"bloat" poems
Yogurt.
"I begin the day buying yogurt in a small favorite grocery store."
Not pizza, nor gatorade.
Bananas
although they are imported from afar and grown in monocultures.
Attract fruit flies in August.
Peaches
locally grown with rainwater. I ate all the farmer's peaches alone
stacking them by the railroad tracks.
Water --
rainwater, tap water, distilled water, carbonated water, spring water --
deep gulps, infinite sips.
Nuts
in moderation, or not, unsalted, raw, replacing chips. His bowl
of filberts, almonds, walnuts quiet weekday mornings.
Edible plant parts --
roots, leaves, stems, flowers, fruit, buds. In olive oil
or butter.
Potatoes --
look online how best to prepare. Baked or fried. With a little
fish or meat.
Tea and honey,
play and prayer. Swimming and running,
talking quietly.
Bread?
Bread's possible as the Bible. Each is liable
to bloat us.
Wine and dandelions.
Dandelion wine's Ray Bradbury's story. Cans in a pantry, books on a
shelf
to the end of time.
Pasta
we used to call spaghetti, never noodles. I wonder if I can remember
how to make
grandma's sauce.
Tomatoes --
cherry, grape. Grab God's eye
going by.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 11:34 AM UTC
To **** or not to **** that’s the ******* question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the bowels to suffer
The twists and turns of outrageous rumblings
Or to take action against a bellyful of gas,
And by farting pump one out? To strain, to bloat
No more; and by a mighty outburst we’ll end
The gut’s ache, and the thousand natural stenches
That the **** is heir to, 'tis a resolution
Right devoutly to be wish'd. To **** to ****
But perchance to **** there's the ******* problem;
For in that mighty **** of doom what turds may come,
When we have let the little beauty out from mortal tail,
Must give us pause; there's the danger
That makes calamity of the farter’s life;
For who would bear the sneers and mocks of men,
The neighbour’s shock, the lover’s curling lip,
The pangs of horrid stench, the ******* o’erflowing,
The leaking **** orifice, and the drips,
Impatient strainings that the tragic farter makes,
When he himself might sweet easance make
With a careful prodding finger? Who would a ******** wear,
Grunting and sweating with noisome convulsions,
But that the dread of solids after air-release,
The undiscover'd oozings, from whose delivery
No toilet visitor recovers, puzzles the will,
And makes us bear the bellyache we have
Than fly to others we know not of?
Thus indigestion does make cowards of us all;
And then the native heave of constipation
Is sicklied o'er with the pale fear of defecation;
And enterprises of both ******* and crapping
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of exciting toilet action.
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 2:25 PM UTC
God knows how our neighbor managed to breed
His great sow:
Whatever his shrewd secret, he kept it hid
In the same way
He kept the sow--impounded from public stare,
Prize ribbon and pig show.
But one dusk our questions commended us to a tour
Through his lantern-lit
Maze of barns to the lintel of the sunk sty door
To gape at it:
This was no rose-and-larkspurred china suckling
With a penny slot
For thrift children, nor dolt pig ripe for heckling,
About to be
Glorified for prime flesh and golden crackling
In a parsley halo;
Nor even one of the common barnyard sows,
Mire-smirched, blowzy,
Maunching thistle and knotweed on her snout-
cruise--
Bloat tun of milk
On the move, hedged by a litter of feat-foot ninnies
Shrilling her hulk
To halt for a swig at the pink teats. No. This vast
Brobdingnag bulk
Of a sow lounged belly-bedded on that black
compost,
Fat-rutted eyes
Dream-filmed. What a vision of ancient hoghood
must
Thus wholly engross
The great grandam!--our marvel blazoned a knight,
Helmed, in cuirass,
Unhorsed and shredded in the grove of combat
By a grisly-bristled
Boar, fabulous enough to straddle that sow's heat.
But our farmer whistled,
Then, with a jocular fist thwacked the barrel nape,
And the green-copse-castled
Pig hove, letting legend like dried mud drop,
Slowly, grunt
On grunt, up in the flickering light to shape
A monument
Prodigious in gluttonies as that hog whose want
Made lean Lent
Of kitchen slops and, stomaching no constraint,
Proceeded to swill
The seven troughed seas and every earthquaking
continent.
6.5k
I want cheesey garlic bread!
alas, it's all that's in my head-
and if lactose I could tolerate,
this might not be such a debate.
though I'm sure my body could conform,
but it's taken this long to reform!
from the **** and mucus that is dairy,
that will surely turn your knuckles hairy.
I'll eat a piece of gluten toast,
for it only makes my tummy bloat,
but from cheese I must stay far away,
unless I want my **** to spray.
it's a sign, I think, that my body rejects
such a harmful product, my body protects
but god ****** I want garlic bread,
the cheesey kind, it's in my head...
Dec 11, 2012
Dec 11, 2012 at 1:30 AM UTC
I wish I could love my life and love myself
a little bit more,
fall on my hands and knees at every chance
and praise the life I lead.
I wish I didn't hate myself quite as much
and I wish I didn't recoil at the idea of my life,
the Grimm's fairy tale where Hansel and Gretel got eaten,
Rapunzel never threw down her hair
and Snow White was never kissed by Prince Charming.
The hatred burns hotter when I think of myself,
poor little rich girl,
sat in luxury in front of a warm fire,
belly full,
as thousands of kids in Africa bloat to death with paper thin limbs,
families in the Middle East are massacred and scattered across their countries barren landscapes,
innocent, too soon nearly corpses whither away in hospital beds,
sinking their teeth into whatever life they have left, clinging on.
I'm stable on the mountainside.
My family have never even seen a gun.
I haven't missed a meal in my entire nineteen years.
What the hell do I have to complain about?
My unhappiness disgusts me nearly as much as I disgust myself.
Sitting on a damp bus,
watching beads of rain rush down the dusty windows in diagonals,
like meteors crashing into Earth,
I curse.
I curse the vehicle,
I curse the safe home it's taking me back to,
the three course meal it's taking me from.
It's ******* sick.
I wish I could smile and mean it.
I wish I could love and not hate.
I wish I could love myself.
I'm so sorry for not being able to fully appreciate my life,
for taking it for granted,
for sounding like a spoiled brat.
You probably hate me as much as I hate myself.
I.
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
*******
I.
That's a vowel I'm going to try and use less of
(at least after this poem),
I promise.
Oh the irony.
I am not looking for sympathy.
I am not looking to be compared to a dying child on the street.
I am not asking for a single kind word.
I just ask for a bit of forgiveness.
I don't blame you if you can't seem to find any.
Just know I'm sorry
and I'm going to try.
Now.
*A
E
-
O*
U
Dec 15, 2013
Dec 15, 2013 at 4:25 PM UTC
Bigger things are easier to see. You might miss a humming bird or bee. You won't miss a condor or eagle. The opposite is true for people.
How can that be? If there's more of me, why am I impossible to see?
Invisibility isn't a cloak or spell. It's your fat pants stretched thin and worn as hell. It's the T-shirt you never thought you'd fit now threadbare and torn in the armpit.
There's just more of you to love, I thought the saying went. Well there I was feeling only torment. Faces fell when I said no, I'm not pregnant.
Does love bloat like this body of mine? Does it get watered down like cheap wine?
My back, my legs, everything hurt. My body just didn't work. If not by plane, by train, or car, I wasn't getting very far.
I longed for someone to scoop me up, to cradle me and gently rock.
I didn't fit in anyone's arms and briefly flirted with self harm.
Twice at work I took to crying. It went unnoticed without my trying.
The wrong solution looked too friendly and as of late, far too trendy.
Left alone I pondered fate. If I died, I'd be dead weight.
I felt stuck forever like dried cement. Sinking too low even to lament.
I watched my waist size raise and fall with the tides. If the full moon swells with admiration, why was round me full of desperation?
Apr 16, 2018
Apr 16, 2018 at 10:21 AM UTC
.
**•atop the mast billows
my wind-tossed rag•grinning skull embla-
zoned proud•the starkness of black upon my flag
•piercing the encroaching sea mist and shroud•her-
ald the sight of the jolly roger • instilling trepidation
in all who sail through my turf • fuelled by the thirst
to pillage and plunder•others before, have sunk into
graves beneath the surf•my salt encrusted timber
creaks a frightening low growl•
my hull would pum- mel thro-
ugh the opposing waves• my sails bloat full trapping
winds that howl•my deck bears the screams
of a thousan- d slaves•know
me, seafarers... i am no legend but
truth•avast! seafarers, i am the tale
that looms•believe me, seafarers for i
am ca- pable of all things**
••• •••
**uncouth •fear me,
seafarers for i am your
doom•you could sail the seas with
the world's most skillful of crew•
you cannot deny the
inevitable
heavy hand of fate•be-
cause once my vessel comes
within view •you would
know for certain that it's already
••••••• •••••••
••••• •••••**
too late•
Nov 30, 2015
Nov 30, 2015 at 11:39 AM UTC
The thoughts crowd me
Scratch at my mind,
A thousand crows fly around
It rains black,
Feathers float down
In slow motion like snow
Each different, unique,
They continue to fall.
My mind confused the feathers
Bloat out light of thought
Confusion,
Disorientation,
Am I losing my mind
I see a mirror dive though
Serine,
Calm,
Like after a storm,
The thoughts that scratched
Now flown away,
All that is left is a single feather,
A reminder that thoughts
Can claw, scratch at your mind
Consume you in darkness,
But wash it away,
And all that is left is you and a clam mind.
Jul 24, 2014
Jul 24, 2014 at 6:05 PM UTC
When I was a little girl I loved going to the fair.
seeing the clowns
rides
and carnies.
but my favorite thing to see at the fair is the fun house
Remember those?
Where mirrors flooded the walls bending towards you
distorting the image you saw to one of absurd portions
Nose swelling larger
legs shrinking
hips inflating.
I loved seeing the shapes my body could take.
...I haven't been to a fun house in years.
And even if I went I know the mirrors would look like those that hang in my room.
Body dysmorphia is it's own fun house
one full of insecurities and self-hate.
It makes regular mirrors bend my perception of reality.
Makes my stomach bloat
thighs inflate
cheeks widen
eyes shrink
My mind has turned into a trapeze act
And I don't know if i want it to stop.
Dec 19, 2014
Dec 19, 2014 at 12:46 PM UTC
Capitalism is fair.
Though capitalists be well bred.
The poor can only care
That they should sometimes be fed.
The rent they pay to capital
Exceeds the nation's rate of growth.
People are mere collateral
When fortunes begin to bloat.
The masses may start to shout.
Though the rich intend to die out,
Inheritances never croak.
Inequality learns to cope.
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 6:37 AM UTC
Coarse granite slabs split the earth
glinting at the fractured sunlight.
Sly winds whip and lash the grass and gorse;
disconsolate skies weep upon the land.
Rain rushes in to bloat the meagre streams,
and gulleys slash the sinewed clay.
Pulse and sluice. Erosion fashions
new forms of contoured legends.
Ragged crows snag the horizon
blasted and cursed. Little else
between the walls of weathered stones:
hand-laboured one on one.
The moor muscles its independence,
frowning at the low land,
bragging to the skies
its ancient splendour.
Aug 17, 2010
Aug 17, 2010 at 6:56 AM UTC
Chocolate rabbits from hell
My feet hurt from stepping
On chocolate eggs
And I have to look at my mom
As she watches me
Push the basket of chocolate aside
as i sit down for breakfast
and I have to ignore
the two brats
beside me
gorging themselves
on
little
round
pieces of
fat.
I remember last year
Jelly beans, crème eggs,
All that **** that I now
refuse to cram in my mouth;
Im not adding to
the reserves of pudge on my
hips/thighs/arms/stomache
inside and outside
everyday i
bloat
mirrors
****
I can hear sloshing in their stomaches
As they stand
Hockey practice, hockey practice
They’re carried off by chauffers,
My parents
For the rest of the day
Ill be alone
Last year that would have meant
A choco-fest, and I miss it a bit
As the hunger that no one will notice
begins to set in
Aug 28, 2011
Aug 28, 2011 at 4:58 PM UTC
To hurry and scurry and gather and gloat
To sit and stare and glare and bloat
To dream and scream and writhe and rage
Trapped all within a subtle cage
Jun 19, 2022
Jun 19, 2022 at 4:39 AM UTC
Sunrise brings realization that you are really gone
Amidst the golden beams poured onto my lawn
Morning sky wide with opportunity blue
All I'm able to focus on is you
Taking time to change your mind
The veil of denial rendering me blind
You notice me when it's required
Games have made me so ******* tired
Rays of sunshine warmly fall onto my cheeks
Have not worn an authentic smile in over three weeks
The birds sing a cheerful serenade
Their musical voices to my ears all but fade
You block any memory remaining here
Would be happier if all trace of me disappeared
Will hear your compliments if there's something you need
Motives hidden between your lines aren't hard to read
Sunset floods fire
Room filled with a glow
Goodnight said to secrets you alone will only know
Footprints on my heart because you tread upon my chest
Stomping the vulnerable parts you once caressed
You do not observe scars you left on my skin
You're too selfish
Subconsciously rubbing it in
The space you once occupied is now vacant and cold
Chasm of darkness is all it seems to hold
Blackness comes creeping as the light goes down
Relieved night cloaks my visible frown
Swallowing earth but it sticks in my throat
When it does finally reach my stomach I bloat
Bites I choked down churn in my gut
Tempted to *****
I keep my mouth shut
And fill the gaps in your life with cheap connections
Lost
Fool yourself by picking random directions
I suspect eyes will not sparkle for long
You with someone else just has to be wrong
Reality is not black and white
In fact colors are brighter because I feel grey
Don't understand how you could lose my love and be okay
Mar 17, 2022
Mar 17, 2022 at 11:10 PM UTC
your symptoms are mine. we attach dead cells to living gods, you and i.
Golgotha spawn, writhe in leather trousers
to harlequin the marrow of our dire pipes !
to leap and jeer in tandem
that's how love does the impossible
with your mundane.
we are the abattoir of our stoic cow
your symptoms are mine. i see how you might think me mad; you not i.
but this is the dream fleck of your unkissed
a sweltering bloat of frozen hope
flogging the wolf in a gleam
of campfire exodus
and dust.
your nexus is the heart of the most free, a slim gorge of Krakens
yawning fresh hell and fjords of unconquerable silence.
yours is the tomb I am used too.
where we resurrect
we die laughing.
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 11:37 AM UTC
I awoke from the dream, slowly fading,
with only one image remaining:
As I fished, in a lake, on a boat,
police brought up a body
disfigured by bloat.
A man, with his features erased,
leaving an unrecognizable face.
But then I saw the tattoo…could it be..you?
Sodden and bloated from all of your drinking
your body, heavy, slowly sinking,
until you descended to the bottom below.
The water is also the sum of my tears.
The dream a depiction
of my sorrows and fears.
Awake, I know that you’re not dead.
But there’s an emptiness
in my heart and my head.
Mar 3, 2025
Mar 3, 2025 at 1:13 AM UTC
that should be the name of a song
or a poem
or a memoir of a man who remembers nothing but
danger that passed him by,
ruffling his hair as it passed,
ignoring his pleas:
stay please stay please stay
i just want to mean something,
he would say
(that could be the subtitle
or the blurb,
something to draw the reader in; if floating bodies aren’t enough)
i just want to mean something,
and near-death experiences are the flavor of the day.
i’m not brave enough to do it myself,
i’m not a hero
or a villain,
just a lonely boy, undefined individual,
and your 350 teeth can help me mean
so much more,
350 individual teeth that float above my head,
falling out one by one as you bloat with seawater
(and here the first chapter would end,
here we would break for intermission,
audience smiling over martinis.
only 32 teeth, did some fall out?
too many maraschino cherries will do that to you.
too much sugar on the rim of that glass)
dead sharks in the current and none glance twice
i keep yelling but they just
deflect my bubbles,
and the surface swallows them like the heartless ***** she is
i keep yelling but they just move farther
i keep yelling but stay please stay please stay
i just want to mean something.
i just want some blood on my hands
is that so much to ask?
i just want some of my blood in the water,
to be a survivor
or a victim
(whichever gets more press coverage;
who cares about a memoir that nobody reads?
who cares about a memoir where nobody gets hurt?)
i just want shark teeth in my heart,
he would say,
i don’t want to make a mark on the world,
i want the world to make a mark on me.
that should be the name of a song
or a poem
or the eulogy of a boring man.
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 12:58 AM UTC
We eat
we consume
we devour
destroy
all
until we bulge
we bloat
we burst
with our wealth of
fat
so we ****
we nip and we tuck
and with luck
we get to **** up
the whole thing
again
as we eat
we consume
we exploit
until we explode
why not
why not just eat
us
ourselves
our own excess flesh
and thus
spare the world
a little
for a change?
Aug 29, 2013
Aug 29, 2013 at 3:46 PM UTC
In the kitchen
of the top floor flat
I’m ignoring the dread
and preparing a sandwich
There’s garlic mayonnaise spread thick
from each seeded crust
tessellated lettuce
buttoned jalepenos.
It’s the ‘ham’ that confuses people-
you can’t tell that it’s quorn from within.
I cut it into squares,
my triangles were never neat enough.
Tomorrow as I crunch and bloat
I’ll be thinking of how to break the news
word the resignation
and sign it cursive sarcasm.
From now on,
no confused and
overbearing voice
will ask me-
‘I thought you were vegetarian?’
Apr 12, 2021
Apr 12, 2021 at 2:21 PM UTC
who's afraid of
someone who downed 140cl of whiskey
going blind blah duck blah
qua qua quack for each and
every dwarf like ***** wonka tasting cyanide
saying: it's syrian blue cheese, or else middle
eastern schnapps! refreeze! refreeze the snowman!
we got a bucket-load of adverts in nappies
for charity companies; every parishioner on the ready...
gluttony regurgitated go! blow inserted into the
word blah, akin to bloat but with blah the cursor.
Feb 28, 2016
Feb 28, 2016 at 10:59 PM UTC
Your words,
like silken tendrils,
crept along my skin,
Passing shivers flared,
Brushed off
with an uneasy smile,
Now these diaphanous strands
threaten to mummify,
Encase me in a cocoon
of slights,
sarcasm,
and casual cruelty,
Liquifying my insides
to better feed you,
Bloat your predatory emptiness
with my life-force,
Your clacking mouthparts sharpen,
As does my resolve,
My innards are not for your
slurping,
Skitter back to your shadowy lair,
This corpse will not play,
I rise, awakened,
The sun waits for me.
Feb 16, 2014
Feb 16, 2014 at 12:25 PM UTC
1.A walk with one's ego
"Take your ego out for a walk", the master asked, all aspirant monks
one monk who took his pet across the river left it there and returned
the rest after a nice walk hand in hand, brought each, little wet but
rejuvenated, missing master's word in it's real sense altogether,
only for the wise one, the door opened, others had a lesson, painful
2.Tending one's ego
Two monks , still not ready to part with
their egos,tended both the way each deemed fit ,
The first, so obedient, followed his ego like a lamb,
one other made it follow him with it's strange requests,
a third the first one to **** his ego with his sword of mind
kept smiling seeing the misery of both still not bold enough.
3 Catty
Ego, was her, fluffy black pet *****
her show piece, she always loved to pamper,
crafty was the creature, hell bent to keep
her reputation as an attention grabber,
the fact was this, the cat and her mistress
were thoroughly insecure, borrowed colors,
caterwauling in the sound of screeching tires,
she mated with Tom cats that came in jumping walls ,
her mistress was entertained, felt proud,
so ego grew large to the stature of a feline 'top dog',
it's metamorphosis made her owner too bloat up,
Ego one would have to think is her alter ego.
4.I won't ditch my guide dog
Every one thought she was nice, why so egoistic
gets her way every time, projecting her larger than life ego.
"Well it's my guide dog to get around, as I am one blind person,
I am not yet a renunciate on a quest, I chew my bones too well"
Mar 22, 2016
Mar 22, 2016 at 9:44 AM UTC
His skin was once ivory; elegance in its most basic form
He now screams of deathly paleness.
His fingers were once long, talented; connected to me
They now scrape at a chalkboard; scrawny, poking, prying.
His voice was once profound and alluring; a British orient
It’s now faded into annoyance, degraded into pain, the loathing of every octave of arrogant, pompous sound.
The time changed & the mind changed
But I’m left mindfucked; wondering what this means
My feelings, an optical illusion?
His reality, a state of indifference?
Eitherway:
I reckon I’m glad, to be rid,
Of this horrible, horrible evil little parasite,
Hopefully, he’ll be kept at arm’s length
For I don’t think I can bear
A creature so afraid, so undead.
**Dear Parasite,
This is the last you’ll hear of me.
Go bloat and float arrogance somewhere else,
We have no need for it here.**
Feb 16, 2013
Feb 16, 2013 at 11:07 AM UTC
from the bank
I see the ghost of a pier
old posts standing solitaire
a ramp rotted, long gone
moored to one stubborn beam,
a bass boat, tethered to time, rocking
with the whims of the waters
fickle, but steady
storms upriver may hasten
the current, bloat the stream
though the flow never ends,
lapping against the hull
hiding inside are more ghosts:
phantom footfalls of fishermen,
odors as old as Eden, sounds
which once made songs
by those who cranked the motor,
manned the rudder and cast the lines
into the depths, seeking a tug--a pull
that meant dinner, a small success
a simple surrender of one species
to another, from beneath the surface
into the sun, a sublime suffocation,
then stillness before the gutting
many a day ended this way
the boat buoyed again to the dock
bellies then filled from the sacrifice,
the waters licking long the wood
Mar 28, 2017
Mar 28, 2017 at 9:14 PM UTC
Have a cup of anxiety
It will go down well with your vanity
And sip it down your narcissistic throat
All the way down to your stomach bloat
Eat the food for your hungry belly
Watch your legs turn to strawberry jelly
Your obsessive thoughts come out your ears
As you quickly chew down all your fears
Crybaby tears and acidic words
Make swallowing all the more absurd
Your mascara smudged eyes watch your
tunnel vision
Your brain candy makes a banana split-
personality decision
It's a nightmare you can barely control
But if you don't pay attention it will eat
you whole
So swallow down all your crazy mad panics
Along with your trusty reliable xanax
Oct 19, 2017
Oct 19, 2017 at 5:50 PM UTC