed, sleepy-eyed and still in a daze, to scrape the ice off my windshield in a hurry,
My pajama pants, wet at the bottoms from the snow,that now cling to my ankles, begging me to love them.
You are the question "why?" asked over and over again on repeat until the bathwater flooding my ears drowns you out.
If you tried so hard to leave this world,
Why'd you want so badly to stay with me?
When did it start to become all about you?
Because pretending to love you out of fear was like being forced to sit and repaint a table when I had already sat and watched the paint dry.
You never could repeat back to me my favorite color until I turned it in the face.
You said I never looked good in green.
And you never understood the weight words could hold until I told you not to call again.
And you must have realized then because it's been a year and I haven't heard from you.
If I'm being truthful,
Loving you was being seven years old and coming home after a long vacation to find out your goldfish had died.
It was missing your bus and having to walk ten blocks home in the pouring rain.
Being yours was when I realized who I was and realizing that wasn't who you wanted me to be.
And most importantly, it was realizing that I was not yours after all.
I was mine.
You are a full moon rising,
But I don't howl at you anymore.
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 4:51 PM UTC
write at midnight. edit in the morning.
write on a mountain. edit on a beach.
write inside a dream. edit & exist in reality.
write in a fever pitch as starlight kisses your cheekbones.
edit in the cold dawn light without excuses.
write loudly with Bjork screaming into the curtains.
edit in silence.
write as the clouds gather around the gibbous moon.
edit as the sun crests the hill & burns away the fog.
write inside, cozy under a blanket.
edit naked, cold on the front porch.
write asking questions.
edit demanding answers.
write blindfolded with your fingers waltzing across the qwerty.
edit bespectacled or with a monocle.
write like a mass ****** edit like a suicide.
or better yet
write like a homicide. edit like a detective.
write toward the open sky with your legs outstretched before you.
edit facing a clean white wall with your knees against your chest.
write because you are innocent. edit because you are guilty.
write during a fit of hyperventilation.
edit during mammoth exhalation.
write with complexity. edit into simplicity.
write, as Hemingway did, drunk.
edit, not sober, but hungover.
see your flaws in the sharp mirror of a headache.
write during sloppy explosion. edit during precise implosion.
write with your head in the clouds gnawing at the cumulus.
edit with your feet firmly planted in the ground.
write during violent collision.
edit during calm separation.
write with a pencil on soggy paper in a hot shower.
edit with a red pen sitting in tepid murky bathwater.
write among raucous laughter & banging skillets.
edit in secret while the kids are asleep.
write like a sadomasochist.
edit like a psychiatrist.
write while running on your tip-toes.
edit while lying flat on your back.
write in several languages with abandon.
edit beside a translator dictionary.
write as you are engulfed in fire.
edit with an extinguisher.
write with careless fluidity.
edit without assistance from amphetamine or coffee.
write with a full bladder,
standing up,
jitterbugging,
squeezing the tip of your *****
closed--urgently
squirm & trickle
your ideas onto
the porcelain page.
Jan 10, 2016
Jan 10, 2016 at 11:33 AM UTC
Let me tell you again about the dream I have where I wake up in a bed across the Atlantic.
The dream where you are settled on my skin, still asleep.
You are all lips and freckles.
In this dream you speak before you wake and you tell me, “hold my hand, hold my hand,” and your voice to me is like god ****** gospel.
When they open, your eyes are not your eyes—they are more like the only navigable sea I’ve ever known, and you’re looking not at me, but past me.
The dream where the air around us thickens and I reach out a fingertip, but when I touch you I go right through you.
Our skins ripple and move in waves as we fade into shades of cerulean that soak into the sheets, disappearing like bathwater.
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 4:34 PM UTC
it is a nice feeling of tragedy
when i let the bathwater
gently slide into place
and underneath the door
through the threshold
blue wisps from the television
keeps your face lit up
throughout the course of the night
i hear birds and those sounds they make
not just in the early morning
but always
leaving spots translucent beside me
every noise is subtle and
sinister
staring at the dark corners
cadaverous
forgetting only means that you’re
making room for something new
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 12:41 AM UTC
When every other breath was smoke
Sprinkling hiss of night
Copper and blue
Creeking amphibians
Disturb the foggy blithe
What do we not hear
When the time has yet to cease
Unto the darkest shadows of now
Ringing in the buoyancy with
Its epileptic fright
I can't understand the friction
Of old love and fault
When there is no clarity
In the ones i can't combine
I will breathe in my own conviction
By the route of the
Bathwater's wake
Jul 5, 2013
Jul 5, 2013 at 1:49 AM UTC
I hate the fact
that I let you control me.
I obeyed your every command
without thinking,
did whatever you asked
without blinking.
I said I was fine when I was not,
and I conveniently "forgot"
about every promise that you broke
because, for whatever reason, I still had hope
that we could somehow make it work,
even though it ******* hurt*.
I hate the fact
that I let you destroy me.
You told me you didn't love me
without blinking.
I fought back tears,
my heart sinking.
I cut my wrists until they bled
and watched as the bathwater turned red.
I kept pills in my desk drawer
because I had no chance of winning this war,
and even though I begged you to stay,
I blamed myself for pushing you away.
I hate myself
for being so weak,
for accepting defeat,
for the cutting, the drinking.
I don’t know what I was thinking.
Pink and white scars cover my skin
because I was dumb enough to let you in.
I learned my lesson, but at a cost.
You can’t hold on to what is lost.
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 19, 2013 at 8:32 PM UTC
Laying down the law of how I react,
Each verse in tune to the universal drumbeat but the thing about
No longer strange the way that miracles occur on a day to day basis
Meditation extends beyond the lyrics
Beyond the sitting still and coming to a peace
Certainly it starts at that but where it ends well depends when one defines
The ending of the meditation
An alternative , alter , degree of difference , meaning to medition could be seen as a conscious act of thinking , but that does not mean there are limits or borders to the edges of the known in fact it extends beyond into the daily uncertainties that flow
Foolish atrocities line our mothers womb and the simple pleasures become lost in fear of life and the only way we know how to counteract that kind of pain is fear , a confused kind of fear
One of distaste and eventually ignorance , ignorance is bliss they say
Well I say it’s not ,just that , I’s ignorance can be hindering , to ignore the mission is the wonderful to breathe in the restraints of feeling as if there has to be an emotion for everything , a deep attachment that clings to the very surging’s of the soul and go open
Open the Pandoras box, of a place so called shame , and see who is waiting there , try the door marked locked because who knows what’s inside , try the bathwater before you step in you might get hot you might see that the mosquito bites are actually just a test to see if you can resist the stress if you can slide past the friction into the aspects of tests that eliminate the need to be greedy into each dead unto each creed
I hail from the land you call Thai , oh but there’s my Hatian side , tu parle francais? Well I wouldn’t know what to say but I’m French, my accent will tell you I could make a good brew but that’s the highland fence
What’s wrapped up in your DNA? Stories from a bygone age ,
What’s wrapped up in your psyche? Whole worlds that I can not see
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 11:27 PM UTC
if i had the poetry to tell you how soft i am in hot bubbles
i could drive you mad
the combination of my prepackaged scents would make you curse
like they used to
for that one boy
whom i have willfully discarded
if you did not have the imagination
i would show you
and christen your forehead
with fig and blood orange
if you cannot reach my tousled wet head,
if you cannot not kiss my freckled shoulders,
if you cannot not put your arms around
my soft, bathwater waist
i should not tell you
that you could
no one
likes a tease
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 10:50 PM UTC
there, in those strawberry fields of dreaming-
those blooms of a season long since dead and torched-
i swore i found you
and you were speaking sweetly in a smokey room
with a crescent smile
and a cheap long-neck bottle
and a blue ball-point pen
that you'd only pry from it's waltzing
to chuckle with (and charm) the bartender
an older lady
with muddy-water curls
and poision ivy eyes
and...there's something about her that reminds me of my mom...
then the moment's gone
and now, all i can wonder
is how it is that she's counting change when she hasn't got any fingers
the captain must be on the mic again
with ******** banter about the weather
or our eventual destination
or something about the turbulence to calm the unfortunate un-drugged
his monotone monotony
sneaking through my sleep to me
and coming through like the voice of the radio host
as my head's beneath tepid bathwater
your ellegance uneffected by his audible intrusion
into my sub-concious dellusion
you pull at the tides of your brew
and wink
then back to a busy pen
i have to get to you
you've got to remember
come back
but dreams don't work like that
it's as if my feet don't match my body
or my legs are facing backward
or i'm in that godforsaken hallway scene of "The Shining"
and i'm finding this to be far more frustrating
than remaining concious through the flight could have ever been
and again
somewhere over nebraska
the ride gets increasingly shaky
not obnoxious enough to wake me
just enough to take me to the part of the nightmare
where my teeth start falling out
like precious little gems of vicodin and nicorrette
t a p p i n g out my fragile skull
and now i'm wearing some bloody-gummed grin
and that charming lounge is feeling like "From Dusk Till Dawn"
and all of the friendly faces are gone
except for yours
and you look horrified
how come now i've got your attention?
touchdown at o'hare
and i wake in the window seat next to a vacant chair
alive and well
except that you're not there
and to think
when i was a kid
my nightmares all had fearsome beasts
then i grew up
and found the monster to be me
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 9:11 PM UTC
You are a soft quiet pulsing
a slow sip of lukewarm coffee in the morning
the gentle caress of bathwater over skin
you are the rain in summer
the steady hum of an overhead fan
you are the melting liquid in a lava lamp
a candle in a windowsill
you are 5 am sunlight
the gentle wind that blows through hair
the first inhale of a just lit cigarette
you are a day of rest
you put your hand on my chest while you kissed me
and said you felt my heartbeat in your palm
like a gentle orb
and here I always thought I was
a gunshot in a back alley outside of a bar
just another unsolved ******
I am ripped plastic
an open landfill
I am blood dripping on tile
but I find I like your insistent denial
Mar 9, 2014
Mar 9, 2014 at 4:34 PM UTC
i'm trying to forget
how it felt when you
ran your fingertips
across my skin and
the sound you made
when i kissed your
collarbones but god
i can't help it i can't
erase you from my
mind and you know
i'd still drink your
******* bathwater
Mar 13, 2015
Mar 13, 2015 at 8:02 PM UTC
my anemic blood the color of saffron
is running out of my back
and into the bathwater
my sister is screaming
quarter past a freckle
and she jumps out
the metal faucet where the water
pours out in gallons
is sharper than I thought it was.
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 12:17 AM UTC
unnamed emotion
slips: over my head
like tepid bathwater
in a clawfoot tub
coil into dimly lit
memories;vintage motifs
where the glamour
is all but tarnished
lips once stained smoothred
are cracked;withered
not fit for a kiss nor a
memoir of the evening
submerged beneath heavylight
weight of regrets?no.
lack of: a detached nostalgia
featuring no judgement, only
the autumn wisps of when you felt anything at all.
Feb 11, 2011
Feb 11, 2011 at 7:39 PM UTC