"bloats" poems
These soft stones you call stars
claw at ravens, underneath the skull of your irony.
We are not without our useful futilities -
That function as the only spiral
of our narrow chasm
yawning in the wicked mist that tingles in the nerve-dead breath, your charms are few -
well met and the hour has lost it's keening dread...
Where the hourglass slept -
Things are not the things we name things, alas
Our lexicon corrupts the numb jest -
the dumb joke that chokes the joy out of dominion
and bloats the vulture
till it simply
explodes.
You're next.
Oct 26, 2012
Oct 26, 2012 at 3:37 PM UTC
Toys get lost.
So-called "best friends" cost
much more than ere thought.
Flowers wilt.
She felt gross in kilts;
too tall, like on stilts.
Santa: ****
Rain annoys the roof.
Wishes on a hoof.
Soda bloats,
so do root beer floats
and ice cream boats.
People die.
I still wonder why...
They're too tired to cry?
Money's spent.
Must speak eloquent,
yet not what she meant.
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 8:01 AM UTC
I drive all night
The only way I know how to fight
I drive all night
To search for light
I noticed a possum
I thought it was playing dead
Until blood blossomed
Like a flower out of its head
My vision flooded by red
My heart filled with dread
My mortal anxiety only grew
When I realized I have blood too
I hear the deer
They're busy snickering and bickering
While my emergency lights are flickering
They scatter in different directions
After possible danger detections
They are timid and meek
They hide in remote foothills
People see them as weak
Because their kind doesn't ****
I followed a mad rabbit
That made a bad habit
Out of always running
And digging holes
It thought it was cunning
And made of gold
Until a predatory eagle
Made it feel less regal
I witnessed a raccoon eating and called it a thief
The next day I saw it lying dead in the street
Did my erroneous blame
Lead to its execution?
That's part of the game
In this institution
Every step
Could mean death
Just by making noises
You're making choices
There are jaguars and elephants in some places
There are humans in others
Predators have different faces
They could be your brother
On this darkened road
I reach a sedentary mode
When I approach a herd of stray cattle
In my mind there is a reciprocal battle
I could strap on a saddle
I know where to prophetically lead them
But the path of least resistance is freedom
Is it really right to use disciplinary order
To keep them within a fenced border?
This road is a loop
That passes by farms of no fruit
Or vegetables for that matter
Yet we somehow get fatter
Society bloats while it starves
Because we refused to see the signs that were carved
So mothers start crying
And vultures start flying
Because everyone is dying
We're always making new recruits
To drive along this predatory loop
Jan 31, 2018
Jan 31, 2018 at 2:58 AM UTC
let me tell you how it all happened
they'll tend to tell you bullies caused it
or that everyone has the same experience
and it starts because
other people
forced it to
but what i have to tell you
is that i did it to
myself
i'm a turncoat
to my own flesh
i would look in the mirror and see
a gut
and suddenly
that was all i could see
no matter if my calves were toned
or my arms were sticks
i saw that gut
or my
curdled thighs
and that was all
so i'd say i wasn't hungry
or i'd "sleep" through a meal
and i'd work extra hard at practice
pretend i wasn't always run down
and even if i'd pass out
or struggle to stay awake
i'd pretend like it was sleep
i was depriving myself of sleep
and you know that cycle
in every anorexic girl's story
where her body bloats before it thins
because it's trying to protect her
i went harder in that stage
so i could lose the weight that made me a 2
instead of 00
and i would cry myself to sleep
because i was in pain
mental
and physical
but i couldn't stop the
taunts
i gave
myself
my dad would tell my friends
to make sure i would
eat
but i never listened
and now i look back
and see my former shell-f
a self that had no self
a self that was only
a shell
a turncoat
anorexic
Apr 16, 2018
Apr 16, 2018 at 10:24 AM UTC
hot womb blooms
"'time is an in-finite mother'"
bursting belly bloats
withs
econds
creaming
rand
reams
they cry out
for release
trapped in hollow tight
but
they burn
but a second
before
smothered by passing
kin
smoking from that kiln
May 12, 2010
May 12, 2010 at 2:27 PM UTC
What if
we don't follow orders
what if, we ignore the Pope
what if, there is no punishment
delivered, at the bottom of a rope
What if
we decide not to hurt and ****
what if, we all live in peace
what if, there is real justice
rehabing, criminals and thiefs
What if
we propose a human treaty
what if, it's put up to a vote
what if, it passes referendum
government, no longer bloats and gloats
What if
we treat each other gently
what if, kind words are thoughts are said
what if, you and I my friend
abandon war, embracing love, instead
Dec 8, 2016
Dec 8, 2016 at 12:30 PM UTC
The breast of the sea swells tonight
as her efforts to rise, heightened
by great heaving breaths, break her skin
like inflated balloons, topped thinly
with spume, sea bursts in labour.
She roars, tries suppressed pitch to gain
the shore, finds her efforts are checked
then sweeps out once more, tumbling
somersaults over herself, grumbling
with submarine thunderly sounds.
Begets disorder by flinging herself round,
sea bloats, yet moving no slower,
bellows ignored, her foaming tears flow
down watery frills and rollers make
naught of revealing her saline-stained face.
Sea-swell intends to bare all this night-time
in majestic embraces with Spring tide.
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 11:54 AM UTC
theres a juncture
a crossroad
ask
Papa Legba
voodoo god
doorway to the loa
and Baudelaire
poet extraordinaire
when youthful passions and eroticism are sullied
and pretty pretty flies away
from years used up
and gravities command
a slow draying
suffocates leaps of consciousness
and leaves in its wake
belly bloats sagging gut
callouses
****** lines
slowing metabolism
and a host of other accumulated degradations
cruel revelations unpeel the chilled soul
as the light of the body is eroded
by time
and the horror of solitude sets in
a conjunction of creeps moon and Venus
show us new enticements
Satan's *** nail
an independent morality
flowers of evil
the eroticism of aesthetic suffering.
like idle hands in something filthy to ******
the glistening buttery *** of youth gone by
and in its place
forbidden undulations of dark dreams
and the beauty of ****** horror
or what then may i ask
the imagine-less drab canvass
of the castrated high minded middle class?
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 6:49 PM UTC
I am lost in a space I cant claim
with shape shifters playing some twisted little game
and I have been pawned into the unknown
Far from any sort of counsel
With silent watchers eyeing my back
Sizing me up to see what I lack
As if I've been put to a test
I cant tell if I've been granted some sort of pass or sentence
As I cling to the fringes of my past
Holding onto the false security I never truly had
and love is lost in midst of this war
Is it myself or someone else trying to settle some score?
Is this heaven's gate or the fires of hell?
What's one without the other?
My skin bloats and swells
As the sea lightly salts my skin
Will I be eaten alive or am I learning to swim?
The question is where I'll go from here
Does the path lead to clarity or am I forever caged in confusion?
Jun 2, 2013
Jun 2, 2013 at 11:23 PM UTC
The Smell Of The Soil ,
Want us together,
and,the drops of rain make the smell more harder,
The harder smell of soil,
represent my extreme lust,
Don’t worry about smell,
the drops will maintain it,
Let the hours to be passed,
just hold me like you never before,
Let our lips to be met,
because this great time again we’ll never get,
Oh! As our lips met,
the cloud roars,the rate of rain bloats,
This is the last time,just 1 hour more,
So, gaze me like you’ve never before,
Oh! rain stops times up,
we can’t hold the time,
leave me now, look sun shines
No more mistakes, go away,
please don’t asking me to stay.
Aug 6, 2016
Aug 6, 2016 at 4:25 PM UTC
My bowl of cereal
Tastes like giving up
Every cheerio hits my stomach
With the finality of death.
When I'm full
I'm not pretty
I'm not thin
My stomach bloats
And I am disgusting.
Laxatives are my best friend
They'll wash everything away.
Stomach acid
Burns my throat
As I empty my stomach
Again and again
But true beauty is pain
And that pain is my beauty
Because I know I'll never be pretty
But maybe I can be
Skinny
Sep 6, 2016
Sep 6, 2016 at 9:40 PM UTC
He’s an evil despot, tall and stout.
Call him a liar, watch him pout.
We want an impeachment to throw him out
Then we can line up and punch his snout.
He’s a changing despot, not much brains
He’d look better all trussed in chains
Then we could put Hillary in what remains
As she pulls all of us out of the drain.
Lying despot told us that he would make
Changes to drain the political lake.
Like most of his promises, it was fake
All he does is cheat and lie and take.
Lying pudgy despot claims he’s slim.
Not the last of the lies from him.
Feels he’s entitled to every greedy whim.
Every day in office it gets more grim.
Dizzy dippy teapot, lives for applause,
Just like a fat cat, he licks his paws.
Gobbling McDonalds bloats his jaws.
Millions of his minions support his cause.
Dumping Donnie Teapot a good solution
For a dangerous hater of the Constitution.
Let’s all get make a mid-year resolution
To run him off before there’s revolution.
May 25, 2018
May 25, 2018 at 7:26 PM UTC
I am a child
Starved for many days and nights
My belly bloats with hunger
It seems it could even swallow up
That beautiful harvest moon
That billowed across the sky
When we first fell
In love
I am the upper half of an hour-glass
Shrieking, shrieking
In silence
As the seconds of sand
Slide away
Abandoning my naked curves
As you did
I wish to take it back
Alas I have no hands
No arms to hold it
To hold you
To stop the flow
Of time
I am the sea
So vast is my emotion
So great is my desire
My hunger
My need
Is a foaming roar
Or an ocean storm
Black as hate
Terrifying
It crashes and smashes
The shore
In all its’ fury
But for all the food in the world
And the sands of time, of empires
Lost
Crumbled by the elements
I will not be appeased
My roars do crash
They fall
On deaf ears
The shore is cold
The shore is silent
The unforgiving rush
As the waters draw back
Tells me the tide will never end
Feb 1, 2010
Feb 1, 2010 at 7:35 PM UTC
This early winter has already slipped from the macadam,
Bloats the creek I see
From the perch of rusted manhole covers
Their tunnels rush with concrete.
It falls over the v-shaped Two-Log dam,
It whispers to me
I’ve come close to
Nothing, to nothing, to nothingness,
I’ve heard the babbling, the incomprehensible echo
Of my own voice
In the abyss of being, that, if I spoke
It taunted back, in a voice
Rife
With truth.
Redemption of solidity has me now,
This is where I grew up:
Along the same creek, along the flow and course of man
Crossing the winter’s water has proven
Test, trial, and victory
Every time. I never noticed it.
Apathy is a vague blur in the saccade of the last few years,
Self-destructed by the fault of feeling.
I am more human now, returning to the shores of limitation,
Of the piercing history
Still young, but wizened, hard, a court
At which I stood and begged for my head.
I have but my name now, and nothing to return to
But the temporary homes with temporary people.
If I said I don’t care, I was wrong. They were my temple,
But the god of me, the god of them, the god of sheer youthful joy
Has been overtaken by grapevines, by ivy
And I still proclaim victory, still proclaim
I won the fight of isolation.
From the frozen bed of silt and winter
I pull concrete chips from the bridge
They destroyed ten years prior, where once I stood
And added my sorrows to the ebon stream, carrying it
To the end of it, where end met end,
And continued on end-to-end.
But I have seen nothing and no end it quite like it,
For every shore has its mirror,
And beyond it is my voice, I cast out,
Calling back,
As it was.
Nov 27, 2014
Nov 27, 2014 at 7:47 PM UTC
Eaten Alive by Nothing
Surrounded yet alone,
Wasteland of desperation and despair,
Reaping rotting fruit, bloats, gnats, flyblown,
Longing, loneliness is never fair,
Lanterns and candle light to keep you warm,
Dancing shadows morph to devils,
Slitting despair bleeding, breeding ticks that swarm,
They feed and breed into hungry weevils,
Burrowing through chest to feed on carrion of rotting heart,
Also feeding on air from lung,
Heart along in solitude from ventricles shredded apart,
Alienating through truth, be still my lashing tongue,
Friends are always around,
Right until you need,
A lost letter of emotion sent outbound,
Lost but never found, devils take the lead,
Numb, in slowly boiling water like a frog,
Past scars of trauma a curse,
Can only feel so much before a clog,
Until you become cold, psychotic, or worse.
Break out the old smokescreen mask,
Smoke, laugh and smile,
Survivals your only task,
Foot in front of foot until your first mile,
Decaying down to skin and bone,
Each mile a greater distance,
Always harder when you’re alone,
Exhausted, running from the devils persistence,
Until a day you want to be alone
Quarantining spread this plagues fate of hate,
Feeling like happiness is just a loan,
Someone finally listens, too little, too late,
You hug your dark cloud,
With a thirst water doesn’t sate,
Ears covered, anxiety so, so loud,
Take a shot, a smoke, anything to placate,
An infested body no one wants close,
Insect army of traumas and abuses,
Each growing into a lethal dose,
At least for now, I still have my uses,
Aug 14, 2019
Aug 14, 2019 at 6:22 PM UTC
The nation's midsection bloats like a Mississippi fish in the sun.
Feb 28, 2013
Feb 28, 2013 at 9:55 AM UTC
something is turning, turning. it unfurls and bloats before me; unrecognizable, aside from the eyes. they were always the same. she looks healthier, i say. healthier half beat to death. i let myself grieve.
quiet, as always.
there’s never anything to
worry about, seriously.
(the dog inside me growls, thrashes and whips his chain, splits his maw on his confines.)
Anyway, it wasn’t that dark out yet. The moist, hot breeze licked at their shoulders as they walked home. They oozed in through the back door like smoke, sweating and cursing, I appeared in the living room like an apparition. The curtains were drawn. The TV was just static. It all happened in slow-motion—I see five skeleton fingers clutching cigarette butts, someone scuttles on the porch, the screaming door bursts open
And, yeah. That’s all I can really remember. Looking back, I feel like I should’ve remembered something like that, right? Yeah. That’s the type of thing someone remembers.
Feb 15, 2021
Feb 15, 2021 at 7:48 PM UTC
Wanting feelings of warmth, but only ice instead
Done with the sorrow, I just want to be dead
Serious voices of suicide are singing through my head
Should I swing from a tree, in childhood they constantly saved me
Snuggly wrapped up in their limbs, a million books I'd read
Years were spent up above reality, the safest spot to be
Should I slice my wrist my throat, with my favorite knife
Many times I've felt it's bite, the lines on my body it's made rife
The smell of iron will be strong as red becomes black, an end of life
Should I drown, heavy blocks tied with the strongest rope
Water filled lungs, fish nibbling on my corpse when it bloats
Flower in an underwater garden, not sprawled in a dead man's float
Should I take a gun, get a good taste of cold hard steel
Shattering my cranium, my brains it will no longer conceal
Ending it all in the deep dark woods, has a strange appeal
Should I take some pills, lie upon the side of a mossy hill
Watching the birds in flight, till I feel deaths darkened chill
Suicide seems the only way out, stuck in my head, mentally ill
To my knees I drop
This rain never stops
Watching lightning from my rooftop
Wish I wasn't this way
Wish I had bright days
Wish in the sun I could play
Guess I'll see what comes my way
Guess I'll see how my life will sway
Guess I'll give this life one more day
But just in case I decide to jump instead of slide
Please believe me, I really tried
©Pauline Russell
Sep 8, 2017
Sep 8, 2017 at 1:12 AM UTC
What wondrous sights are these?
As yawning fauna wake from peaceful sleep and greet the morning breeze.
To fleeting birdsong rising up, which floats and bloats the air with ease,
Then escapes the canopies of ancient trees so tender, into rising Verdigris of splendour.
Upon a lazy English meadow scene, in summer time.
Jul 3, 2016
Jul 3, 2016 at 5:53 PM UTC
God look upon me, I so need you right now,
reveal your love, oh please please show me how,
I can't fight past this festering wall of decay
I'm tired, aching and lonely, I won't make it any other way
this heart you gave me is desperately ill
without your strength I'll wake in the morn to it still,
never have I had such luck with love, oh why,
do I find myself falling asleep begging to fade away, to die
you can't stop the tears that will no longer come
cupid's fell from grace, swapping his bow for a gun
and now here I stand as the moon lights up the callous skies
surrounded by deceit and pathetic lies
seeking reverence within cigarette smoke, my ignorance deadly to some
caring less and less, I think my time has come
to either forget the past and look to the future ahead
or to wallow in the self-pity that bloats my head
I'm so sorry for everything I've done wrong
I'm selfish, I'm self-loathing, I don't deserve it but for forgiveness I long -
my sanity is twisting, my honesty it crucifies and bends
for it seems any happiness I ever find goes away in the end
I'm not stupid, I know this is my last dance
oh Lord I'm begging you, please, give me another chance
Sep 21, 2016
Sep 21, 2016 at 4:07 PM UTC
Insight bloats the rotund sun,
Energizing everyone.
In the effort to be different,
We are similar.
Shackled to this broken system,
Still it's prisoner.
It fades as it forms ,
As we're freed,
from our own hands that hold.
It fades as it forms,
As we're freed,
From the storm and reborn
As crooked as its crooked center,
As a symbol of surrender.
Tears that fill a forlorn corner,
I lost so much as I got older
Where i was and,
What I wanted.
How bad it burned, and
How I forgot it.
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 5:37 AM UTC
I can hear the sound of your heart
Beating viciously
Against my chest
Hard fast rhythmic beats
I can sense the blood
Pulsating your beautiful vein
Ah so sweet
The fear in your eyes
Submits to fatal flaws conceit
Escape futile
As the thought
That escapes your putrid little mind
Dissipates upon air unseen
You scream
One last attempt at independence
But you belong to me now
Drink of my vanity
Eat of my contempt
Until your belly bloats
Of my seed bursting at the seams
Expelling a magnificence
Never before seen
And they
My seed
Shall feast upon your flesh
Until dawn
Manifest itself
And consummates
The last remaining memory of you
For surely the sun shines bright
Upon a new day
I can still hear
The sound of your heart
Beating
Viciously
As it fades
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 10:57 AM UTC
Like every *** has a limit
So does every existing heart
As to the weight of emotions
It can carelessly contain.
So let not the *** overflow
Or the heart over bloats.
Do often share sums of it
With the hearts that lack it
Or you’ll fail to handle
The hurdles God throws.
Feb 28, 2020
Feb 28, 2020 at 12:50 PM UTC
The sun played its usual tricks on the leaves
putting colour and composition into autumns grandeur
but winter lurked just underneath this cosmetic skin
waiting to burst starflung into every crevice
where the ice remains as cold as a frozen temperament.
Deep within the earth the heart
of the seed will rest embraced by the long wait
to be ****** out of the earths womb into spring
where the soft sun and wind and rain
will reach out and grab the arms of the emerging shoot
claw it above ground and set it free into
the wide world of evolution.
Welcome the rain, remnants of noahs ark
that bloats the soil and sand and pulls the roots back
into the ground while coursing through the veins
of the resplendent tree reaching for the sky
and wind and wonder of life
and dressed in foliage and flowers
the kingdom of believers will arrive
to set foot under shade and succulent tube
to nourish themselves in bounty and beauty
Autumn will return from its journey
to touch a clock and take the baton
of beauty back again. A year gone.
Older. Wiser. Smarter.
Author Notes
A journey through the four seasons. It summer in New Zealand and sizzling. Its not the best summer to write about. Soon it will fall into the next cycle and all that I write about will repeat.
I took my dog, Petals for a walk yesterday. She always stops at one particular flowering bed and ferrets out-whatever. That's when the poem came to me.
Hope you enjoy the poem. To those caught in blizzards and ice and snow wherever, remember, there is beauty in that too! Just gotta love it-which ever way. Its nice to be alive.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 9:36 PM UTC