"cannonballs" poems
This is winter, this is night, small love --
A sort of black horsehair,
A rough, dumb country stuff
Steeled with the sheen
Of what green stars can make it to our gate.
I hold you on my arm.
It is very late.
The dull bells tongue the hour.
The mirror floats us at one candle power.
This is the fluid in which we meet each other,
This haloey radiance that seems to breathe
And lets our shadows wither
Only to blow
Them huge again, violent giants on the wall.
One match scratch makes you real.
At first the candle will not bloom at all --
It snuffs its bud
To almost nothing, to a dull blue dud.
I hold my breath until you creak to life,
Balled hedgehog,
Small and cross. The yellow knife
Grows tall. You clutch your bars.
My singing makes you roar.
I rock you like a boat
Across the Indian carpet, the cold floor,
While the brass man
Kneels, back bent, as best he can
Hefting his white pillar with the light
That keeps the sky at bay,
The sack of black! It is everywhere, tight, tight!
He is yours, the little brassy Atlas --
Poor heirloom, all you have,
At his heels a pile of five brass cannonballs,
No child, no wife.
Five ***** Five bright brass *****
To juggle with, my love, when the sky falls.
9k
did you know
1 in 5 women
will be ***** during her lifetime
but every 1 has a name
and every name has a story
and no one story
is ever the same
mine isn’t any exception
it didn’t happen at all
like u think it did
there were no shadowy figures
reaching out rough hands
to pull me into an empty alley
as i walked the streets alone at night
8 out of 10 rapes are by someone you know
my body wasn’t a rag doll
to be thrown against a brick wall
while ****** objections flew
from my mouth like cannonballs
it was just us
in a space that was ours
a hushed no living and dying on my lips
the scary sweet nothings
whispered in my ear
must have drowned out the tides
rolling in and streaming
down my cheeks
because your hand never once left my throat
and you didn’t stop
i was nothing more than a shiny object
laid out on a dingy sheet
for you to devour
made to please
but when i rusted
i was abandoned
right where u took me
a corpse to rot
amongst the flowers
but if u squint hard
i may be pretty enough
to use again
3/28/2018
Mar 30, 2019
Mar 30, 2019 at 5:20 PM UTC
My brain draws images of happiness
Because it's everything I wanted to see
A rainbow after the showers end
Because it's everything I wanted to be
Can you feel the iridescent?
Look at me from a new point of view
My mind was a **** mess
That just needed the colors to spew
If there really isn't much left
I'm sorry if it's become a trend
Cannonballs at the deep end
Eating my heart in the ocean
Red is everywhere though
So do I get a brand new halo?
Or will demons guide my soul?
Either way, do I get control?
It's just the way I'll be
It's just the way I see things
It's just the way I see everything
And I get to die
Every single night
When I sleep and dream
Somewhere close to five
Hours and I try
To escape this life
I lay back and breathe
And then close my eyes
So maybe instead
Of wishing for death
And thinking of red
I should rest my head
While Hell remains
For when you awake
Life passes by
Every breath you take
May 21, 2018
May 21, 2018 at 6:51 AM UTC
some say im cynical
satanical
that my minds mechanical
diabolical
spoken essence erotical
detestable
jaded imagery hypnotical
unstoppable
liable to solve the unsolvable
while prodigal poets drown in their nautical modules
im a criminal
a cannibal
storming the street like an animal
shooting cannonballs
through prison walls
splattering the generals
in bathroom stalls
hostil
leave you poppin pain pills in the hospital
uncontrollable
my temper is flammable
mumbles illegible
choking you with your pentacle
leaving onlookers speckled
the abominable
mental protocols unstoppable
the unfeasible constable
shooting up the card table
willing and able
to call your fables
and smash apart a label
i raise babies in unstable cradles
let you bleed out
like cracked ladles
engorged in unholy wars
exploring
the corruption of the core
deplored
uniformed for
the clash of the double edge swords
taking control of vocal chords
a meet of the hordes
of the horned
misinformed
adorned
in sunlight
trying to shine
just 1 line
at a time
until my life signs decline
almost time
light and shadow combined
Horus and set
by hindsight blessed
yet to contest
to the rest of this mess
by melancholy caressed
as i arise unrest
from the cess
of the un confessed
blessed
Jul 9, 2012
Jul 9, 2012 at 6:14 AM UTC
In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississipp'
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the ****** British in the town of New Orleans
We fired our guns and the British kept a coming
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to running
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
We looked down the river and we seen the British come
And there must have been a hundred of them beating on the drums
They stepped so high and they made their bugles ring
We stood behind our cotton bales and didn't say a thing
Old Hickory said we could take 'em by suprise
If we didn't fire a musket 'til we looked 'em in the eyes
We held our fire 'til we seen their faces well
We opened up our squirrel guns and really gave 'em
Well they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where the rabbits couldn't go
They ran so fast the hounds couldn't catch 'em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
We fired our cannon 'til the barrel melted down
Then we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannonballs and powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off the gator lost his mind
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 11:23 AM UTC
Call me by another name.
Call me waspish,
or boyish,
or fountain-mouthed.
Prate about the crooked,
curved curls of my red-ribbon tongue.
Whisper myths down spidered-ice hallways
about the melted wax love games
fixed between dust-dressed candlesticks,
and the unfaithful rumors
of wine-stained table cloths.
Call me by another name.
Call me button-eyed,
and hollow,
and brittle-garden crucified;
Bind my face with burlap
and replace my spine with
a wood-splintering post;
dry my veins gold
so that my flannel fetters in
the tornado-dry breath
of fraying hay.
I'll fight off autumn winds and
the gossip of crows.
Don't fuse my footsteps to the echos
of Lightning Bearers and Stilt-legged Shadows;
Fasten my shoelaces to the
anchor dreams of drowning cannonballs
where I will only spell stories
with the sharp skin of coral reefs.
Call me by another name.
Call me typewriter-toothed,
or backwash,
or eight-legged.
Just prescribe me a name
that I can live up to.
Feb 14, 2011
Feb 14, 2011 at 10:58 PM UTC
I remember when the circus first came to town,
The village people eagerly came to see from all around.
Every wild animal on wheels was caged in tow, followed by colorful clad characters on foot sure to give a spectacular show.
I remember when I first entered beneath the great big tent and caught the grand act of the peculiar pink elephant.
Get Your Peanuts, Popcorn, and Hot Dogs Here! The Concessionaire yells in a hearty cheer.
The taste of cotton candy, the sounds, smells and the sights,
Above me a man balances on a tight rope from a view of an incredible height.
For the kids, clowns twist and shaped balloons in all odd kind of forms,
And stuffed themselves in a tiny car with a toot, toot of a funny sounding horn.
The feathered ladies on horseback perform daring acrobatic stunts, as in place the horses prance and dance in a parade of extraordinary pomp.
All eyes are on the lion tamer in his tails and fancy top hat twirling a chair and cracking a whip at the growl of the big man eating cat.
Tigers jumped through flaming hoops, as human cannonballs towards the sky their bodies shoot.
Little doggies do flips for their treats as acrobats fly through the air performing death defying feats,
Or what could be more delightful to see than a bear riding a unicycle or perhaps even three?
Finally, comes the grand finale, then soon it is time to go home, the tents have been folded the rides have been loaded the performers and the animals have all gone.
On their parents strong shoulder kids are carried off in their sleep with sweet dreams of, fun rides and toy prizes, and candy apple treats.
Ferris wheels and merry go rounds, the bearded fat lady weighing a hundred pounds.
I remember a girl on a wire, the boy that spits fire a man with his head in the jaws of a tiger.
Reminiscing of the time when the circus first came to town
And the village people eagerly came to see from all around.
Aug 5, 2013
Aug 5, 2013 at 8:26 AM UTC
There's more to this little brown bottle than the sunshine within,
and if you search across the hills of Kalamazoo
you'll find the meaning of gold.
Cheers to this:
the smell of barbecue and grass
and the taste of oranges drenched in ale
and sunlight.
As the fire crackles
and the flames move like the flags we claim,
I can hear each individual string
on a friend's guitar
as they tell a story of an everlasting summer.
When it's cold
the sun smiles and burns
as the sound of cannonballs piercing aqua blue waves
washes through your body
clad in pink
skin,
and fabrics
seen from many
and any
wandering eye.
As the hi-hat sizzles,
so too does your soul,
and that's why you can't help but
dance dance dance.
But just like any season,
this friendly brown bottle
is a moment in time.
Winter must come,
people must go,
but somewhere in the recipe for your favorite drink
are all of their names
glistening in gold.
Jun 10, 2016
Jun 10, 2016 at 5:54 PM UTC
I've grown so accustomed to this numbness.
It spreads through my body
like wildfire
consuming dry skin and chapped lips.
It overtakes all of me, fills my being
from stomach to heart and
eventually my mind.
It begins to feel like brush on the forest floor,
stale and easy to catch
but quick to burn up.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Our ship is sinking
so quickly.
Blink and you miss
all the little moments we could have had
that you failed to see.
Your blindness and My complacency
like cannonballs
punching holes in our vessel
and me in the stomach.
You don't even seem to care Captain.
We're patching up a sinking ship with bandages
but it won't stay afloat.
Jul 26, 2018
Jul 26, 2018 at 1:03 AM UTC
When my cells wont replicate themselves any more,
I'll have to bribe saint Peter on the door
I miss smoking lucky strike
I miss that my cat eased my troubled mind
I miss the weight of the world in my palm
I should have broken Crispin's arms
when I had the chance.
And when the rage that I have saved throws me overboard,
it best weight me down with cannonballs
because I'm a real good swimmer
I had all the awards.
Jul 4, 2014
Jul 4, 2014 at 10:12 AM UTC
little man,
you have had such
a big day.
all those questions
you ask,
all that playing you do
you did.
a lot of growing
and showing,
nana how big your getting.
kindy today,
cheese ****** for lunch
and baby cannonballs
(black grapes).
after that,
we visited friends,
walked to the rockpools
snacked on apples
and milk
lots of hugging and laughing tickling and giggling.
to smile so hard,
must take lots of effort.
no!
then to eating,
that big, yummy dinner
of macaroni and cheese,
must of worn you out.
even after that,
baby, bannana split
you're not tired?
oh! it is just your eyes
that are getting sleepy
now to leapad learning and choosing story books lots of things,
ticked off your list
now it's bathtime,
my friend,
splashing and bubbles,
shampoo and rinse.
then some time with humf and hoot.
cuddles with dadda,
kiss for nana,
story and song,
then, my big boy,
bed is where you belong.
all night long.
mwah from mumma.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 5:00 AM UTC
soft spoken secrets slice through the silence
like coffee-breathed cannonballs
sent shamelessly into the space between
who we are
and who we will be
the smile in your eyes makes it seem
as if you really see me
pinned beneath a perfectly blue egyptian cotton sky
and a lake-shore brown box-spring earth
you stretch yourself thin
thin as eyelash lace across a freckled chest
thin enough to let the sunshine gleam through
through all your light and magic
reflecting pure stardust onto my my blank screened flesh
i've never felt as beautiful
as it is to be tangled up in you
extremities snagging one another
in a devine blend
of feverish feinding
and something far more freeing
i'd trade my unsteady pulse
for every day to begin this way
drenched in poetry
and morning dew
and crazed, excited grinning
how about you toss me a post-card
through our dreaming
one of these evenings
yes
my heart strings are singing
this is the beging of a story
that i quite like
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 11:07 PM UTC
Softly lit sunsets and turning leaves
Little feet skip in a pumpkin patch
Crisp air causing goosebumps
Warm apple cider being sold batch after batch
I am gentle, just like autumn
Slick Ice and bitter air
Blizzards wreak havoc on little towns
Slush is thrown to street corners without care
I am fierce, just like winter
Cannonballs into clear cool water
Tan lines born out of hours in the sun
Road trips and bucket lists promise adventure
Long days with endless possibilities to come
I am exciting, just like summer
Light rain offers new like
Little buds turn brown into green
Glimpses of long awaited sunshine
Earth turns into an exquisitely painted scene
I am growing, just like spring
Mar 20, 2018
Mar 20, 2018 at 9:02 AM UTC
He thinks, “come into the stillness.”
He thinks, “Grow wild, intoxicated.”
Perhaps, he thinks, we are cannonballs.
Perhaps we are glazed and dazzled,
drunk on clarity.
Must we be wiped off the earth?
He sits alone, at night, again.
Shuts off his memory.
He writes: “I am fine
I am fine
I am fine
open your eyes
I am fine.”
May 2, 2015
May 2, 2015 at 2:57 PM UTC
i found her in a field of flowers
dancing slow to the summer song
lost in her mind to the dream of a broken heart
dancing sensual with her dreams of lovers nonexistent
lost in the beauty of daylights pretty wonders
she had daffodils in her hair
she had midnight in her eye
i took her to the hilltop
far and above the sea
far from the temptations and tastes
the toxic poisons that are the worlds playthings
for wicked is the worlds kiss
and i thought if i could shelter her
she would heal of her own accord
she would be the girl i once loved
i had gone looking for a square meal for the mind
little intellectual meat and potatoes good for the soul
but as i was supping and laughin with casual company
i heard the distant crack of thunder breaking
like the uniforms of illogical world come to claim
their greasy hands on her clean white linens
stole her away in the rain
stole away my sweet lover never to be seen again
so now i sail these back roads
on the trapeze of delicate balances
of firing loose cannonballs at the
fleeing desperadoes wreathed in silken plunders
balanced against my pockets overflowing
with the wicked maelstrom of misery's and mysteries
that my dark woman's heart and dreams made for me
beloved is for more than just for a passing day
i will never stop searching for this wayward lover
remembering her salt thigh and ruby lips
Jun 3, 2014
Jun 3, 2014 at 7:49 PM UTC
"flower cannonball" they called you, since your
stems wrapped itself tightly together like hands
intertwined or vines clinging onto a fence or even
my teacup mix's claws yanking onto my lace shirt.
they used the dumpster graveyard flowers to create
you. despite the vivid color scheme, the cannonballs
were nothing short of a beautiful disaster in my head.
let an apocalypse happen, i'm already rotting away
anyway from the mixture of screwdrivers and the
cannonball drinks. let me strain myself clear of hues
of blues and black you painted me with. let me sink
with these letters tucked underneath my ribcage as
my seatbelt for the death sentence. at first, i couldn't
understand why you were called a name like that.
now i am understanding love and loss's gravitational
pull and the release of that gravity. you were a beautiful
disaster, building castles on rubble and driving ferraris
on cracked streets filled in with tar. you were nothing
short of beautiful, nothing short of death being romantic,
and death is starting to look a lot like you now.
i don't even care if i die anymore.
- kra
May 8, 2015
May 8, 2015 at 12:23 PM UTC
I am from great grandma Jenny and her distinguished rose.
I am from summers at the beach and heavy winter snows.
I am from a bustling home and a yard bursting with imagination.
I am from a family where “head over heals” is no exaggeration.
I am from “Wait, whatʼs your name again?” on my very first bus ride.
I am from a brain full of secrets and “thatʼs classified.”
I am from the six legged octopus of matching Hello Kitty shoes.
I am from hidden forts at Teusinkʼs made of “rare” bamboos.
I am from cannonballs into the green and blue hut tub.
I am from the old Branch Office that sometimes refused to budge.
I am from soft green grass and sapphire blue skies.
I am from the back of a horse as the world flies by.
I am from cartwheels on old wooden balance beams.
I am from backflips and handsprings on trampolines.
I am from stitches, strained muscles, broken fingers and nose.
I am from insane barn sleepovers where only the glow-stick glows.
I am from dancing, biking, and hula-hooping through Wal-Mart.
I am from B-Town and Profession of Faith that really touched my heart
I am from Tulip Time parades and twirling my baton.
I am from so many things, the list goes on and on.
I am from my remarkable family who loves me in every way,
But mostly I am from God, and Heʼs why I am here today.
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 1:02 PM UTC
Camel brown seats pocked with burns,
Dry rotted with age and heat.
A booboo trap (many fingers were sliced opening its doors)
Stained with the stench of cigarettes and summer.
One year your bed was a winter snow catcher
And we used your frozen spoils for ammo,
Your body as a shield,
Our icy cannonballs smashing and exploding against your sides.
Death trap, playground, what difference did I know?
To me, you were daddy's El Camino.
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 6:49 PM UTC
I watched you fall in love with the blue bird.
When the weight of whatever you shouldered left you feeling like a cracked sidewalk. When the contents of your head look like a dirt patch with no Flora.
I watched you sink your hope in its wings. I watched you open your beak and tweet out a plea that someone would make sense of your puzzle pieces
Do you know that feeling, when you love someone who hates themselves. Like trying to paint a picture in the rain. Watching whatever you have to give dilute in the depreciation, your affection can't **** depression. But you had to try.
To me being absolutely powerless wasn't enough to stop trying so I tried.
I fashioned cannonballs out of phone calls Fired at any wall that seem to cage your smile.
I'm more difficult Days you’d dance between dejection and distress. I'd watch you waltz between the lines of every conversation you had that day and you overthink entities into the world around you. Demons that would pull at your eyelids as you tried to rest. Clawing abysses that sat in your stomach. You thought if you consumed nothing you could starve them before yourself. You built an army of opponents all born from the belief that your calm sat beyond your own two hands. That the long drawn and difficult sighs you choked through was just how breathing worked.
You believed it was meant to hurt this much...and it did, and it does, but it's not supposed to.
Your graces hung in my sky like a star, and what would dim your shine would in turn dim mine
So I tried..
I’d say… talk to me.
A quiet plea, hoping you'd articulate the things I hadn’t seen.
But you existed behind a phone screen
You were swept away by the blue birds.
You slept in its nest hoping it would always return your quick fix.
You were one with the roost and your song was only audible through an application.
I lost a piece of you to twitter.
You slept in my bed.. we’d skip between oxytocin dreams of lustful energy or blissful lethargy and if the slumber was harmed we’d make enemies of snooze alarms. I knew frequency of your finger tips. I was in tune with the cacophony of your head space I curated the museum your beauty sat it. But you didn’t care. The bars between us looked more and more like hastags every day. Slowly I became just another follower... In 140 characters or less.. “My concern was the only thing you didn’t think was worth retweeting”
Apr 10, 2018
Apr 10, 2018 at 5:55 AM UTC
The patient came to me with a plea I couldn’t refuse, so I placed my hand on his cold spine and warmed up to him, I the fire and he, suffering a harsh winter. With the rapid beat of his heart drumming against my palm, I doctored and diagnosed him. I fed him medicine and he was fine for a temporary time. A temporary, potentially affective, time. So warm, so brief—full recovery could’ve been conceived during the month of July if it weren’t miscarried, leaving that promise as a seed forever forgotten during harvest.
The patient would come back monthly for his check-up, claiming a new illness, begging for a new medicine. I’d give it to him willingly. After all, he needed help.
After about a year, I gave out so much to him there was hardly medicine left for my other patients.
Considering, I reduced his dose to even the imbalance.
“Can you not see how I need your help?” said the most desperate wrinkle of a face, “Did I do something to deserve this?”
“No! No, of course not. There is just limited supply and high demand. You are one of many mouths to feed!”
“Do you not care for me anymore?” Was the worst one. Of course I cared for him. Admittedly, I cared for him more than all my other patients. I know this is not professional of me to disclose, nor is it fair, but it is an honest guilt that tugs at my hair like a gluttonous infant.
Blame was thrown at me like cannonballs. Suddenly, I was the cancer he tried so hard to fight. That thought alone was too heavy a burden to bare, so I reluctantly gave him the entirety of my supply.
Day in and day out, I began to hear the other patients drop like thick glass behind me, where I would never look back. I kept a steady eye on him, as he was my child in a rackety crib I was too afraid to leave alone for the fear that he’d stop breathing at any moment. I am a miserable, exhausted mother of a child that never matured.
And it’s just he and I now, forever in frozen time.
Oct 19, 2016
Oct 19, 2016 at 9:36 AM UTC
There's a war through the kitchen and out by the lake
Close the door, let my footwear flick off the roof
Determined to get rid of the dust from my eye
I'll go for a swim, think, and ****** a gaze
Of gusts of wind that would impair my stride
If that spider happens to bite on the thigh
I'd use my left hand as cannonballs
And a pill to reality as my right
Dec 4, 2016
Dec 4, 2016 at 10:33 AM UTC
Theres no looking back
sometimes the past just stays gone
If I could, I'd never say your name
Unwind me of time
I still see your face clear
Overgrown, and tangled up with weeds
Like a prisoner alone
I just mark the days long
Drowning in bioluminosity
Oh, darling you, take my breath away
A heart tied with knots
I lost sight of the coast long ago
Thats okay, I belong on the sea
Take all you can, I ain't got no rope though
only handmade cannonballs and curiosity
Darling, you take my breath away
Jul 2, 2018
Jul 2, 2018 at 7:10 PM UTC
Furthermore, began St Anne by the Sea,
And a spotty Doctor Newcastle got down on one knee.
I hear the old folk *******
I hear ducks up the chimney.
I'm eating hymn books and confetti;
Sweating mud now.
The very nearly possible was there;
Lovely laughing Uncle April was there;
The plump thigh from your thrilling island was there also;
The Balsam Boy,
The basil canary,
The mustard customer from Rhyl
We dated a wasting blue on the old shopping hill.
You had been with the Superintendent of cream
In the back rooms of Matthew August Ltd.
In private I was brown because of my tinnitus.
My child was only half written
According to those forty enormous Liverpools,
According to those three vaginal cannonballs.
Horace Horace and his delicious old porridge was the inability setting.
Thought clumsiness was in fashion back then.
Upstairs could hear the downstairs *******
Now mock Tudor glands have all the critical opportunity
And hands pull on my circular feet.
Glum songbirds mingle in the dissapointment larder
Of the Transport Office between Mr Kane and his ***** milk.
The tutted Beryl train accounts for neither the sad 13,
Nor the burgundy drums of Cologne.
The dark doodad brigade broke the Parisian child pipes,
So now the garnet ***** are a very dusty parcel indeed.
And Sir Billick’s magnificent bottom of forty years has beckoned.
What delicious and capable spondees!
What fruits we acquired for Captain Mary!
We remember nothing therefore.
Now we must wash our spectacles
And take sympathetic musical suggestion for our tugged Nightingale methods.
Feb 3, 2016
Feb 3, 2016 at 8:08 AM UTC
Karma has its knife to my throat.
With a past full of anchors
It's impossible to stay afloat.
Childhood full of cannonballs
aimed at my boat.
Mutiny in my brain.
Vengeance through my veins.
A recipe for the insane.
Nov 2, 2017
Nov 2, 2017 at 5:28 PM UTC
i can’t remember a time before i wasn’t caught
in the pearly whites of your canines, or an era
when i wasn’t perforated apart by your cannonballs,
shot down by the bullets of the glistening emeralds
you call your eyes.
i can’t remember a time when my poems
wasn't dedicated to memorising every detail
of your raven eyelashes curving to the sky,
or how the warmth of your palms transcend
the coldness i tolerated in my heart.
i can’t remember a time when i didn’t
have something to lose, and i think that started
when your honey-lidded gaze fall on me in the
middle of a crowded room with too much sound,
but i can still hear the ‘i love you’.
i can’t remember a time when you used to be static
-pure background noise, irrelevant, unnoticed
after all, doesn’t it drive you crazy how much
someone could mean to you?
at first, they’re a whisper in the dark and suddenly-
(boom!)
Feb 22, 2018
Feb 22, 2018 at 5:18 AM UTC