"chaffed" poems
The moment I spoke
your name
for the last time,
you felt it.
You had to throw
the net again into the sea,
to trap me
in my pathetic
admiration of you.
You felt it when
I forgot you existed.
You had to weasel your way
back in to
my heart.
But the space reserved for you
has grown
so small.
How many years
do you plan
on pulling me along?
Dragging me behind your
reckless automobile, my face raw
from rubbing the asphalt. Skin chaffed from
repeated abuse. You are
the madman behind
the wheel.
I forgot about you
until you reminded me that
I'm simply not me
unless I feel
discarded, abandoned,
unloved by you.
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 1:13 AM UTC
Pennarby shaft is dark and steep,
Eight foot wide, eight hundred deep.
Stout the bucket and tough the cord,
Strong as the arm of Winchman Ford.
'Never look down!
Stick to the line!'
That was the saying at Pennarby mine.
A stranger came to Pennarby shaft.
Lord, to see how the miners laughed!
White in the collar and stiff in the hat,
With his patent boots and his silk cravat,
Picking his way,
Dainty and fine,
Stepping on tiptoe to Pennarby mine.
Touring from London, so he said.
Was it copper they dug for? or gold? or lead?
Where did they find it? How did it come?
If he tried with a shovel might he get some?
Stooping so much
Was bad for the spine;
And wasn't it warmish in Pennarby mine?
'Twas like two worlds that met that day--
The world of work and the world of play;
And the grimy lads from the reeking shaft
Nudged each other and grinned and chaffed.
'Got 'em all out!'
'A cousin of mine!'
So ran the banter at Pennarby mine.
And Carnbrae Bob, the Pennarby wit,
Told him the facts about the pit:
How they bored the shaft till the brimstone smell
Warned them off from tapping -- well,
He wouldn't say what,
But they took it as sign
To dig no deeper in Pennarby mine.
Then leaning over and peering in,
He was pointing out what he said was tin
In the ten-foot lode -- a crash! a jar!
A grasping hand and a splintered bar.
Gone in his strength,
With the lips that laughed--
Oh, the pale faces round Pennarby shaft!
Far down on a narrow ledge,
They saw him cling to the crumbling edge.
'Wait for the bucket! Hi, man! Stay!
That rope ain't safe! It's worn away!
He's taking his chance,
Slack out the line!
Sweet Lord be with him! 'cried Pennarby mine.
'He's got him! He has him! Pull with a will!
Thank God! He's over and breathing still.
And he -- Lord's sakes now! What's that? Well!
Blowed if it ain't our London swell.
Your heart is right
If your coat is fine:
Give us your hand! 'cried Pennarby mine.
2k
A cracked bathroom mirror,
White powdered blood shot eyes.
The reflection seems more clear.
Or so said the knives.
This one is for seduction.
Shaft chaffed by your pulled aside thong.
Your eyes plead for destruction.
Open your throat, spread out, tell me I'm wrong.
Little kitten take my hand.
Follow me to la la land.
Hold my shoulder, touch my lips.
Wipe tears from the bruises on your hips.
Pop the cork and pour some wine.
Pull the blinds, I'll cut the line.
Slow crawling as part of your ruse.
Bite my ear while I fill your tattoos.
We can be the birds and the bees.
Hang children from the trees.
Pass the whiskey, I've got the gun.
A sting of cold metal on your tongue.
Tuck away the last portion.
Hide it somewhere no on goes.
A clothes hanger abortion.
So no one ever knows.
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 11:02 PM UTC
A cold, dark desert begins
When a faint peach light saunters over the horizon
& climbs the sky,
Leaving darkness to shadows and graves.
The chaffed branches of bushels,
Barely lingering along the threshold of life,
Find solace in crawling growth
As the glow reaches dusty twigs,
Making them as networks of smoker bronchi.
Faded green cacti hold posture sharp,
As totems of harsh-landed culture,
Serving as solemn landmarks
In a flatland of mixed dust and rock,
They stand tall
All for a breath of young desert air.
While quiet hue spreads,
Passing each towering rock & mountain,
Even quivering lizards,
Waiting to be sunbaked,
Change to pink-yellow glow
& scarcely move
As the sun soars above
sizzling rigid scales,
Until the glowing horizon becomes a burning, lit land
Under a radiating Arizona sun.
Jun 21, 2013
Jun 21, 2013 at 12:13 AM UTC
Recycled thoughts that were
thought before, I have to think
a new but the same memory
comes back where is my
imagination, where is my free
thought.
Like a nightmare I cant think
things anew, just that same thing,
that same thought recycled in my
mind once more.
I need to feel things, to think of
things that havent happened.
Not to use these old thoughts, ideas
chaffed at the edges as used to much.
Cobwebs in my mind I need to wake
my mind, to make to see things anew.
Mar 7, 2014
Mar 7, 2014 at 2:17 PM UTC
When they read their “Proclamation”
There was silence, scattered laughter.
It was as if the town folk knew
those boys were soon for the hereafter.
For Seven Hundred years
The Irish nation wore her chains
and, although they chaffed at times,
her second nature they became.
Not comfortable exactly, but
the folk knew nothing better.
Unlikely to be changed, they thought,
rebellions cannot change the Weather.
Imperial might fell hard that week
on both the bold and the indifferent:
The City center left in flames,
Prisoners marched off to internment.
Then the executions followed,
one by one the brothers fell.
With every dawn their ranks grew thin,
but our opinions changed as well.
In the hearts of the indifferent
Love of country grew more dear:
Pride and a sense of Nationhood
and a new changed Atmosphere.
Feb 5, 2012
Feb 5, 2012 at 12:18 PM UTC
Spent.
Rusted.
Encrusted.
Barnacled.
Manacled.
Chaffed.
Reddened.
Arrested.
Transfixed.
Calmed.
Balmed.
Blamed.
Inflamed.
Infiltrated.
Intrigued.
Embarked.
Engaged.
Encompassed.
Decompressed.
Cold-compressed.
Chilled.
Thrilled.
Spilled.
Spent.
Oct 18, 2013
Oct 18, 2013 at 1:53 PM UTC
If I’ve ever known truth it just chaffed at the neck
I’ve been suffering all the symptoms of a lack of respect
So I must reflect then deflect all the gloomy flecks I see
Then reflect again on the lifestyle,
Of the wild life inside the childish side of me
All in effort to be free
Not free falling
Not roaming from a new ideal, to new ideal like a new calling
I 'd rather have a grand New Deal like Mr. Roosevelt's
And swim easily in this sea of changes like Michael Phelps
Jul 8, 2018
Jul 8, 2018 at 9:49 PM UTC
The brilliant idea you've been
waiting for expired
a moment after someone else thought
it. Implementing emptiness
has become your forte and scavenging for
adrenaline
within the souls of second hand tennis shoes
is representative of stability in your crooked,
unbalanced way, when
you glean nothing but
past tense grammar
on any given day of your actual life.
There's no grand story here. Go somewhere else.
And you can't even paint a sympathetic
portrait
of your dry and chaffed lips, of purple ink
stains beneath eyes, of words unattainable
stuck around your gums,
because the guy over there painting an unequivocal
masterpiece is homeless and
utilizing dirt to make a rainbow with
seven more colors than
your store bought acrylics ever could.
Pity is
stupid
when you've got everything
but that
Sep 6, 2015
Sep 6, 2015 at 12:55 AM UTC
Let no mouth your brain believe.
Sift from wheat
Every chaffed words with sound
Judgment. Praise you will receive
Surely of men,
But balance your head aground.
For blarney do quickly persuade,
Swaying
Swiftly a lady's heart off course,
By calling teffeta the best brocade,
Placing for ruin
A fool upon a regal, gammy horse.
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 4:35 PM UTC
he says i’m beautiful, in the morning,
when my hair is a cluster **** of tangles and knots,
when my skin is indented, chaffed from his bristles,
when my legs are beginning to grow the hair that for some
reason is not supposed to ever be there,
he says i’m beautiful, in the morning,
when i groan and shy away from the prospect
of the day
he says i’m beautiful,
he says i’m beautiful every morning,
until, he says, i can wake up every morning
and believe it, too.
“tell me i’m beautiful”
Apr 15, 2013
Apr 15, 2013 at 12:01 AM UTC
The chaffed red thighs of the streetwalker
And darting yellowed eyes of the nervous talker
Do not meet in this celibate exchange
This strange therapy in a musty room
No thrusting hips or sweaty faces loom
Niether dips down or drips above the other
With weight of body or intent that smothers
No sound of slapping skin
She punches in the clock
Sits, looks, listens
He licks his chewed lips
And in the light they glisten
Mar 22, 2010
Mar 22, 2010 at 12:32 PM UTC
Welcome to the feast,
sit at my table and do not regret
anything that will not be eaten today,
for this is our sacrificial slaughter
that must call out favor
to the Gods' fervor.
We dine without thought of
slave or beast. We, lords
of the second coming,
pass judgement upon those
who tread so softly at our heels
that a whisper of thanks escapes
from their chaffed lips and yet it cannot
be heard even in our pious silence.
They dance for us in cages that
arrogantly stretch from floor-to-ceiling
for their owners,
wrapped in ribbons of ruby and gold
and tops of blackened steel.
The bars hold the imprisoned steady
as they stand tall, true, and unapologetic
to their purpose.
They call for us,
and we, you and I,
as Gods,
must answer them.
Aug 21, 2012
Aug 21, 2012 at 1:18 AM UTC
It's 1:00 am on Friday night after we've hung out for the second time this week
Not for the first time, I open my phone to a 150 word text explaining that my words chaffed you the wrong way and you were not pleased with me
The problem is that this time I was not feeling love for myself
Today I felt ****** and then you made me feel like a ****** person
Two different things
I feel ****** because lately my life has been on pause and I've merely been existing instead of living
I feel ****** because I no longer find the joy in simple things
I feel ****** because I'm both alone and lonely and I feel shut out by the world
It's 1:05 am on Friday night after we've hung out for the second time this week
and I've just finished reading your text for the fifth time while contemplating a response and that's when I started to feel something
I feel like a ****** person because I forgot that you have the tendency to overthink and overanalyze every word ever said to you while I have the tendency to underthink and under-analyze my thoughts
I feel like a ****** person because, at my lowest point, I opened 150-word text highlighting all the flaws in my personality
I'm happy and sad about your way of expressing yourself
Happy because of the level of comfort in our relationship that you feel the need to give me a performance review.
Sad because as I read this and know you expect change
Sad because I sit here knowing I failed you
Sad because I feel ****** 200 days out of the year and on those days, the extra effort just eludes me
Sad because I don't know if our friendship can survive on such a forced diet
And when it withers, I'll know it was me and I'm sorry for the inevitable.
Jun 12, 2017
Jun 12, 2017 at 11:32 PM UTC
Stopper of hearts,
but what have you done
to all the lads of Ashland?
Your struggling cheek
a soft delight
chaffed against a world of sadness-
The candy shop, no sweeter,
despite it's lollipops and chocolates
than the *********** alive and prideful
at the fluttering of her naked lashes.
Civil when you meet her,
she knows where the aorta's at-
Squeezing like a vice grip
at the ruddy heart attack
Apr 23, 2013
Apr 23, 2013 at 12:58 AM UTC
i always thought poetry
happened as life
chaffed you over
and over
until it rubbed holes in
the fiber of you
and almost without even knowing it
you leaked your soul in lines.
i thought experience was beautiful
but its only disenchanting.
i think a cynic is such an ugly thing
and i think myself the ugliest of all.
i'm always wanting
always falling into a trope of misery;
i thought i was better than that,
i thought i was wise.
i can't hide my sensitivity or shiny pinpricks of hurt
catching the light.
i thought poetry dripped like faucet water
like a garden hose.
i suppose i've learned that poetry
is like pulling your worst fears
from your stomach where they thrive in acid dark,
and pushing them out through your mouth.
it's word-poisoning.
it's the ugliest parts,
it's vestigial tenderness
and i'm bruised
yellow black blue
purple red.
i've been living in the
tortured safety of my own head
and poetry is my writing on the wall
scratched into the sides of my skull.
it doesn't matter what i say
because i'll probably
live there till i die
but at least i'll have this graffiti,
this watery poetry sloshing like
brine in a jar.
what an ugly cynic i've become.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 10:01 PM UTC
In the liquid of these eyes
Dreams don't drown
In the turbulence of the wind
Or the raging storms
Stars don't shake or fall
The scars on that beneath your breast
Have chiseled you to the amazing piece that you now are
Believe me, my darling
Time has a story to tell you
Listen with patience
Look closely
You're still alive
You still exist
There's still life in your every breath
Look closely into the ashes
There's still a flicker of an ember
Blow it and light it up
Even if you've lost so many times
You haven't forgotten how to fight
Look closely honey
Even on headstrong roads
Your chaffed feet still remember how to walk
Even with ironclad rules and norms
Your heart is still a rebel
Be You! Be You!!
You can do it!
You are enough
You are amazing
You will succeed
So, Shine that light
©_HerOutspokenMind||LookClosely
Jan 22, 2019
Jan 22, 2019 at 8:40 AM UTC
I slept with one of my teachers in high school.
We used to barter with fleeting, salty kisses
behind the musty curtain of the old auditorium.
The whiskers he'd been shaving since I was seven
always chaffed my chin a little. In a good way.
We coated ourselves in sputtered dust under the stage
when we were supposed to be building the set for 'Annie'.
He would cradle my thighs in his think hands
and slowly peel the clothes away.
He put me on top
of the chorus' baby grand
and made love to me like I was grown
Because,
I was the eyelash swimming in his retina
and he couldn't look away.
Until snickering waves of adultery
swept around the room
and made the springs
of the folding chairs
squeak.
I felt the electric panic ripple through his body
before it pooled in his eyes
and dripped down his face like syrup.
Jul 1, 2011
Jul 1, 2011 at 8:04 AM UTC
let’s **** to ‘blonde'
over and over again
one hour three minutes
twenty five seconds
until lips are chapped
until legs are chaffed
until love and lust
collide
an eighteen
wheeler jackknifes
across the barricade
small bits of me die
and we **** again
Aug 22, 2016
Aug 22, 2016 at 11:16 PM UTC
He stood at the back, and looked around
The church, not even full,
There wasn’t a face he recognised
From his far off days at school,
He thought of Jim in the coffin there
Who had reached his end of days,
Then hid his head and the tears he shed
As they sang a hymn of praise.
The congregation had filed on out
To attend a hurried wake,
‘I hope she finished the Lamingtons,’
Said the grandson, Edward Drake.
‘We’re lucky to have a wake at all
For they’ve been divorced for years,
I couldn’t believe she’d put it on
But she even cried real tears!’
He didn’t follow the mourners down
But turned away on his own,
He hadn’t anything much to say
To the strangers Jim had known,
He’d said goodbye to his only friend
To the last one that he had,
The rest had gone on ahead of him
And the thought of that was sad.
What do you do in an empty world
When the last of those you knew
Is lying under a grassy knoll,
Covered in morning dew?
When your wife has gone to an early grave
And your son has gone, too soon,
While a daughter’s taken in childbirth
Early one Sunday afternoon.
He walked and walked til the sun went down,
To the sound of an inner voice,
‘Why have you stayed around so long?’
‘My fate gave me little choice!’
His mind filled up with the sounds of them
Who had laughed and joked in the past,
They said, ‘We knew it would come to this,
But someone had to be last!’
He wandered out in his garden then,
So dark that he couldn’t see,
But every one of his friends was there
Hiding behind each tree,
They called and chaffed in the darkness that
Their time had been way back when,
‘We’re quite content with the lives we led,
Why don’t you join us, Ben?’
But Ben sits still in his empty house
While a candle gutters there,
He thinks he’ll go when the flame goes out
Sat in his easy chair,
He doesn’t think of the future now
For his life was lived in the past,
And his mind is filled with memories
Til the Lord takes him, at last.
David Lewis Paget
Jul 13, 2014
Jul 13, 2014 at 4:09 AM UTC
The day you slept I cried
I wonder why
My heart sat in my throat trying to choke me so I could sleep along with you
And yet while you lived I would have kept my distance
Kept far from your disdaining reach
Now I would have given anything to wrap my arms around your warm waist
To touch your smooth camel skin, trace my fingers on your cinnamon freckles
Or just stare into your hot brown eyes
And yet while you lived I would have kept mine lowered
Kept my gaze averted from your frightening glare
While you existed I cried
I think I know why
My brains boggled in my head wildly so I could be unhinged like you
It seemed uncanny how the powerful, fierce woman I once feared
Had now become just a frail, helpless shadow of herself
Still spewing malignant insults at me from her chaffed mouth
Cursing fervently with force that would bend me again to her will
In your weakness your words still crushed me
Orders barked from your sick bed jolted me
As if the strength would return and position you to punish me if I didn’t obey
When you lived I cried
I know why
My body stayed in a constant state of swelling, bruising and wounding
So I could be scarred like you
It didn’t matter that I was innocent and needed your love
Only fist punches, metal rod lashes, finger nail pinches
Sometimes hair pulls, palm slaps, boot kicks and back hands
On better days the odd berating in public would do the trick
Yes, this was the only kind of love you had for me
The kind to pound me into the ground
Well now you’ve long been gone
All that you broke down in me, I’ve rebuilt
With tears and hunger and shrinking
The scars have healed and I’m whole
The love you withheld, I have found in myself
Nellie Nkosi
Apr 13, 2015
Apr 13, 2015 at 9:19 AM UTC
I barely knew you back then but all the things I remember still run through my mind,
Tears on my face as I'm writing this, to imagine a place if I asked "Are you fine?"
Didn't care at all and never talked to you
There wasn't a perfect time and place to call and check up on you
Then you were gone and the only thing I recall
Was seeing your girl's face, no make up, no smile
Chaffed feelings, no emotions, nothing at all
What could I say?
How can I possibly say it's okay?
How could I not feel this anger inside me
I look at her now, and she's different
You made her this way
When you drank all those pills, it killed her
Since then I haven't seen the real her
Screaming in her pillow, could you tell me that you heard her?
Even when she smiles, can you see that it still hurts her?
They might say that it's wrong to be bitter
But the more that she drank, the more she got sicker
And I'm no better, but she's killing her liver
You thought she would be better
But it's getting worse
Hollow like the bottle she's holding
She's trying to sleep but she can't until it's the morning
Everyday is another ******* performance
These pictures and memories is what she's been holding
She's blaming herself for the reason you left
You took every pill but she's the one who's feeling the effects
Families in pieces, and your friends are a ******* mess
You left all your pain and you gave it to them
What did you think would happen?
Thought it would be easy like she would just move on?
She's hanging out with her friends like nothing is wrong
Trying to be strong but the moment you left, she was already gone
Forgive me for my honesty, it's a blessing and a curse
It's a medicine that hurts and it's the only thing that works
Who could understand the **** that you went through?
It hurts because I'll never get to,
Look you in the eyes and say
"Jacob, I get you. Don't let the stress get to you."
You left so much scars that are here to stay
The stars don't look as bright when you decided to go away
So much pain that I see even till this day
They start thinking about you when it starts to rain
Jun 9, 2017
Jun 9, 2017 at 3:18 AM UTC
Mine eyes retain the scourge
of love
blueness bites vogue sun
scarring moon-clusters in
unyielding boughs lamenting
this sidereal zither.
Mine eyes burn pale fire
through chaffed hands pallid
markings wall-scrunched
and depthless now
names wield swords as their
sharp edges bequeath wound upon
wound taking helm to helm,
no shattered voice of pain.
Mine eyes still these urgent
importances distilling the
crucial hour's wane - unreliable sundial seeking the sun
to scale shadows telling time
Mine eyes know
her nudeness vague, her bareness clear, her voice splintering the woodwork of soul,
keeping it in a jar,
urn,
rotundly incarcerated there,
mouth sings lip-meanderings
multiplied wolves at
the door.
Sep 30, 2015
Sep 30, 2015 at 4:16 AM UTC
there is nothing here, much fill of
the vacuous – just tired mesh;
a precise ruling
of chaos, like how my mother told
me over folding clothes that i have
my own way of destroying things.
dizzied and then clamped by my
way of default fixtures past furnitures
and a break on the lip of the wound
having knelt on a shard of glass
age 7 in familial entrails —
knowing how heavy my steps were
by looking justly at worn-out shoes,
pieces of the Earth jammed on slits,
their countenance earthen, exhausted
from the mundane. walls chaffed
from childish gnaws, drunk on turpentine.
stock-still hands of an old watch with
dents for portrayal of agonies
in the dresser, clothes pretending not
much to do
and when it started to place its
affect, i have learned enough to love
was commonplace for hurt,
and that there is a false horizon
staring back through tough heads
of protruding nails, giving back a dignified
image of contrition — in the mirror
a furiously slaughtered conjuring
of what i once held in my hands
vivisecting to discover evidence
fingers painted red, running the fugitive,
rogue without emphasis,
hurrying back to home
photographs nailed to their stations
with cases fractured, deep into halved
smiles, mother locating me with
an old chipped drinking glass, telling me
i have my way
of ruining things.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 12:05 AM UTC
found in shells, if found at all
hide in shells, waiting for the call,
yeah
spring,
nay
winter weeping into the ground
last icy chill, to stave off the warmth
from the sun, that the ground absorbs,
and warms the whole globe in the
season.
The seeds are the ideas,
the shell or pods are what my
mind figures are the odds
of failure,
the deeper they are hidden,
or the harder the pod shell,
less than a hair's width of fruition,
season matters not,
any cold tears,
fall caught with
rest of the marks
of failure,
why is there no warmth,
even when standing
in full sun,
... feel none.
Dead so dead, so scatter me,
like seeds, scatter me
like chaffed wheat,
all on the wind of change.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 12:22 AM UTC