"chambered" poems
(I love) Dignity
*tearing words apart,
a part
of a joy I cannot
explain or share exactly*
knew a man once,
forty two years gone,
died too soon enough,
soon enough,
he and I will be
the same age
this man
a duck out of water,
a stranger in an adopted land,
trouble-stooped, a hard life, well lived,
never bent,
dignified in every step
I cannot remember him
ever kissing me, tousling my hair,
holding my hand, loving me in
a manner I wanted beyond desperately
yet here I am, 5:22 am
weeping tears recalling him
in glimpses long ago seen,
adding them all up to get a
single sum
Dignity.
*tearing words apart,
a part
of a joy I cannot/explain,
share precisely*
dig
in
to
my
chambered memory storage units,
unlocking those rusted locks with freshly oiled
tears
and loving the dignity he exampled
to the son he could not kiss, hand hold,
but taught him the one lesson, digging deep
to respect life and stand apart,
stand with dignity.
all else will follow
the son kissed his children plenty,
in a vain attempt to make up his missed
homework
now the grandfather,
now the grandfather
is still kissing
his last hope, his newest babes,
rolling on the floor,
so silly kissing belly buttons,
smelling their skin repeatedly,
in a manner most
undignified
still weeping
the son,
he tries to sort it out
and forgives and does not forget
the man that taught dignity
in everything,
even, especially,
in slow dying,
forty two years is a long time to wait
to weep.
it takes two hands in the dark
repeatedly
to collect all the waiting patiently
wetness and the
accompanied sniffles,
so undignified,
the son smiles at himself
declaring unabashedly,
digging out from himself
a poem, a self-reflection
on time tarnished reflections
clear enough to make him
sob,
believing*
I love dignity.
Mar 28, 2015
Mar 28, 2015 at 5:51 AM UTC
We have engendered them.
Our babies.
Our annelids.
Facsimiles of Us.
A gushing warm viscous fluid
And a conglomerate of meat
From the womb pods of our hive
Rush out into your oxygen.
Our mass will grow indeed.
And,
Our perfect mitosis will repeat -
More beautiful
Babies.
Our perfect mitosis will repeat -
More beautiful
Babies.
8 become 16; 16 become 32
You (solo)
Must know by now; no doubt
Individuality is a cold, broken loop
An anachronism of a bygone era
Pass through Our membrane , insect.
And be born infinitely back through it.
We will have you spread-out in our warmth
Under our skins; apart of our million-chambered heart
Join Us.
Aug 2, 2012
Aug 2, 2012 at 9:13 PM UTC
You are the systole to the diastole
Of my four-chambered cavity
You are the pulmonary rhythmic control
That fills air to my capillary.
You are the Pituitary Gland
That drowns my bloodstream in dopamine
You take my brain to a wonderland
Drunk and overdosed in Seratonin.
You are the only Mitochondrion
That powers all cellular activity
My Cytoplasms are in motion
For the sexiest Golgi Body.
You are the ultimate synapse
In my every granule of neuron
That gives an involuntary prolapse
To both my dendrite and axon.
Aug 10, 2013
Aug 10, 2013 at 9:27 AM UTC
this swifter's grift -
lifting loosely
fitted accoutrement
lourden fruit
carelessly held
silkened, gimlet lit
shamelessly rivened
to a paler shade
of need.
solitude's
enchanting seed
may confer
a grander banquet’s call
but, this tug of
grandiloquent oblige
and politesse . . .
master and slave consort
black and scarlet
swift of tongue and fingertip
unbound so neatly
and leather blind
tell me muse of the anger flesh on fire
is there really dignity in defeat
that eludes the victor
tell me muse of the truth in nature
ill-graced tail-lamp broken
is destiny all ways ordained in contradiction
tell me muse do hearts all times submit
to the beacon call
shyness long forgotten
narrative so harshly written
as ne'er before
with an insistence
ageless yearnings bellow
as but glazened shadow
if reason sleeps
there will be no learning
no refuge
only to each
for their crimes
a four-chambered riddle
All Rights Reserved
James R. Morse, NYC 2013.
Sep 12, 2013
Sep 12, 2013 at 7:05 PM UTC
Unforgiving heat
Cool drink
Giraffe,
Hippo,
Wildebeest,
Gazelle
Sip muddy water hole
Crouching low.
Unforgiving heat
Cool drink
Texans
Sip fridge-cooled Camelbacks
Crouching low.
Light breeze
Eggplant skies
Tall savannah grass
Sways
Masking movement.
Predators travel
Unseen.
Guns ready
trophies sighted
Giraffe
Hippo
Wildebeest
Gazelle
Bullet chambered
Trigger finger
trophies....
Running?
Cheetahs pouncing
Texans screaming
Law of Nature
End of Story.
Oct 31, 2014
Oct 31, 2014 at 12:01 PM UTC
There's a beautiful gun in my hand.
Flawless.
The nightshift sun gleams off the barrel like a swan on a lake
At home against the humid sweaty dark pressing against everything yet awesomely singular
The clock stopped a long time ago and gunshots took over in place of the ticks and tocks…
(I'm chewing on something soft)
… and I never noticed.
It seemed natural.
Every bullet chambered was just another hour passing
And though it feels like forever I know its been half a day
Blood laces the treads of my shoes
Hugging the rubber and drawing patterns that I'm less aware of than I am of...
(What is this? It's good.)
... myself
Everyone I know is sitting in a pile.
No more alive than the gun itself.
Still they talk. Memories are shared and advice is given. I don't care to know if its real.
*Everyone talks. It makes sense.
Even the dead*.
The ceiling fan noisily labors diligently if not futilely against the unspeakable heat. It's the only sound I can be sure of. The motion helps.
Nothing else is moving except...
(Chewchewchewithinkicanithinkican)
...My jaw. Steadily gnashing through…
(Everyone talks)
My tongue. I don't care about the blood at my feet or the fact that its coming from my mouth.
What worries me is that now everyone is staring at me and I dont have any gun at all
Dec 22, 2015
Dec 22, 2015 at 1:20 PM UTC
i
a wee shaft of beam
across
a sea of chilly darkness:
dashing on, dashing long
a chain
of disturbing crispy waves.
a haunting pitch
of sirens, of winging gulls.
…then
a whistle in the dark
ii
i have bled.
and ever bleeding
is resurgence.
the stones are stained now
not all are stained yet.
but i can hold no more.
no more.
iii
to listen would have been enough
but spoke i
to deaf-mutes, clayey forms.
and every uttered little word
faded like receding undertone.
and then
conspiracy of silence,
misquotations,
sharing of once
too friendly shoulders.
a nod would have been enough,
or a pat,
or any like gesture;
they turned askance
and i fled… fled away.
iv
back to my chambered shell
back to my cradle
where there are many whispers.
and every fateful swing
of the pendulum
i reel and ride the wheel of fancy,
embrace false idols
like one fearful of his god
if only to escape the haunts
of conscience;
tremble at approaching footsteps,
shriek at every shadow.
v
i shall walk barefoot again
past leafless stumps
windborn, heated, and bowed,
‘cross an oasis grown desert dry,
past anthills now dunghills,
‘neath rapid flutter
of widespread murky wings,
past cliff edges
where resound pampered echoes,
while arched in deceitful hues
a rainbow.
…i scan the blue… i pause…
vi
i await a lily-white stork
or there shall be no curtain speech.
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 8:02 PM UTC
I
A THIN moon faints in the sky o'erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.
II
Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:
It is only their call that comes on the breeze;
Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:
It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;
Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:
It is only the touch of their hands that ***** -
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.
III
And where should a man bring his sweet to woo
But here, where such hundreds were lovers too?
Where lie the dead lips that thirst to kiss,
The empty hands that their fellows miss,
Where the maid and her lover, from sere to green,
Sleep bed by bed, with the worm between?
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.
IV
And now that they rise and walk in the cold,
Let us warm their blood and give youth to the old.
Let them see us and hear us, and say: 'Ah, thus
In the prime of the year it went with us!'
Till their lips drawn close, and so long unkist,
Forget they are mist that mingles with mist!
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can burn and the dead can smite.
V
Till they say, as they hear us - poor dead, poor dead! -
'Just an hour of this, and our age-long bed -
Just a thrill of the old remembered pains
To kindle a flame in our frozen veins,
Just a touch, and a sight, and a floating apart,
As the chill of dawn strikes each phantom heart -
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear, and the dead have sight.'
VI
And where should the living feel alive
But here in this wan white humming hive,
As the moon wastes down, and the dawn turns cold,
And one by one they creep back to the fold?
And where should a man hold his mate and say:
'One more, one more, ere we go their way'?
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the living can learn by the churchyard light.
VII
And how should we break faith who have seen
Those dead lips plight with the mist between,
And how forget, who have seen how soon
They lie thus chambered and cold to the moon?
How scorn, how hate, how strive, we too,
Who must do so soon as those others do?
For it's All Souls' night, and break of the day,
And behold, with the light the dead are away. . . .
3k
Healing hands laid to rest
wandering in the near light of sunrise
fumbling for fractals of memory
ambling in the haze of yesterday.
Stolen words and displaced letters
floating in the ambience of space
cosmonauts of distant planets
arms outstretched beckoning
the echoes sent from
a thousand light years away.
Time is an irrelevant motion
tiny air bubbles escorting life
rising to the surface of forgotten dreams
spiraling, pulsating in a heartbeat
chambered by grasping futures.
The underlying fever reaching
inwards and outwards through the soul
seeking the blindness of tomorrow
unfurl their magical delights
wrapped in the glint of a solar cosmos.
Drifting beyond the reach of nature
blackness surrounds with the warmth
of knowing, a million miles away,
as if an undercurrent draws its final breath
behold wonderment far-seeing
leaving strange footprints
that someday others will say:
here stood a sentient being.
Jul 14, 2014
Jul 14, 2014 at 11:18 PM UTC
Cracking temptations force my thoughts true
Endless maintaining drowns my body blue
My heart chambered, a caliber I used to call love
Though that round had been shot at something as small as a dove
I dislike the word hate for the meaning it holds
I hate the word love for the misery it could unfold
Speaking is something simple that we all can do
All though lately the words I try to speak I can't Subdue
Please someone I need help my life is in shambles
Four years being thousands of miles away just on a gamble
The city I was born in it holds an everlasting fire
I wish for nothing more than to be home again, that is all I desire
These dreams can be loud, they’re screaming in my ear
Telling me to go home to embrace the ones that I hold dear
With all that has been said it seems that You could say I hate what I do
But protecting the ones that I love is something I will never undo
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 9:17 PM UTC
You swore you'd never love again
That you'd hardened your heart
Stiffened the walls of the four chambered *****
That Cupid's arrow would bounce off
That no love could move these stiffened walls
Then...
... Now
Your palms cradle in his palms
Your head gently on his chest, ears counting his heartbeat
His fingers tracing love letters on your back
Eyes closed, savoring the images of him they've captured
Well, Well, Well...
Look who's all lovey dovey
loving and ****
Nov 11, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 at 3:11 PM UTC
I am not the one..who chambered the final round.
Not the Pathfinder, in the smoke who called the choppers
that lifted the dead and wounded off the ground.
I am not the Chaplain who holds the hand of a dying young man,
struggling hard with his belief.
Not the nurse with ****** hands,
eighteen hours with no relief.
I am not the young widow, now with two children ,
feeling left behind,
not the biker who stands guard in a patriotic flag line.
Not the Sargeant, who with respect, present the final flag,
not the Officer, with wet eyes, collecting the causality dog tags.......
But I could be!
May 26, 2012
May 26, 2012 at 9:27 AM UTC
a confessional screen
chambered in opaques
the pearly gates would sport
checkers sovereignty with grime
between myself
and the other side of this poem
another acolyte had founted
from our species-widened narthex-maw
the answer to the test
the answer i have tested since
despite the veto of a roshi's sleeve
while adults justify in frowns and threats
commandment-etched
i am a child still
aghast at drawing lines in sand to mark the living
from the soon to die
one i knew who drew such lines
for whom a line was drawn to mark himself as well
not just in votes and homeland hate-speech
you see
he crossed the line
no unadulterated childhood can cross
he shot his own face
or at least his face was shot
when he was found
who can read the final lonely moments of another
when mistakes are easier than ownmost acts ?
bombing bullies politicking death
can sanctify the safe
unpunctuated traps
dividing moods in swallows
pills
swilled with undigested fear
of nozzled death
mercilessly sudden
.
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 2:18 PM UTC
the feminine bleeds
not always red, not always white
seldom enough
for words - she inters herself, crouched
chambered, begs for
cleansing, hand held cupped
round- her curves
familiar to self, unknowable;
unselfish giving - she bleeds, not enough
mutilated even by her own kindness, cradled
without righteousness, coddled by an unnamed
nebula .....she curses her own image, and likeness
slivers it, cuts it raw, for dead left - visible
a world denies
knowledge with sacred
alibi - scribed hieroglyphs, scrolled - she bleeds
white, and a
desert conceals her face
calculates her dance - her movements
mythical, she cries inside
out
tears of salt river-ed, rested
underground, a birthing place securing
her masculine seed coming to
light - Madonna paints her
face black, *"Oh Czestochowa, pray for us
Oh Mother - we beseech thee"*....
She bleeds - red, the
world turns with season - she re-seeds our flesh
feeds us with her ***** prior
to the sacrifice -"Witch, it is, Witch....burn it," conceal
in alabaster stones
lone, unmarked - her womb
tomb it only in site
of an unflinching god - hold him, birth him
in sorrow grieve and give him, his blood shed
"take it ,drink it" - red, she bleeds - seldom enough
as the masculine prepares for HIS resurrection
feminine for trial
He is reborn - she never dies
she is Wisdom (Sophia) eternal
He - Godhead
she - Feminine
denied....
Dec 30, 2010
Dec 30, 2010 at 7:09 PM UTC
when you
so dear to me
do hurt me
a pinpoint *****
is a razor’s slashing edge
make gashing wounds
and bleeding drains me
bound scars to testify
to the hurt
the doer do magnify
i flee my brittle tiny shell
and don the mask of mirth
but fleeing never find
a chambered nautilus
which i would exchange for mine
a twig is bent
a leaf is fallen
a grain of sand is lost
a page is torn
teardrop falls
a lost one calls
when trust has grown
when choice is blind
when reason cannot reason
a little twist
a careless wink
an unintended turnabout
eats up a painful way
to the heart that loves.
May 8, 2015
May 8, 2015 at 7:51 PM UTC
i would like to play the trumpet for you
i feel i could breathe
the wailing of my soul into it.
i could play myself through this instrument
into consciousness
from this sleeping dream
into smoke from this flame
i could wisp and dissipate
like clouds in your eyes
can you see the clouds in mine?
or the dew, in the morning left?
i cant remember the rain
though i am drenched, i am dripping
every bit falling, drop by drop,
into a lake never quenched
before words, before television
you have always preceded
the breath standing at the crest of my lips
but turned, scared, naked
retreating, from the beach
back to the sea
where you close curtains
to my whale song
pounding at the door
unintelligible frequencies
on top of waves and across the sandy floor
i sink so low, shaking
chains shackled to the earth
i'd barter for the key
but the guards
they ask the trumpet from me
summoning vultures to my stomach
my burning coal punishment
for swimming so reckless
for weeping on the shoreline
because you and the rainwater receded
back into the depth of chambered winds
slipping like the valves from my fingertips
before the hushed tones of my non harmonics
my soul blossoming out of it
my song on every radio, every wax and needle
in the air wisping out
when you are not the sun
and not listening.
clouds in the back of eyes,
and sleepless nights.
Jul 7, 2010
Jul 7, 2010 at 6:15 PM UTC
Some to love
others to hate
Your mind releases them like doves
ivory wings glowing in the sun
why aren't they held by this weight?
They blindly kiss the sky
as blindly as I kissed you
only to come crashing down
Chambered...
in this hell called a mind
Or do they flow like a waterfall?
Showers shimmering in the sun
to hide the unwanted truth
behind this curtain of fallacy
They'll wash over the rocks
as you washed over me
only to go splashing forth
into a pool at the bottom
with a hindered flow
As much as I love them
As much as I hate them
I must lock them away
into the void you left in my heart
Oct 12, 2012
Oct 12, 2012 at 7:30 AM UTC
If this life plane is but illusion,
let me live in your heart
where time is ceaseless,
where I have not a care,
where it's warm,
where it's real,
where the truth won't elude me.
Where I am suspended like a snare,
ringing in every thrum
of your chambered drum,
in every heartbeat.
Dec 22, 2014
Dec 22, 2014 at 3:01 AM UTC
Deep where the Sun lies
flies, and then in its parade dies
into the dark under mass
the cloaked ritual of time
that hovers upon the boundaries
the songs of the ages.
Where glint to eye
that inward sigh, the cry
that tormented deep holds its bar
far, upon the trilogy of the lost
Gods that made and paid the cost
of frequent flier miles.
Shadows creep, leap
where the distinction arises
surprises the mornings jolt
that rides the long encounter
where cold the steel bears the fascination
of the chambered game
twirling, revolving, frame by frame
where the poker hand falls to the colt.
Triggered, offset,
the bang of the aeons arises, surprises
and dropping like the shadow he was
the smoking barrel
the drawn out look
pages from a tormented novel
that lay in a hovel
there on the floor.
Alisdaire O'Caoimph
Apr 10, 2011
Apr 10, 2011 at 10:03 AM UTC
Plant me a rose, plant it down on my skin
Dig it to my flesh, wound what make sin
Grow the thorns until it pierce my heart
Let the four chambered wall torn apart
Crimson flowers, bloom towards my skin
Turn me into something, I've never been
Watered by blood, drain the endless pain
Nourished the knife that blood stained
Flower of thorns open my beating chest
No one saw the beauty, let them see the rest
Darkened blood and the broken promises
A garden to have, to care that wishes
Grow into me garden I've always wanted
Dreams I seek and the love I've pleaded
Creep into me bouquets of flowery blood
Just this time give me what I can't have
Nov 18, 2018
Nov 18, 2018 at 9:34 PM UTC
blood blot
a hideous music
like fixed stars
a chaos of shattered glass
you can hang your hat on
bamboo shards make a ****** wound
gold spun hair
on floral linen
blemished soaking red
like a shaking rat in a cats mouth
Hazels glistening ****** a pretense
salutes celibacy and high end moisturizer toilet paper
to shock simplicities morals
of an excretory affair
a dark chandelier hangs in the balance
torpedo runnels through chambered knots
unleashing treacherous sanity
sins crib
theater of purgation
father forgive her
she took a ****
an idealist without ideals
the grand masturbator
a simulacrum of a lubed god
in nights dragging shade
oracle of a ruddy opera and legs over head
flexed crimson wattle rolls
theories invite anti theories
light invites darkness
silence yields
shadows throat
and cacophonous whispers
a grind house temple of gods and demons
in horrendous geometry
of inflicting malice
until the serpent ascends
from black pitch hells
like a bomb through the skull
lusts antidote
waterloo of the soul
annihilation point
the cadaver smiles
Jan 9, 2019
Jan 9, 2019 at 6:28 AM UTC
making the left turn unto Wilks ave. My steering wheel spins in my palm and
There...... on the park bench sits a red shirt and two more.
So I ease off the accelerator and squash the volume Bushwick Bill and Ghetto Boys drop low in the back seat..... Creepin.
Shirt #1 passed the dank to shirt #3 these simple ******* dont see me ...... stll creepin....shiney steel.
Locked and chambered
Shirt # 2 gets a glimpse as he takes a **** but now its bang bang ..... more red and chordite smoke.
R.I.P.
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 10:51 AM UTC
Visions lost in cracking air
dirt and crumbling sidewalk
I drag my feet homeward
one more time
I dream the dream of dying
I wake gasping
I am locked in
this chambered hell of body
I see fire under rocks
I smell smoke in the bathroom
The night breeds evil smells
they float into my nostrils
Hope is lost, it flew away
I woke up laughing with the dead
Give me a safety pin
I have to pin myself together
My body has parted
was it a distorted mirror?
I touch my eyeball
and it sinks
I spit out teeth
with blood
My fingernails
have fallen off
Tired, I am so tired
i wander crooked streets
Shadows on the grey walls
my only companions
I am daughter of radon
I laugh as my hair falls out
I am so hungry
hungry for life
This steel landscape
of bed pans and commodes
The chill enters my toes
I wake up screaming...
Aug 4, 2010
Aug 4, 2010 at 6:08 AM UTC
It's pulsing along with the beat of my heart
With heavy heart and heavier mind
It sings of seven poisons laced dart
Or of three deciding fate of mine
'I've done nothing '
Pleads the side of you unwilling to Die
'And that is everything '
Says your mutinous lie
But can anyone trust lies?
Can anyone define life
without the words of others
That four chambered thing in my chest
It picks up speed
Then slows
Like the arcs in books
Or maybe in the orchestra hall
I like the grey sky
You can only see as far as you can imagine
Though it warps slightly
For me
Jan 9, 2015
Jan 9, 2015 at 8:37 AM UTC
There once was a shadow who thought he was a man,
He made his empty bed in a shame of familiars,
For years if not an eternity he never did one single thing,
He contemplated creativity in all its smoke and mirrors,
His only credo was padding his unknowing, limp ego,
Got a gig, speaking before a throng of other shadows,
He rewrote the crook about his own insignificances, suddenly
Nothing's became every things, all was sorely well in the bleak
Under toes. Shadowman had found his stage, had rearranged
Chaos and insignificance to the point of no enlightenments,
No regrets. What a sage!
Shadowman aped, traced, spewed in studied literature,
Experienced, faith, trust, fidelity, danced numbers,
In a cellophane pack with all the added extras included,
Found that reflecting words only got in his narcissistic way,
Left the California sun for the New York lowlands
Of the east, that only shine after the hurricane's
Deluge. Shadowman has reams of flesh plastered
On a mall of wallowing sites only Shadowmen frequent,
Modern is the moly man who makes his own myth.
Shadowman has traveled to the great southern climes
Where hotels of shade tell tales of locals and enlightenment is in a drug
Called something South American or other? A drug so smug it is a plug
For his dun holy soul. Shadowman is only a silhouette of himself.
He freely gives seminars to the lame, chained to themselves freely,
Where all the vain echoes are chambered, embodied, entombed.
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 11:19 PM UTC