"bleary" poems
I hate the way I cause you pain.
Making teardrops fall like rain.
I hate the way you make me think.
clouding my mind like I'm half asleep.
I hate the way I feel so weak.
I always feel like such a freak
but though we both make clouds and sleet.
we must try to stand on our feet
hope
is what we have.
this bleary endeavor will not last forever.
Dec 10, 2014
Dec 10, 2014 at 12:29 AM UTC
Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones
I feel the scratch
of the itchy cotton gown
on the narrows of my back
as it climbs up and down
Displayed I lye on the medical tables hard cold steel
It seers into the crevices of my bones
I ponder the lone window and wonder if it's real
I listen for the bleep and bloop of medical tones
Nurses walk by in a mechanical grace
poke and **** & tap and touch my face
and then proceed to leave without a trace
with no hint of knowledge of my medical case
Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones
I'm a big girl, I'm a big girl
I begin to chant in a simple rhythm
as small as a ball I begin to curl
I'm abandoned inside this glassy prism
The dead silence creeps inside my brain
I want to scream to fill the deadly gap
but the cold thick air of silence brings pain
I comfort myself and say it will be ok
My breathing begins to quicken
my eyes dart around the room
only comfort is the fear which I am stricken
my sight goes bleary as darkness looms
Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones
Tears sting the corner of my eyes
I want someone to hold my hand
Oh God how I want to cry
but the only thing there is the bleeding arm band
The test begins with the thickness of barium
It slides down my throat and clings to my esophagus
It tastes like chalk and pandemonium
they want me to suffocate I guess
I chug and chug as the pictures are snapped
x-ray upon x-ray of my stomach and my back
Drink more Drink more They tell me to do
Nervously I shake and say, anymore and I will puke on you
Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones
Even more poking and prodding ensues
but of my stomach, ribs and *******
I lay rigid as a board from the pain of each touch
I grow weary of this tiresome rues
The tests are done
and the coast is clear
I am left alone
to dress myself in fear
Dismissed and discharged to walk away
they file my chart with a robotic smile
now for the wait of endless days
I'm lost in my mind's land of emotional exile
Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones
Pins & Needles Pins & Needles
I wait for the results
Is it stomach cancer, an ulcer or both??
In the dark I am kept like followers in cults.
Nov 2, 2010
Nov 2, 2010 at 2:34 PM UTC
Chanel No.5 fills the air.
My bleary eyes make out the outlines of a stage.
I catch sight of athletic contours of her body, gold dust covered skin shimmering under a flood of exclusivity.
Chic, Elegant with a touch of class.
All senses awakened by her salacious seductive moves.
Tassels and feathers add to sensual illusion and my eagle eyes are transfixed on her snake like movements.
Sugar **** takes centre stage!
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 3:39 PM UTC
*
*
-
My silver Knight,
shining with angelic splendour has sailed
towards the outer regions of my Kingdom
to lay waste to all my enemies. My heart in
hands, my hands are clasped, brought alive
with love, with light, with prayer.
Please, come back to me.
As I think of arrows piercing his breast,
or swords, or warhammers or even axes
I cannot, will not ever dance to the songs
of war.
A fire that claims souls, the earth that drinks
blood, a sight that makes my stomach turn
To see men fighting for a cause or no cause
at all. For war rapes all of happiness and loved
ones.
Oh! Begone tortuous thoughts! Revolting facts!
He will return. He will return!
For my nation prays with fervour, but all have
bleary-eyes, no more than me. He's gone to brave
the dragon's dawn - of men branded, fuelled by
the flames of war, riding into the fields on their
snow kissed mounts, roaring and clashing under
a broken sky; the kiss of steel, blades that dance
between life and death and give any and many
the kiss of Eternal Sleep.
The harp of his silver tongue plays soft, gentle and
true. Hand in hand, we walk through fields, of my
dreams divine! The ambition, the care, the charm
glowing in your eyes to be something more.
To you, I was a muse to climb and soar though the
heights, and you spoke so highly of my golden
sapient quill.
My heart, heavy, full of woe
As sleep has not come smoothly to my face,
my body, my heart, my soul.
You promised me, 'I will return to you.'
'I will return to you,'
how your voice hung so sweet in my ear,
ripe with love, vibrant with hope, certain as the rising light
Please do not fade away, I could not bear it!
Please don't fade away!
Bring unto me that gold and joyous hour!
Fair the storms and roars; overcome the shores,
slay and return to me from the dragon's dawn,
unscathed and with a smile on your handsome
face.
-
*
*
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 5:17 PM UTC
Ban flu,
Man flu.
Aching head,
Bleary eyes,
Death lurking,
In disguise,
Under the bed,
What a surprise,
**** off Death,
I’m going to rise.
No I’m not,
I flop down,
Head cushioned,
In eiderdown,
In the curtains,
Face of a clown,
In medication,
Senses drown.
I’m not dying,
I am in a state,
Snot and phlegm,
I ******* hate,
No latent desire,
To **********
No appetite,
I’m losing weight!
I’m getting better,
Weak as a lamb,
A hot toddy,
A wee dram,
Man flu is real,
Not a sham,
Getting better,
The **** I am.
The fifth day,
What a-to-do,
So had enough,
Of feeling blue,
Death lost,
So go *****
Getting dressed,
I am its true.
Man flu,
Ban flu.
© Paul Chafer 2014
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 10:24 AM UTC
Donald Trump was elected President of those United States,
He said to his household: Stay here awhile, I notice a fire..."
-Sheik Al Jilani
The people hate him, the nation opposes him,
Perhaps I shall bring you news of it."
-Sheik Al Jilani
Iraq is the world's second largest source of proven oil reserves...
Hold your tongue! You have no common sense! Your house on the river Tigris and yet you are dying of thirst?
-Sheik Al Jilani
just two steps from
everything
everything
O' seeker
hereafter
See,
-Me.
Two steps removed...
-right?
Coming home in a Baghdad Slater...bleary yet with sight. *
Aug 26, 2017
Aug 26, 2017 at 3:07 AM UTC
Stumble forth on rubber legs
When drink perfumes your breath
Search the sky with bleary eyes
And salvage what is left:
Still breathing, speaking, seeing
Still marveling the stars
Still gagging out weak poetry
And tripping out of bars.
One foot before the other
Stagger, step and sway
The wind that croons soft music
Lulls the grief away
Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 10:08 PM UTC
Where am I?
I don’t recognize this dark place,
Where cold arms have embraced me,
Clutching at my heart. My body’s inner-most core.
I have issues breathing,
This simple action I did without thought before has now become a painful challenge.
It feels as though I am drowning, being pulled deeper and deeper, where the water just gets progressively colder.
My chest is tight, my lungs are straining.
Once things were so simple.
Where have I been brought to?
I don’t remember heading for this place,
Nor even have the slightest memory of wanting to travel here.
No, not the smallest fleeting memory.
Tears are a constant threat now.
Always there, ready to burst free from their bleary prison.
My throat, being squeezed from some unknown source,
Gives me hardship when I attempt to speak.
To say out loud what it is that ails me.
Instead, I am unable to,
I refuse,
To allow someone in.
The fear of being ridiculed at the tip of my mind,
While forbidden thoughts and longings are stored in the back.
There are no words, can be no words,
To express this immense confusion.
This lack of direction…
Where…am I?
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 9:19 PM UTC
The oyster. Her oyster,
I've been dying to see the pearl,
the moment I and she,
went to swim together,
our eyes, with intense emotions, half closed.
I'll softly touch her with my long, trembling fingers,
swiftly, when I touch,
it would open like a jewel box,
I'll peer inside at all the treasures,
exotic it would be, never forget,
through obsessive nights,
I thought and kept awake, bleary eyed,
I wanted to tell her this,
but then, froze on my tracks.
The oyster, it glows in mind,
she, too pulsates with excitement,
we'll be together, in this submarine adventure.
In that night, our hearts didn't even wink,
sauntering through the still moon lit terrace,
when, one by one stars
fell in place and adorned the sky's coiffure,
the waves of the sea, softened
moved in languid salaciousness,
then, at that precise moment,
we came face to face.
The rough grains of sand, under our undulating bodies,
sighed sweet, sang a ***** night gull's song,
searing feel of salty wind mingled with blood
oozing from love bruise, bites that hurt,
enhanced the pleasure of frothing blood ,
thirsty mating tongues, twirled and twisted.
*Oyster, her oyster, I remember every moment,
tapering in to gentle whispers,
dissolve and be the light, playing with the humming waves.*
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 1:53 AM UTC
plat, plat, plat
went the blood as it spat on the floor.
He entered the tub a few hours before.
She slipped in, with him, to rest her bleary eyes.
With a razor, she chose to never arise, and
him, with pills, a bit counter-clockwise.
Entwined, they were found in an eternal embrace,
though the events prior could never be traced.
Jan 24, 2013
Jan 24, 2013 at 5:44 PM UTC
the priest, whose tomato face looked like it might explode under collar tension,
gave the valedictory at the friday night execution
the yellow-toothed, combover'd serial killer buckled in electric chair
kept staring at the door, expecting an ally to crawl in late but not too late
the mother of one of the victims rattled on about
how she didn't care that the killer had an allergy to the anesthetic used
in lethal injection he's going to die either way what's it matter?
buzz of fly crack of rolled program against empty folding chair
(yes, there were programs, and whoever laid them out knew their typography)
buzz of fly raised upward, toward the black, magma-cooled ceiling
audience chin up, pupils circled fly as the priest droned on
about everlasting life like a Paul Simon song from his youth
like a catcher's mitt from his youth like a youth from his youth
the boyfriend of one of the mothers of one of the victims
said he was hungry pancakes sound good, don't they?
I love it when syrup gets on the bacon, you know? love that.
a pudgy guard with bleary eyes and 12 a.m. shadow
rolled his index finger lowered his brow, telling the
priest to wrap it up so the priest wrapped it up
by reading the names of the victims
Tara Barnes, 17, Rachel Lythe, 10, Julie McPherson, 13,
Serenity Strongman, 15, and Mary Beth Williamson, 13
the priest said something about judgement as
the boyfriend of the mother of one of the victims
took another swat at the fly missed
any last words? the priest asked
where's James? the killer asked, he was supposed to be here
did you guys give him the right time?
the guard nodded to a lab coat by a black box
then a hiss then a hum then an inhale
the first jolt of alternating current for
instantaneous brain death
hard to tell if they succeeded in that
for the second jolt came only a moment
later this shock's aim to fatally damage
the internal organs, overstimulate the heart
and the killer's face looked like a horse's leg
then an exhale then a hum then a hiss
and the killer's face looked like the crinkled
skinmemory of a cicada
it was late most of the best restaurants already closed
but we could go to that diner off 63rd, the boyfriend
of the mother
of one of the victims, said
Feb 16, 2013
Feb 16, 2013 at 1:07 PM UTC
Throughout our childhood, our grandmother would turn to us,
in her yellow-lit kitchen, brandishing a rubber spatula or meat
tenderizer to warn us against falling to temptation. She’d witnessed
too many good people disappear into what she called
a consumption of the soul,
and as my cousins licked sugary batter off their spoons,
no one could have known that one day the candy-coating
would melt from their eyes to see their mother
for what she had done the last six years that now showed in her trembling hands, glossed vision, and a temperament that splashed into anger, flowed into melancholy as easily as she had found herself downing bleary bubbles at the brim of a precipiced fountain.
She was promised her very own message in a bottle, and this keep-sake
manifested in cousin Libby’s dreams, floating down a wine river
that gushed from the slashes in her mother’s wrists. Somehow I knew
these nightmares were born from warm and heady “sleep well”s
mumbled from across the darkest of rooms which held so many glass
ghouls with names and strengths so real, they even scared
my grandmother into silence as she stirred the pecan pie for Easter dinner. She offered to let me lick the spoon clean, but I simply
asked for straight sugar instead.
Feb 16, 2015
Feb 16, 2015 at 8:40 PM UTC
Blank mind
Eyes open
Intake everything
Or focus on a
Singular star.
Any number of
Profound and perfect things
Could be murmured right now
And etched into the
Night sky’s infinite existence
To dance with the stars
*So I—
With hands cupped over mouth,
Eyes bleary from tears,
And hoarse voiced—
Whisper*
“I’m so stupid”
And it was by far
The most insightful,
True,
And honest thing
I’ve ever said.
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 4:32 PM UTC
i lit my cigarette like a birthday candle
and i wished for your name
everyday
through my puffed up coughs
and bleary eyes
Jun 11, 2022
Jun 11, 2022 at 4:20 PM UTC
Last class:
Muddled mind and bleary eyed
Concentration took a fall
Find a hollow - crawl inside
Lost the pills to Now-Tow Hall
Benzos - always second choice
Wear my Kpen like a shawl
Want to whine with all my voice
GIVE ME BACK MY ADDERALL
This class:
**Iris in on what's inside
Orange bottle of enthrall
Guidance, I will not abide
my true love - oh adderall
Tweaking out with pupils wide
Shrink my presence, oh so small,
Temptations I will all abide
Personified a mere rag doll.**
Jan 23, 2016
Jan 23, 2016 at 8:31 AM UTC
He wove a weary comet streak
That stained the clear blue sky
He had no time to stop and think
But went a hurtling by
He warned of grevious perils
Dormant in coming days
I saw him with a sparkling eye
And watched through bleary haze
Nearing the horizon and eye limit
He turned and cast a wink
At what he loved and no one more
Then only did I blink.
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 8:56 AM UTC
there's something about
the people you don't know
that makes you laugh
the old men escorts
babble while we whisper
they make you laugh
cold fingered hipsters
who talk **** cause they can
have made you laugh
"what are you doing?"
"just playing" i would say
and then you'd laugh
bleary blue eyed boys
good intentions twisted
have made you laugh
and yes even I
still blue eyed and bleary
will make you laugh
there's something about
the people you don't know
that makes you cry
the old men escorts
babble while we whisper
they make you cry
cold fingered hipsters
who talk **** cause they can
have made you cry
"what are you doing?"
"just playing" i would say
and then you'd cry
bleary blue eyed boys
good intentions twisted
have made you cry
and yes even I
still blue eyed and bleary
will make you cry
Oct 19, 2010
Oct 19, 2010 at 6:48 PM UTC
One autumn day in Providence
I opened up a door,
And entered into a stuffy room
Called "Edgar's Nevermore",
A curio shop with things forbidden,
And things bizarre and perverse,
And obelisks of ancient books
Occult, arcane, and diverse.
I poked around the pint-sized potions,
Inspected a petrified eft,
But made no purchase; and empty handed
The merchant's lair I left.
Returning home, to my surprise,
Like one who'd broken the law,
I found I'd taken a good unpaid for:
A little monkey's paw.
It tightly gripped, with fingers curled,
A flap of baggy sleeve;
And there it stayed, upon my jacket,
When I hung it up at eve.
For many days it didn't move,
And seemed the perfect pet;
But never trust a monkey's paw,
Or this is what you'll get:
I went to bed a drunken evening,
And slept as though I were dead;
And I didn't hear the monkey's paw
As it crept beside my bed,
The monkey's paw that had bided its time,
And waited, still as could be,
To choose this night to strangle it—
My voodoo doll of me!
(Why did I have a voodoo doll
Of me, you ask? Well, I...
Well, let's just say...well...I can't tell you...
I'd blush to tell you why...)
I awoke (with bleary, blurry vision)
To the monkey-fisted grip,
Then died without a single curse
To swear upon my lip.
And in my town I'm still remembered
As that quintessential loner
Who died alone with a mangled throat,
A creepy doll...and a *****
O.O
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 3:13 PM UTC
Nothing compares
To shaking on top of an old
Broken down windmill
With you.
Nothing compares
To silent summers
Sweating in the sweltering heat
Of love.
Nothing compares
To bright blue brick walls
Bringing about a brightening of bleary bland feelings.
Nothing compares
To dark auburn dreams
Drifting down my darling's cheek.
Nothing compares
To radical rants
On ruined romances
raining rivulets of righteousness
Upon those rotten adolescents.
Nothing compares
To myriads of murals
Of most moved men
Materializing
Meandering
In the fields below.
Nothing compares
To falling flat to fear
Fretting and fanning
To finish off
This fantasy.
Oct 8, 2015
Oct 8, 2015 at 9:27 AM UTC
There was quite a crowd gathered when I reached my apartment building that morning.
Lots of cops and Emergency Medical personnel gathered everyone was just standing around.
I asked Wild Bill what happened?
Not sure, think it came out apartment five.
What?
A blood-curdling scream, and long wailing, unnatural sounds.
Right then I knew it was bad.
The apartment was occupied by cutthroat junkies and their infant daughter.
Tony “The Hulk” came out first, bloodied, bleary eyed, staring at the ground
Rosalie “The Muse” came next, screaming hysterically in Spanglish... muttering broken Catholic novenas
last soaked in solemn silence, Inca “The Baby”,
covered in a sheet, silent, never to speak again, forgotten.
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 6:38 AM UTC
Stuck in my head like music,
like lyrics that flow and move
and have meaning.
Like lines from a movie, that
voice is so clear.
over and over in loops,
cartwheeling between my
hemispheres, until,
bleary-eyed,
I rise before the sun, not
exhausted
but
excited!
Wanting more; hungering after it.
Surely it will come;
Surely I can appease my anticipation with some fanciful dream
or maybe the passing of time
will help to curb the realized enthusiasm.
But when poetry flows so
freely and necessarily from
my pen, such energy
cannot be destroyed, so much as
misdirected.
Jun 11, 2014
Jun 11, 2014 at 10:16 AM UTC
crushed up
our love, a cloud in the air
like the death of a moth
crumpled in a child's palm,
all passion, all blood
turned to dust
in my heart an absence,
memories snatched;
little silk pieces strung like spider webs
across my chest:
amnesiac
you sob red rain
for love's lack, nothing left
except
that stabbing pain.
But in this bleary life there's billions
left to gain.
Aug 31, 2012
Aug 31, 2012 at 7:09 AM UTC
If you get it, you lost it.
I am here
(On this platform it is evident for your reading now)
I express myself
(Heads scratching, wondering what and how?)
I share pieces of me
(A defragmented glimpse of an experience deemed ‘worthwhile')
Callous, sensuality?
(Or a traitor in sheep cosplay?)
A dead-end hi-way?
Or this pawn from yesterday?
Here, your final say
This family we never asked
Amontillado without it's cask
Dry and cheery
Heart’s are bleary
We own this laborious task
My sins are scrollable, thumbed in haste,
Wrapped in ribbons of curated taste.
A gallery of masks, all timed just right,
My shadow dances in the ring light.
What of shame when shame gets likes?
What of thought when thought’s in spikes?
I weep in drafts, but post a grin—
The world won’t wait for the shape I’m in.
So brand the bruise, then sell the hue:
A wellness tip in sponsored blue.
This self I host in feedback’s cage—
A pet, a post, a digital page.
I bare my soul (or just its shell).
You’ll never know. I sell it well.
I logged on seeking something undefined,
A tether, maybe—some reciprocal ache.
But all I found were mirrors misaligned,
Each smile too wide, each word opaque.
The comments pile like leaves, not read.
Applause from ghosts, replies from ghosts.
I feed the feed, it feeds instead—
A hunger that consumes its hosts.
I draft a truth. I dress it twice.
Add polish. Then delete.
I write in blood, convert to nice,
Make trauma fit a beat.
No lesson left. No higher shelf.
Just one more version of myself.
Jun 10, 2025
Jun 10, 2025 at 10:16 PM UTC
Sugar and spice
And everything nice
A delicate blush, a secret crush
Rings, white wings and other fine things
Ribbons and laces, tender embraces
Elegant grace and a sweet pretty face
Cheeks of pink, colorful drinks
Holding hands and fluttering fans
Smiles sweet, small and petite
Soft, luscious hair and a whispered prayer
Ballroom dancing, timid glancing
Liqueur and ****
Jealousy, greed
In dark rooms, kneeling and wasted
Under the sheets, squealing, getting tasted
Smeared lipstick, hair mussed, no longer slick
Bleary red lips, curvy hips
Tattoos and lingerie see-through
Heavy petting, getting drunk and forgetting
Ripped tights, endless nights
Coke and hazy smoke
Expensive drugs and sweaty hugs
Twisted lies, glazed eyes,
Strong musky perfumes, dark rooms
Sketchy guys, spread thighs
Broken trust, humid lust
Mindless fornication, empty stimulation,
With bated respiration, nothing but degradation
Vodka-cherry shots and hazy thoughts
Dancing, grinding, lights all blinding
Backstabbing, hands jabbing
Dark magic, endings tragic
Secrets revealed, wounds opened or healed
Mar 3, 2013
Mar 3, 2013 at 2:22 AM UTC