"bosch" poems
they’re pouring out of the
woodwork
those pretentious machiavellians
in ailing albino frames
eccentric masked figures
milling about the glow light
like night moths
in a london fog
lunatic gazers
with seeping moles
pinned by frogmen and twine
spider climbers
in hell fire
splitting seams
on the fading
and hideous ink
guards of the perch
stand on hades hand
while monsters and demons
with severed limbs
taunt the condemned
and wanting
souls of the ******
cauldron fire
in blood red sky
silent screams
hack and wheeze
gas lines broken
words unspoken
teetering backwards
in the dark shadows
of a phantom abyss
Oct 28, 2017
Oct 28, 2017 at 2:08 PM UTC
So I am watching
the Washing Machine,
rolling over itself;
having our clothes cleaned.
And Maybe I floss to often
though maybe thats not possible
such a task is too common
and love is just ***
and so I make it the objective
as the object
I object.
as Justice
and whatever "just is"
is Just us
and there are other parts to continuing
that we forgot.
since if you move too far ahead of your competition
you forget the reason why you run
and you end up as flint
or lint
missing,
the fire
or the match
scratch that,
scratch that,
scratch that,
especially the match
but be fluent
in burning the resources and not the bridge.
-keeping everything grainy and fibrous-
- you are are healthily expanding-
so if you're too nervous
of being judged
you might as well
not show up.
so instead I am watching the washing machine.
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 1:27 PM UTC
In twilight sleep,
thoughts out of control,
images take hold.
Viewed against the canvass of blackness,
dead people dance
with succubi an incubuses.
Tiny gymnasts
balance on sharp edged swords
in le cirque du soleil
under a moonless sky.
Grimm’s tales
of baked children
and hungry wolves
play out. On a runway
starving women show
the latest fashions in cardinal red.
The Grinch stole my green silk Balenciaga gown.
Gave it to the frog prince.
Sleeping beauty is just a ******
She had too much of all of it.
Hermes glass slippers are sold
Only too few and deserving Cinderellas,
trophy wives of mummified kings.
What they really deserve is not on the menu.
Just le plat du jour of ortolans.
The three pigs are out of breath,
Not enough air for a blow job.
Rose colored glasses take on a nasty
hue of watered down blood.
Bottle green is not la couleur du jour,
rather that bile color
with a tint of pus yellow.
There is a storm brewing,
A tsunami rising,
the earth shakes,
Volcano red lava
licks down the mountain.
Destiny?
Fate?
Apocalypse?
A voice whispers:
put up a shield, a bright canvass.
Paint with bold rounded strokes
in earthen tones. Mold vessels
to hold the morning dew.
Catch rays of sun
in a glass glockenspiel.
Hum the world, sing life.
Touch, feel, be alive.
A ray of sun sneaks through the blinds.
Dust dances in a shaft of light.
I am safe, for another day.
Feb 19, 2012
Feb 19, 2012 at 6:25 PM UTC
Amidst created worries, troubles and troubles, as if I were falling into a gaping abyss, half-balancing on the edge of animals, hyena-scavengers, like a shaky-legged, slightly hesitant, underestimated tightrope walker, - I can deliberately hold on or not in the draft of depravity. In the purgatory of an endless rail, as if I were one of those Bosch could have painted in his lifetime; a gathering of hell-shaped soul-shadow visions ready to rage.
It would be nice to hide back at least sometimes in some strange, sprawling Hawaiian wilderness, where crystal-clear, raw-visceral emotions can also manifest themselves more emphatically, more faithfully to themselves. A middle-aged rose withers and withers in the filth of big cities, because there was no one left to console her instead of her selfish strawman-peddler husband; because even hook-nosed prophets fall for whales, after devouring even the smallest tadpole embryos.
Forever chained as mere passengers in spiral circles, because that is how people are now, intentionally tied to the work methods of unbearable, unfulfillable working hours, petty-gallant deadlines. Because now it seems that washerwomen and hostess models are once again selling their commodity love for tinkling silver coins, until another incomprehensible, twisted property division lawsuit comes; "Daddy and Mommy really love you children! You just know that Mommy and Daddy can't stand each other anymore!"
They would rather drown each other in a spoonful of water, if they could do that!" - Thus, the slow, conscious disillusionment can still remain. Among the calculated, manipulative genres of attempts and cheap escapes, there is certainly no one left who would actually understand their job and act as their heart commands?! - A casual party queen or a diva imitating luxury is handing out slaps with stamps stuck on guest masks.
Sep 12, 2025
Sep 12, 2025 at 12:40 AM UTC
While plucking feathers, while plucking feathers
The black tar envelops my unmanly sigh
A cigarette in the moon's light with a stranger
And the howling of an unsightly beast
While plucking feathers, while plucking feathers
The fog obscures everything in sight
I'm questioning the night sky on its numbers
The forest looks in disgust and curiosity
While plucking feathers, while plucking feathers
I'm bleeding out, I'm bleeding out
While plucking feathers, my ear drum pops
I say my goodbye and flap my bare wings
An ornate door leads to the mausoleum
A huge crack showing the entrance of grave robbers
The youths wander inside to belittle their ancestors
And my ballad softly floats above the ground
While plucking feathers, while plucking feathers
The young man rests near his anvil
Opening his book of poetry on an empty page
Only to find the blood of the martyr seeping
While plucking my feathers
Will the youth remember my name?
Will I be forgotten as a nameless man?
Or will I be the poet of the next century?
Pluck my feathers or don't!
Pluck my feathers or don't!
Pluck my feathers or don't!
But do not forget me and the steps which I took
Do not forget my babbling, my bish and my bosch
Do not forget my gifts, you, receiver of blessing
Pluck them rhythmically, slave, rhythmically
My feather falls, slowly to the ground
It is the last of its kind
And as my breaths draw to a close
The children laugh gleefully
Unknowing the end is near
Extinction on my name once and for all
Pluck my feathers no more, slave,
I've just blood to give.
Oct 4, 2019
Oct 4, 2019 at 7:09 PM UTC
Bosch is not like any man.
He eats his metaphysics raw.
Great and globular,
A sanguine fruit looms forth infinitely.
Stars, like gleaming berries picked,
Lay strewn across his astral dining set.
He breaks bread with the Abstract Entities,
Devouring the Earth and all its mortal sentiments.
He voices his distaste for the fibrous pulp,
Formless nose scrunched and curled
With loathing at the terrestrial filaments
Stuck between his teeth.
Bosch's belly is an endless hollow
Where darkness swallows light.
There is no air, no sound.
Its abysmal blackness knows no bounds.
His hunger insatiable,
He drinks in the Milky Way,
Eager to fill the emptiness
Of his ever-expanding void.
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 8:45 PM UTC
A medida que nos aproximamos
las piedras se van dando mejor.
Desnudo, anacorético,
las ventanas idénticas entre sí,
como la vida de sus monjes,
el Escorial levanta sus muros de granito
por los que no treparán nunca los mandingas,
pues ni aún dentro de novecientos años.
hallarán una arruga donde hincar
sus pezuñas de azufre y pedernal.
Paradas en lo alto de las chimeneas,
las cigüeñas meditan la responsabilidad
de ser la única ornamentación del monasterio,
mientras el viento que reza en las rendijas
ahuyenta las tentaciones que amenazan
entrar por el tejado.
Cencerro de las piedras que pastan
en los alrededores,
las campanas de la iglesia
espantan a los ángeles
que viven en su torre
y suelen tomarlos de improviso,
haciéndoles perder alguna pluma
sobre el adoquinado de los patios.
¡Corredores donde el silencio tonifica
la robustez de las columnas!
¡Salas donde la austeridad es tan grande,
que basta una sonrisa de mujer
para que nos asedien los pecados de Bosch
y sólo se desbanden en retirada
al advertir que nuestro guía
es nuestro propio arcángel,
que se ha disfrazado de guardián!
Los visitantes,
la cabeza hundida entre los hombros
(así la Muerte no los podrá agarrar
como se agarra a un gato),
descienden a las tumbas y al pudridero,
y al salir,
perciben el esqueleto de la gente
con la misma facilidad
con que antes les distinguían la nariz.
Cuando una luna fantasmal
nieva su luz en las techumbres,
los ruidos de las inmediaciones
adquieren psicologías criminales,
y el silencio
alcanza tal intensidad,
que se camina
como si se entrara en un concierto,
y se contienen las ganas de toser
por temor a que el eco repita nuestra tos
hasta convencernos de que estamos tuberculosos.
¡Horas en que los perros se enloquecen de soledad
y en las que el miedo
hace girar las cabezas de las lechuzas y de los hombres,
quienes, al enfrentarnos,
se persignan bajo el embozo
por si nosotros fuéramos Satán!
1.3k
*Do you like art?
Does Renoir sit in a frame above your bed?
Are you alone?
What does this painting look like to you?
I use dots to portray events in my life as described by others.
Van Gogh never cut his ear off.
Georgia O’Keeffe loved painting vaginas, and so do I.
Want to be a model in my next work?
I met Bosch at Starbucks a few years back.
This took me twenty-two hours to paint.
Buy this, buy that.
Andy Warhol is my dad.*
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 10:12 PM UTC
You'd think Blake, Bosch
& Emanuel Swedenborg
read Pythagoras in the original
& walked with Christ & Newton;
E. A. Poe, the Horror-Poet;
influencing the Decadence of
Baudelaire, Wilde & Rimbaud;
Pinkham Ryder's influence on
Symbolism & Surrealism led,
oddly, to 20th century pop culture
depictions of Victorian monsters;
Frankenstein was the product
of the English Romantics;
German Romanticism to Sturm
& Drang led to Expressionism.
Beardsley [dead at 25], Gustave
Moreau, Van Gogh, Gauguin,
Egon Schiele [dead at 28]; ||| - -|
Klimt, Freud, Jung: Judaism;
Id, Superego, Ego, Shadow,
Anima & Animus, collective
psyche, Nietzsche's Superman,
eternal recurrence & will to
power; Wagner's Ring Cycle...
Jan 18, 2019
Jan 18, 2019 at 1:56 PM UTC
though strictly Fermi, and oh...(en Rico) plus sun
dre other parvenues, a rapture
surges thru me,
when audibly communicating, enunciating,
and speaking English words
as if hi ken run
a marathon, or zip to the moon,
(take as cheesy tong in cheek)
from this pun
gent, who relishes reading for my eyes and ears
asper myself, which purported nun
sense ink reese sees learn'n
den earn an award,
especially wash'n black board
den breathing intelligent dust
from eraser head could awk cord,
I utter Hieronymus Bosch, bing enamored,
and aye actually confess
tubby a model United Nations chimp
pan zee, and/or other
type of survey monkey hook can huff ford
Old Rotten Gotham horde
sliding down into the behavioral sink...
exclaiming "oh me jack lord"
and getting rescued then getting less on,
sans get'n taut how (muss elf George Eliot)
tubby comb moored
flossed, milled, and taut
tubby trained for Operation Ready Date
by a coop pull oof oot standing chap,
named Adam West, who poured
salty epithets (reminding me, as they roared
that life iz brutal, short and nasty),
part tickly ne'r the end
wharf hew scored
and majority got de toured
until emotionally, physically,
and spiritually enlightened
By Rabindranath Tagore and Burt Ward.
Mar 16, 2018
Mar 16, 2018 at 2:11 AM UTC
She never once asked why
I keep the twisted rosewood stick
or if it holds significance.
Or why Flann O'Brien's
"At swim two birds." has a place
by itself on the shelf.
She never understood my love
of jazz, metal or classical music
or wondered why
Hieronymus Bosch and Caravaggio prints
are in the hall.
She once said I should get rid of them all
"They don't match the décor."
She never understood the humour
of Leonard Cohen,
nor appreciate the raw beauty
of a Bukowski poem;
claimed they were just ***** old men.
She couldn't fathom why
I am drawn to decrepit ruins
or could spend hours just walking
without a destination.
She never will comprehend my love
for the ghostly hue of twilight.
Oct 29, 2015
Oct 29, 2015 at 8:00 PM UTC
i’ve blown all my dosh
on a brand new Bosch!
my clothes will be super clean
with this amazing new machine
i’ve burnt all my dosh
singing swish, swash, swosh,
singing splish, splash, splosh,
a ladies got to wash!
i’m in love with my new Bosch!
Oct 12, 2023
Oct 12, 2023 at 4:07 PM UTC
The Dufus Oompaloompa in Chief
Is nothing but a high-level thief.
He constantly lies and all he tries
Is a rich man’s version of relief.
He’s another rich guy on welfare.
He uses every ***** trick he can use
You see his crooked face everywhere;
He keeps his ugly mug in the news.
His morality is virtually nonexistent
He’s never been a commendable fellow.
And because he is truth-resistant
He’s a braggart, a liar and he’s yellow.
His life has been a study in selfishness,
He’s been a ******* a predator and crook.
His biography is an unreal literary mess.
As he has never liked going by the book.
Listening to him speak you can see
He is lying with almost every word.
He can’t interact with anyone honestly
You can’t believe a single word you heard.
Inside his head must be something like
A painting by Bosch or Salvatore Dali
Even if his head ends up on a pike
He’ll still be as bright as a collie!
May 17, 2018
May 17, 2018 at 8:37 PM UTC
Hieronymus Bosch, who was only four,
Had toddled right out of my life,
I didn’t know whether he’d gone on his own
Or left with the trouble and strife.
She’d rave and she’d threaten to fly the coop
As she said that my ways were strange,
But whether she’d bother to take him too
Would have meant a remarkable change.
‘Why did you pick such a horrible name,’
She’d say, as she ladled the stew,
‘You gave him the name of a painter insane,’
(As he baited the bears at the zoo).
‘How can he live a commonplace life
With a moniker he can’t spell?
You’ve sentenced your son to eternal strife
Like that panel, a painting of hell.’
Hieronymus, he didn’t care about this,
He wanted to picture his world,
He’d flop and he’d slop in the mud, in his bliss,
And paint, till his toes had curled.
I knew that he’d be a surrealist when
He played with his mash, and was cute,
He swished it around on his palette to look
Like a man with a nose like a flute.
‘That kid is so gruesome,’ the wife had exclaimed,
‘He’s set on a roadway to hell.’
He’d crayoned a picture of me and her sister
Entwined on her favourite bell.
‘He isn’t like others,’ I used to exclaim,
‘He sees what he sees inside out,
He doesn’t like others, like hair-splitting mothers,’
And that’s when she started to shout.
I’ve searched and I’ve searched for Heironymus Bosch,
I’m trying to follow his trail,
The long line of beetles he captured in treacle,
The dead dog that’s eating its tail.
I know that he’s not with the trouble and strife
For she went into hiding in Greece,
He should be called Chester, the lad’s such a jester,
I guess I’ll be calling the Police.
David Lewis Paget
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 3:21 AM UTC
Grandad seldom spoke of war
or war's ways or the senseless
slaughter, but when he did it
was in a hushed voice, the words
handled carefully, as if they like
grenades could explode if handled
bad or carelessly. He talked of
mud and lice and cold and damp
and the slow slog to the front.
In hushed tones as if some secret
he was unfolding, he told of sounds
of shells, cries, blood and smells.
Did you **** the Bosch Granddad?
I asked as little boys do or may.
He looked at the fire where flames
tongued the coals and didn't say.
Jul 28, 2017
Jul 28, 2017 at 4:54 PM UTC
shell fish unshelled alive
grass cut when you have the time
the spittle pouring out from a bosch painting
a thin hard back on the shelf
a cinema vidies with absolute teeth
maths chime number by number
a cat bites the last from a rat
and my crazy friend thinks that she leaves
a gift
as she purrs by the door.
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 7:54 AM UTC
Let us remember Aristillus & Timocharis,
Like Halley & Galileo.
Of Zhang Heng & Dao Lee,
Like Newton & Max Born.
Of Werner & Yermolyeva,
Like Curie & Oppenheimer.
Of Paracelus & Fredrick Banting,
Like Tesla & Pythagoras.
Of Richard Feynman & André Ampère,
Like Michael Faraday & Benjamin Franklin.
Of Payne-Gaposchkin & Joseph Swan,
Like Ignacy Łukasiewicz & Kikunae Ikeda.
Of Takamine Jōkichi & Berners-Lee,
Like Robert Hooke & Gutenberg.
Of Talos Attalus & Perrilus,
Like William Bullock & Franz Reichelt.
Of Abū Bakr al-Rāzī & Ibn al-Haytham,
Like Archimedes & Johannes Kepler.
Of Aldini & Henry Russell,
Like Edison & Graham Bell.
Of Carl Bosch & Richard Fiedler,
Like Mr. Hyde & Dr. Jekyll.
Of Brokkr & Sindri,
Like Gullinbursti & Hephaestus.
Feb 9, 2025
Feb 9, 2025 at 11:00 AM UTC
I've become a lazy reader,
dismissive and curmudgeony too.
Magazines or books? Not magazines--
Magazine readers are a different species.
So books it is. Let me take inventory:
Nonfiction. Sorry, just the occasional science book.
General fiction lost the war for my attention--
Do real people really have so many feelings?
So often and so detailed?
So I read genre fiction.
But bang, bang adventure has become tiresome--
after all how many times and ways can you shoot/stab/blow up/car chase?
Likewise, there are books that seem spend pages and pages describing clothes.
Even though Chaucer also spent many words describing clothes,
his best lines were about bare ***** hanging out a window.
All my favorite characters are now old, Harry Bosch, George Smiley.
To my regret, the Wall falling and the Cold War ending almost wiped out the thoughtful spy story.
Science fiction, a previous favorite, took a goofy turn awhile ago, and I’m done with it.
Let's see: fantasy now seems written for teenage vampire-witch wannabes. Just flutter away.
What's left? I think it's only Detective stories and Poetry.
I'm pulling for Harry Bosch and Billy Collins at 90, and, God bless him, John Le Carre.
Nov 28, 2019
Nov 28, 2019 at 6:33 AM UTC
Eggs and rice
Some kids and a wife
Things that are comfortable,
Things that are nice
Hieronymus Bosch and shrooms
Explode the room
Rather than ********
I prefer doom
Apr 26, 2015
Apr 26, 2015 at 6:53 PM UTC
Raking autumn leaves
the color of sea stars
mottled on moist ground
I watch them fall
spinning slowly through blue sky
as if the breeze was a tide
ebbing and rising
the rake feels like a paintbrush
collecting color
muddied by mixing
into a fall palette
a still life with fruit
pears and apples still unblemished
on branch attached
but mushy and vinegar smelling
our big white Pyr
helps herself to fallen fruit
laying claim to each orb
her huge paws on either side
moist nose buried
in the rust of the Bosch
the red of the Delicious
we fill a wheelbarrow of leaf draped fruit
to bring below for coyotes
we trap on camera
motion sensed
but motionless
Malama the Pyr
waits whining wondering
if our chill morn together has ended
but the leaves are piles of the fallen
our task is not yet done
more are gathered on tarp
and dragged to garden bed
to blanket wintersleep of bulb and tuber
to feed in their decay
the new blooms of a next spring day
I have always raked
far preferring the quiet metal combing
through grassy tangled tufts
over motored loud blower’s hum
sending Moore's leaves whirling skyward
but I am no longer tempted
to jump in the pile
gathering armfuls whose yellow color
is a child's crayon sun
and toss them for a second fall
no longer are they bagged
in thick black plastic to wait
decomposition amongst the landfill’s
less pastoral refuse
nor are they burned
sending acrid leaf spirit smoke
into the cold pale blue
of October afternoon
now their raking is not a ridding
a discarding of what was season’s decoration
soon useless brown
but more of a farewell
a leaving of the light
an offering of what is still of use
in the aged for what will be
a period of cold and dark
and winter's rest
before the next season of green
begins
Oct 27, 2019
Oct 27, 2019 at 8:28 PM UTC
What I can tell you is,
it's not like a Bosch painting
or Rodin's gates.
You will never see flames
as is commonly thought.
It's more like a dense fog
where you will wander around forever.
You will hear unintelligible voices
but if you move toward those voices,
they will recede from you.
Did I say,
there is no furniture?
Aug 30, 2016
Aug 30, 2016 at 4:43 PM UTC