Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Paula Swanson Jul 2010
Sssttttuhhp....clunk.

Plink..plinkplink...flip, *****, ****, plink.
Donk, donkdonk, plink, doink, ****.
Flipflap..****, plinkplink, doink.
Doink, doinkdoink, whirrrrrr, buzzzzzzzz ****.

"Oh ****".

Sssttttuhhp....clunk.

Plink, doinkbink, flipflap, bink.
Twirrrrrrrrtwirrrrrrrr, twirrrrrrr *****.
flipflap.....clunk

"Oh....Man"!

Sssttttuhhp....clunk.

P­linkplinkboinkdoink...flip...bonk shhhupduuuup.
****, doink, *****, shuuuup.
plink, ploinkploink, **** doink.
booooouuuuupboooooouuuup...*****
flipflap...clunk

"Shoot"­!

Sssttttuhhp....clunk.

plinkplinkplinkplink, doink flipflap, bonk, *****, twirrrrrr.
doink, *****, bonk, wuuuuuup, twirrrrrr, puurrrrrrrr.
plink, ploink, doinkdoink, purrrrrrrr, shuuuuupshuuuup
plinkplinkplink, doink, flip, doink, flip, trrrruuuuurrrrp.

"YES"!  (shakes machine)

TILT!  TILT! TILT!

"NOooooooooo"!
heathen Nov 2016
"Is this anti-feminist of me?" I wonder out loud into the steam as I shave the fine, tiny hairs in my armpit. "Maybe," it whispers back, "I don't know."

Showering is very therapeutic for me. Being around or in any body of water usually is. This time gives my thoughts free reign, wondering about anything that the structure of my day doesn't normally allot time for. I think - or don't - dumping my stream of consciousness down the drain with my conditioner, rinsing myself of impurities.

---

I’ve killed my third plant in two months. They were all those little succulents too, the ones that are supposed to be next to impossible to **** up. A plant that has grown and adapted and learned to thrive in harsh environments, can sustain life for months without any water or even sunlight, through sandstorms and deep permeating frosts and being trampled on by...a camel? An armadillo? I’m actually not really sure where succulents are naturally indigenous from. I bought mine on the cheap from Trader Joe’s. Maybe California? Anyway, it can flourish all completely on its own - and I killed it. This is my relationship with plants. I so desperately want to feel like I am the kind of person who is attuned to life and have a natural synchronicity to all things living. I like to tell my friends that I am Snow White and that the elements and the animals all bend to my touch and my will. The idea is to purposely come across as boastful but I know that when I repeat this terrible joke over and over, the person I’m truly trying to convince of that is myself. Hovering, I keep a watchful eye over what I have put so much investment in and tweak and pinch and poke until I am positive every aspect of their care and growth has been properly attended to. And then they die. I pour too much care into my wards and leave them drowning, but only with the best of intentions. Nature vs. nurture vs. me.

This is my relationship with people. I can become overbearing. I know I can. So, I make sure that I’m not. I’ve got that deep-seeded nurturing aspect that is laced within my responsible, eldest female caretaker upbringing, which translates to me being overly affectionate but also being headstrong and yell-
y. I just want the best for you, I say as I smother my loved ones. I sigh and exfoliate my feet.

After draining all of my thoughts, I emerge from the shower into this wall of humidity. I feel sterile and perfect. This whole scene feels like some sort of cinematic metaphor for rebirth, but really I'm just trying to look presentable for work. I grab my fat purple towel and pat dry my face. While I'm blinded, I shuffle to position myself in front of the mirror. Naked, I throw my towel to the side to reveal myself. I play this game every time I bathe, and every time I hope to unveil a new person. I look at myself in the fogged mirror. Still me, just wetter. Shinier. Pinker.

---

"You know, 'pinker' isn't a real word," my friend who I read this to tells me. "You should replace it with 'more pink.'"

"You know," I start, "language isn't even, like, a real thing. It's just a set of ancient rules and guidelines based in other dead 'languages' to give ourselves boundaries of comfort and live in predictability and reason. I'm shaping language to my vernacular to best portray my thoughts and ideas to you. You know what I'm trying to say, anyway. After all, language is just another construct. It keeps communication within a nice, neat little package, therefore it keeps creativity and free thought in a nice, neat little package. I'm, like, redefining definitions. I'm making words my own. Like Dr. Seuss! I'm like ******* Dr. Seuss. Zoopity Zoo and Binkity *****! That means 'Step outside of your temple of familiarity, you ******* sheep person.'"

I was never one to take constructive criticism very well.
My friend goes home. I go to take a shower.
Aye pride myself
     being sui generis
     verb hose subject for a zoologist,
cuz webbed phalanges

     branch handsomely
     from mine feet and wrist,
where perforce great expectations,
     asper the next greatest (I SCREAM)

     scoop of the month intimated,
     conducted under top secret
     controlled laboratory conditions
     with yours truly (as the de facto

     par excellence)
     rodent named "Oliver twist"
Lady Dedlock key ping
     watchful eye within bleak house,

while Thomas Gradgrind
     feigns tubby bad company
     during these hard times
     temporarily all quietest

lull on the western front
     since Donald Trump
     detente foretold by a palmist,
whereby said President

     of the United States
     feeling as an optimist
met with Kim Jong-un,
     (cautiously side stepping morass,
     viz hit blind side dare devil hoodwinking,
     via awe shucks faux bully)

     suspending noninterventionist
impact unexpectedly witnessed leader
     of North Korea as multilateralist
     on historic June 12, 2018,

     summit minus linguist,
where fist pumping in Singapore
     for unilateral negotiations
     offloading nationalism

     weighing down
     figurative chest i.e. kist
by resplendent sun, where ma lounze
     sotto voce, somber solemnly
     sober ensemble re: joist

uniting this stately isolationist,
whose approximate
      ten stone heft easy to hoist
merely sustains purposelessness

     this poem without a gist
hence if Yukon spare one
     (or more cruxes) lemme be fist
in line, though first, aye
     would need to convince thee
     this scribe doth exist!
Cue Etta James: “At laaaaaaaaaaast . . .”
I’ve racked up over 50 followers,
50+ www.hellopoetry.com fans,
Fifty shades from cyberspace,
Dedicated disciples,
Devotees of my work,
An apostolic cadre of
LIKE button true believers.
Time, I think, to start a cult.
Enslave the men.
Fleece their bank accounts & IRAs.
Polygamize their women.
***** their mothers, wives & daughters.
Mix up a little Kool Aid.
Sonny Duong Jun 2010
pop

kapow

boing

****

*****

blam

babamm

SHABAM
****!
Remus Johnson Dec 2020
***** bonk
my awakeness went thonk
my hands are cold
my dumbassery is becoming increasingly bold
can't focus on art
avoiding thoughts of a human becomes increasingly hard
just wanna rest in their arms
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2021
poza godziny: tzn.
   wypełnić dzień - dniem...

   too eager to retract "complexion"...
if that is even, remotely, available:
as a Caucasian standard...
return to my mutter-zung(e)...
some great migration
i'm guessing something borrowed
from history i'm guessing
the Copernican "revolution" had its zenith
now is the time of: everything vogue Darwin...

to find an hour in a day and do X -
the algebra notation
rather than the phonetic
i.e. xylophone for starters...
through the chalk-&-cheese grinder
sizzzzzzzle...
drone strike at the snore and snorkel...
unless... fax
me the details... it comes "last" or not
least "late"...
how sigma "behaves" or was
otherwise discovered
to be:
cedilla at some point...
     cursor...
            sNAKEs...
                      σN∀ʞƎς
                                        s'nay'x...

rather "unnecessary" but a must...
bothersome these strict barriers
and when / but when one returns
to the cascade of sounds
and what's to be said: sung...
thought & therefore seen...
i can forgo all the tux-juxtaposing
and a: dozen or so penguins...

bravado... one can try to read
a newspaper...
one does... one even uses this royal
****-off route to mind
what matters...
as an extension of
james marriott's book review...
i was a fan of jordan B peek-a-boo...
when all things in the wunder-land
of tubes: how was copperwire
invented? asked my glaswegian
english teacher? two scots arguing over
a penny... or a: PENCE - je pense!

newspapers have really taken a
hit for audience size, competition...
on the sideline you notice this...
"grief"...
what worked for the 20th century
propagandists... doesn't work now...
at all... no factions just... fractions...
and people in the congested
equation, somehow too...

it can be, or rather is, absolutely: unamusing that
one must have a mother...
for that matter - that there are two -
what with death being the second -
altogether: through and through -
unamusing and, or rather stringent:
      unmoveable shards of darkened ice...
at first that's about it...
        as one does when *** is a "waste"
or that ******* is something
    a typo for a metaphor for a misnomer
of what can't possibly be genocide -
or if it is: a solo project of an equivalence
that's met when...
scrubbing the dead skin parmesan
       off the soles of your feet...
    or having your hair cut...
          or engaging in grotesque pâtisserie...
i.e. pinching a loaf...
sitting on the... throne of thrones
for the holy trinity to congest the time...
frankly... there are not enough
hours in a day to
congest them with listening to
bbc radio 3...
i tried to cram as much radio 4
when in bed with a strict take on
a loss-of-shadow-hangover:
body as if a mollusc esque-form...
not borrowing from Kafka and yet...
glistening with a glitter and primordial
saliva gob-slob jacuzzi...
gurgle at every turn... gurgle-gurgle
and froth to ******: withs... bau-bau-bubbles...

but i'm thankful for the comparison:
and my own little life too...
little so little it doesn't dare to raise
notions of hierarchy...
that there is a hierarchy that's all
the better:
no one's moving up... no one's
moving down... plateau of plateaus...
but when i suckle at the bottle...
and it's a bottle of ink i can't spill
while i'm also drinking for a tease
of... teasing humour...
and i haven't written awhile...
while i pick up something grandiose
to experiment with... like...
bbc 3 will champion clarice lispector
but not machado de assis...

but agreed... what happened to
the "unread": i'll come dangling on
a hot-air balloon... screaming maxims...
first of most: or 'of all'...
i'll probably buy a bicycle and cover
those distances walked...
from havering-atte-bower
to... st. paul's cathedral...
coldharbour...
epping... in half the time it would
otherwise require me to tame
a marathon...

exemplar status... when i arrived in Paris
on my own i was not filled
with anything Stendhal likened imitation /
overbearing / copycat implicitness
(no implicity) -
         i exhaust the right to write more
than any of my drinking unfathomable
cruising through bottle and bottle:
message after message...
crab feet...
            giraffe necks...
scissor when expecting...
                           bamboo pincers... etc.

otherwise finally arrived at:
this "finally arrived" at
                dź (дь)
no vs. dż (дъ) otherwise...
what do i do with a "3":
                   эз: mind m'ah f'ez...
butter-fingers: deutsche! primo!
if my schnörkellos & butterfinger...
does you any harm...
crescendo + from the Urals
of the plural S... tomb of the vicinity-"victor"...

Paris... on the night of the Bataclan
stampede for bones, bruises,
tendons and sinew...
and offal... like... chicken heart...
chicken stomachs...
like that night when i was painting
my bedroom drenched in rose...
in chemical red
looking out for those mantis eyes
of lore like a bored
housewife of Pompeii...
before the irrittion
of the gods and the Huns...
drenched me with stuff all morbid
and splodgy...

suppose a ghost invites me to:
close a door...
suppose a door
suppose closure...
suppose the presupposition of...
****** theatrical null
and then a peacock of genesis...
a phoenix of exodus....

       a big chin 'arry delves into
structuring thinning...
who's a who who (a) what's already been given...
triptych on the buckle:
less hooves of horses charging
anti: against chaffs of wheat and more...
this sinking sensation requesting me
to make drown of all things
spec-tac-ular...

yonker: *****...
             mr. se(o)ul... his says...
says he:
           is any 'n' every...
Trafalgar Sq. presupposing
a Na-po-le-on...
to a somewhat... be...
well done.. boiling down:
the...         knuckles...
heave this limbo of cartilage :

oh i'm very much adapted
to...
insomnia
and "insomnia" libido too...

quake... nothing passes...
a biscuit might...
"crumble"...
a clown might poke fun
at making a...
"jellyface".

— The End —