"charybdis" poems
a bottle of scotch had bad dreams.
bullets twitch, junk sick
in 3 inch thick
mustard ****
toe nails clipped from yeti
lay strewn about the **** stained corpse
of a motel six dixie cup -
root canal trophy,
next to
a black fez
with scab tassel
upended.
down in it. belching apnea
propaganda
and belladonna
waiting for curious george
to find a shotgun
and a yellow
hat
and a brick banana.
blowflies inhale the rank damp
of a fresh ****
the odd dog whines
like a clown in -
a blender.
[ the ]
house wins
with a marked card; jabbing fat fingers
into acned rosacea
bloated with sleep lack
and mortgage
back stab
chasing twenty ******
with a hollow point
pull from an acid
flask
while hailing a black cab.
tinsel sutures
stitch eyelids as a mercy
shattered bone knit
hand-grenade
cozies
old glory, at half mast
half wasted
fifty stars, no light
dragging on
the grounds of immunity
to do a line
of coke stock
with a basset hounds'
finesse.
your taxes at work
in columbia,
hiding from a lost farm
in Idaho
your american dream
turning tricks in shanghai
for a counterfeit
egga roll
your meme, devoid
like an ice cube
tombstone
your freedom, parking cars
for italian escorts
smoking skin flutes
for ferraris
and white teeth.
your integrity, sold to a hedge fund
for astroglide and a pez dispenser
packed with prozac
pressed by ' Jose the butcher' s abuela
in a narco slum
that ain't seen radio
since cinder blocks
had wings.
Dec 26, 2012
Dec 26, 2012 at 2:40 PM UTC
Aeolian dour fire meridians
Unfettering enlightenments will
Together Scylla with authority
Howling, Charybdis in oblivians wake
Shenting spindel meandering;
The schism termagating sirens
Repasts (diabolic manna)
Refracting ambrosial in the
Lap of Gods eye sophically conjecturing
Ephinany- times charioteering,
The nocturnal triunes discordance
Contemplating consequence thistling
Opothecaric sigels permeating lots
Obstruse lathed cerebral skies
Ruthfully roil whittling indelible
Epitaphs of serpentine repositories
Woefully dawning eternity castening
Harmoniously asunder truths
Deifying yen die.
ELEETE J MUIR.
Jan 13, 2012
Jan 13, 2012 at 11:14 AM UTC
#
Floating brazier spews electric amber waves
as a setting sun radiates on the ceiling
a shadow of a ship coquettishly sways
while in the center charybdis begins swilling
another message, another missed call
another debt collector and his esurient talk
watch the ship begin to swirl, this scene so banal
amber feathered tawny eyed peacock
continues furtively to scroll her story and shoe shop
crowded room with a panel onstage
reality and fantasy evaporate and fall as a single raindrop
drown in the muck, don't know how to disengage
and to stay in the sway of fantasy.
#
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 9:41 AM UTC
Barking along the seething sea
Tethys sparkling
Sans Pellagrino
Bubbled up with volcanic
Albido
And it exposed the cragged shores
Of a incessantly compiling
Or
Completely snuffed
Mountain
Bored and drilled by time
Sharper than a dying dimond
Cooked and left to rest
A Dinar plate
To which an all you can eat
Buffet
Played out pleasently
From antiquity
To present
A gift to an aging child
To be which pure joy can behold.
Today it is home of the Croats
The ancient Frontier of a meiotic Rome
And over small-grain time
Made coats
Of arms and animal manes
To give a name
To the nameless
To give a place
To the missed
That old Tethys barks like a fish
Beyond the Odoacerean boot, Scylla and Charybdis
Where the whales float
And great souls
Stolen deep within
wishing to find god
Fumbling in the dark
Searching for Alexandria
The flame of life
Become great stories to be told
And nothing more.
Odysseus
Hug the shore
Follow the land of the mysterious Croats
Do not venture beyond the threshold
Or you will be consumed by time
And lost to her Circedean jealous pines
Do not anger the constant love of
Helios
No,
These Croats have never croaked
They know not of amphibiotes
And the sharpened clades of life
Made and tailored bespoke
Sowed
In the fractals
Of the quiet word of
Eloah.
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 2:41 PM UTC
So what of love,
Hearts burning fire,
Impaled on the horns of pain and desire,
A villain made true; honest man to a liar
In wretched quest for an abstract that’s higher
And if, perchance, they should vanquish their need,
Will he or she to true love concede
Or never quite sure of heart’s fine intention
Smother such dreams with stifling convention
Then, dastardly torn, twixt right and true
Sully their soul with transitory muse
In fear of the power that thunders within
And a promise once made, to never give in
For the Poet’s dilemma in this miraculous life
Is that when blessed with love, ‘tis oft coupled with strife.
Sep 16, 2011
Sep 16, 2011 at 5:06 PM UTC
What do you hear of me?
What rumors slip from others’ lips?
They speak of me, evil mistress, eyes that pull in, and a body that gets caught in your windpipe.
You are unable to swallow me. You chew on me and hastily spit me out. You choke on me.
The wit I possess is too quick for your bruteness. You dismiss my thoughts.
I am just a woman, nothing less, and nothing more.
Bore to serve you and bear your seed.
What do you hear of me? What slips from others’ lips?
Am I a murderous harlot? A bitter witch with nothing better to do.
Do serpents sit atop my brow, shall I turn you to stone?
Am I Charybdis, shall I swallow you whole?
They are unable to chop me up into bit sized pieces. For some reason, they do not love me as a collective.
What do you hear regarding the treatment of me?
You only hear yourselves, deafening my point of view.
I hear I have scorned every one of you. Do you hear of who scorned me?
Have you ever questioned what may have made me this way?
What makes a mistress so vile?
The mistreatment of a loving deity can mangle many.
I was hanged on a hook, a piece of meat left to rot.
I was once pure and heavenly.
I will ask once more,
What have you heard of me?
What tales have slipped from others’ lips?
Have you stopped to think what created me to be so evil?
I am the evil mistress. I will chew you up and I will eagerly swallow you in all your whole.
I know my motive. What is yours?
Apr 14, 2021
Apr 14, 2021 at 10:44 AM UTC
The first time i saw you, your stare lingered beneath
My mind went blank, it's as if i was recovered from the river Lethe
Eros and Ananke took the longest time on fashioning you
Apollo would befriend you because in my mind, you are the greatest view
To gain your love, i am willing to carry the world like Atlas
If you ask me, i will suffer the pits of Tatarus and come back to be your lass
I wouldn't mind staying with you in the island of Calypso
To be with you, i would face Charybdis and jump inside her tornado
Everytime you smile, it's as if the gates of Olympus open just for me
Your face will launch a thousand ships and i won't mind bringing my army
If i have no chance, my grief would reach the river Cocytus
And my heart would wander in the labyrinth of Daedalus
In the most confusing maze, you are my Ariadne string
You are the melody of the three muses when they sing
To get to your love how i wish i could be the goddess, Aphrodite
And maybe you can be Odysseus and i will be Penelope
With my kind of desire for you, Artemis and her hunters would never approve
If i am not for you, i would persuade Aphrodite and deny Cupid's reprove
Like Zeus and his lightning bolt, i can never leave your side
Poseidon's angry seas would compare to my feelings which will take long to subside
For your honor, i will fight like Hector of Troy
But like the giant, Typhon, someone will always destroy
Like Paris and Helen, we were doomed from the start
You are Cassandra and I, Apollo so you will never give me your heart
I am not Aphrodite, not Hestia, Helen and Hera
You can compare me to Circe, The Fates or even Medusa
Not as important as Hercules, Odysseus and Achilles
I might as well have a tea party with Achlys
No ship will be launched for my sake
In the garden of Hesperides, i am ignored even by a snake
In Olympus, you feast with the twelve goddesses and gods
Together with Hephaestus who was shunned, i share his odds.
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 2:30 AM UTC
For the Dragon hissed as the Dragon died,
Apollo’s kiss as the night subsides,
Python’s bliss as naiad’s cried,
And the wailing woe’s on a weathering tide,
Water-wall from Kētos scream, tsunami crash, swallow everything,
Rolling clouds and the pouring rain and the serpent dying writhing in pain,
And the Dragon hissed and the Dragon died,
Apollo kissed away the night time sky,
And the Python’s bliss as his naiad’s cry,
The Sun awoke at the wheel-house berth, armor gold, chest-plate of Earth,
And valiance choked, squeezed by Ladon’s girth,
As the serpent swelled with the stormy seas,
To collapse great hero upon his knees,
Apollo, Cadmus and Hercules.
Reborn by fire, Father-Lion’s roar, returned each night to even-up the score,
And the Dragon hissed and the Dragon died,
Apollo’s kiss ward off night time skies,
Oh the wailing woe of ominous tides,
The scythe or club, boulder at night, rocks from heaven and the perilous fight,
Black-oil venom, heart of a beast, starry night’s runner split from the east,
Noxious breathe, flame-seared teeth, smell of death from a ****** feast,
Speared at the neck, pinning head to earth, then celebrated as a day of birth,
The serpent on his shoulder, or dangling from the tree,
Arising from the waters, from the depths beneath,
Cast out under a mountain, yes underneath, then wear his skin and sow his teeth!
And the Dragon hissed and the Dragon died,
Apollo’s kiss as the fight subsides,
And Python’s bliss as his muses wailed, between the horns where Argo sailed,
Call it a man or Charybdis, Scylla, rock, a multi-headed beast,
Or just two horns with a middle disk and Apollo’s fire, Sun’s dawning kiss,
And the Dragon hissed as the Dragon dies,
And Apollo’s kiss create the day time skies,
And the Python’s bliss at his naiad’s cries,
And the Dragon hissed and the Dragon died!
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 12:56 PM UTC
docking on the fringe of a dry spot
the rain died in...
i set sail in solemn siroccos, fraught
with endive and lemons...
no chop. flat listing in the leaning theme
impervious to words lost
my ship dips in clean drink
and dark thought.
away, my anchor prods starboard
planks of salt wood...
clangs in a grog of lurching halt
raw ***** mauve tossed - and shriek blind.
a pennant of mock cause.
a scant curl of smoke, seized
in unseasonable Hypnos.
a whimsical Charybdis -
a thing i choke on.
i scoff
cough a terrible pen
my inkwell, topped off
with black pond,
quill qualms
of love's
dross.
the serenity of my tempest
and the skipping stone it cracked,
now, white sharks, prowling the yonder
of the nearby,
in debt to a far gone, yawning
rings,-
concentric to the naked eye, you clothe not.
lest the raiment be
the Emperor's
new lot.
A Stitch of Odyssey In Epic Fail...
to get more gone, but less lost
a journey of a single step
begins because... and
just because
you stop
stopping.
Feb 3, 2013
Feb 3, 2013 at 1:54 PM UTC
As the undulating bodies part
the neon lights catch her face,
and her piercing gaze catches me.
A panorama of nothing but a blur.
But her- sharp.
Thirsty. Blazing.
Her hair is sleek and straight
but the way she throws back her head,
runs her fingers through the strands,
makes a tousled mess as entrancing and as
playfully wild as the club swirling around her.
Her lips are red. A challenging red.
The color of a delicate rose, but also
the color the harlot wears in old films.
The color of sin; of desire.
To unlock those lips
And tousle that hair
And lure out the voice….
To have the power of a man’s gaze now.
To be able to throw at her the force of
a chiseled jaw and stubble across my chin.
To know my role is to chase her
like a brave doe that turned
to look at me in the forest.
Who bounds away gracefully,
Knowing my sights are set
and the target is upon her.
How she would know my adrenaline
surged with every step she made
that took her farther from me.
All the power would lay in my
virile hands, to pull the trigger
on her when I may.
Ha! I laugh at my roots in the world that
imposes a craving for the rule of power.
Your gaze tells me we don’t belong there.
I move through the bodies toward you.
Toward freedom.
Lift me from my roots, darling.
We’ll run together.
Give up the vision of a pointed gun.
How’d they ever make me think
I wanted to be shot?
Oh, what a vision. What a creation!
My long locks twisting around yours,
how my lissome fingers get their
chance with you. And those
supple lips lend me the magnetic red hue.
How different the whole scene becomes
when the both of us are provocative
creatures, two nymphs swimming together
in the water of seduction.
Continue on, Odysseus.
Go conquer Scylla and Charybdis.
Master the seas of half the world.
The Sirens are singing to each other.
Jul 2, 2013
Jul 2, 2013 at 1:04 AM UTC
on a dark road
below a black hill
headlamped vision
gritty verge littered
with insect road ****
husk moth bodies
beetle shell mud
defiled ox-eye daisy
dumb weight tramping
the treadmill night
day-shot with the memory
of those lapwing hundreds
wheeling in ascent to fall
on folded wing and again
gyre up to the brink
of abandonment
green silent fields away
as when in advent there
the hills rose up before me
and the thirst for their
awesome green
loth to return
to that vortex drawn
down ice-pocket ruts
my city captive goes
Jun 19, 2011
Jun 19, 2011 at 8:09 AM UTC
Remembering time past.
Hell, searching for lost time.
Idyllic maybe
But
Flowers wilt.
The idle wailing
of Sirens and Daffodils
Allows me to forget:
Nostos holds Algos.
Scylla, Charybdis.
Is the future come yet?
Every word becomes a mistake.
All triumphs a fleeting matter
worthy of none.
Eviscerate my joy and live in its corpse.
Apr 7, 2010
Apr 7, 2010 at 5:40 PM UTC
The whirlpool, it spins,
while the mountain, it twists.
As two serpents entwined,
are surrounding this.
Some had once claimed,
that it started as a bear,
others claimed it began at Canopus,
way over, down there.
Multi-headed or spring of rocks,
cavern, mountain or egg,
a great wheel forever-turning,
with a circus and a one leg!
Pushed along by two giants,
grinding up salt with its gear,
thus responsible for the seasons,
floods and movements and the year.
Two horns of the monster,
but not found on its head,
the Earthen plane a giant treasure,
where Drakon made his bed,
with two stars on his brow,
like the two in his eyes,
the porthole of the ship,
a flying horse in disguise.
Scylla, Charybdis,
Jason, Argos, Deucalion,
Ziusdra, Manu, Noah,
-and the two birds who carry on,
and the mountain from below,
which they all rested upon.
Ameleth or Kullervo,
…and brother Utamo’s great wrong,
…and the whirlpool from above that created this song!
And the evil found inside us, the Id and its kin, will nurture the abused child and continue the sin. The great black wheel of madness, as always, will spin, churning out more abusers to fill the Hell that we’re in. When, where or how did the wheel of blackness start? Corrupting the love and joy into the evil in man’s heart and turning family into tragedy and tearing them apart? Next time you feel weak and let the succubus inside, just remember all those in Hell and the reasons they died.
Jun 5, 2016
Jun 5, 2016 at 5:52 PM UTC
In place of calm, read stirring ocean,
Scylla and Charybdis,
between a rock and a hard place.
In place of comfort, read your body,
transient, missing, on a plane somewhere
in a car somewhere on a boat somewhere
without your phone somewhere
somewhere somewhere somewhere
that is not my apartment or my arms
but somewhere where you smile.
Somewhere where your eyes
finally focus.
In place of sleep, read blood between the floorboards
and moving boxes scattered,
read burst capillaries and a savings jar
full of Washingtons and no idea
what I’m saving for.
In place of stasis, read
one fast move or I’m gone.
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 5:02 PM UTC
I’m doing so well.
I offered you to Charybdis in exchange for my sanity.
Scylla too, at first, but she seemed too great an evil and I’m over it, I promise.
I’d rather watch you disappear into the maelstrom of my memory than
have to pick six pieces of your body from the crags in my head.
I’m doing so well.
I warned you of the Lotus Eaters
and took ten deep breaths when you peeked inside the bag of winds and blew our love astray.
I told a blind Polyphemus you were sorry for his loss.
He said Nobody is sorry, and I knew that he was right.
I’m doing so well.
I amble through Phoenicia on sidewalks that remember all the stories you told.
I bump into Nausikaa. She asks if I am Circe, and I tell her my name.
She drops her gaze to the pavement before admitting that you never mentioned me.
I’m doing so well.
I don’t spite the olives that dare to grow without our bodies entwined beneath them.
And I don’t mind when Antinous calls me ahead, begging me to finish our shroud - to leave the loom,
and us, behind.
I’m doing so well.
I buried all my anger in Kalypso’s wet sand
And as it followed you out to sea with the tide she came up and commiserated;
You left her once, too.
Feb 6, 2014
Feb 6, 2014 at 6:37 PM UTC
An Abandoned School
Young dreams, now scattered fragments on the floor:
A little handle into a corner flung
The disc of sizes never again to fit
A number two pencil into place for a trim
Nor will the made-in-Chicago hopper
Ever again save for the classroom prankster
Sweet-smelling slitherings of cedar shavings
To fling about while Teacher’s at the board.
A new Ticonderoga ****** into
The spinning Scylla and Charybdis blades
Was tested by steel, the dross savaged away,
By turning the handle and grinding away,
And from this grim ordeal emerged The Point,
The perfect point, the adventurous lead…
It’s not really lead, stupid, it’s graphite;
That’s what Teacher said. Don’t you know anything?
Girls are stupid. They play with dolls and stuff.
I’ve got a real cap pistol. I’ll draw it.
You want to see? Look! No, wait, that’s not right;
It’s better this way…Ma’am? Uh…integers?
Arithmetic is stupid. Science is fun.
I’ve got most of the Audubon bird stamps
And I liked it when we cut up the frogs
Old people are so mean. I’ll never be old.
A leaking pipe drips the minutes away
Outside a broken window summer sings
Its songs of freedom as it always has
The desks are gone, the electricity is off
The air smells of education and decay
The classroom now is littered with the past:
A broken crayon, a construction-paper heart,
A silence longing for children’s voices.
Nov 16, 2016
Nov 16, 2016 at 8:04 PM UTC
welcome to a place you used to call home and now is full of strangers
the smell of coffee, forgotten faith, and lost memories cling to the bronze walls - broken friendships (at least partially your fault) taste like bitter chocolate and your could-have-beens echo off the high ceilings
upside down city lights drown in the reflection of leftover rainwater - your tires slash through them and you think quietly about the skin on your forearms
your favorite album isn’t enough to drown the pit of guilt in your stomach and the raindrops don’t wash away your anxiety no matter how hard you wish that they will
what used to be a mirror is now broken, and the shards jab at you, not hard enough to break your skin, but enough to know that something is very wrong
that candle you forgot to blow out last night makes your room smell like every other thing that you left unattended until they grew to be too big for you to handle anymore
you are odysseus, and the world is both scylla and charybdis. you can only hope you’ll make it home.
Dec 26, 2015
Dec 26, 2015 at 11:49 AM UTC
He found her hiding
In the cities cowers
And thought to befriend her
By offering a carrot
She wouldn’t take it
But she couldn’t leave it
Her eyes
Droopy half moons
Darting between him
And his offering
*The Scylla
And the Charybdis*
Knowing that if
She didn't starve to death
This fox would eat her.
But the fox was a Magnus
He knew her pain
*A Pea - hard as tuppence ha'penny
Under twenty mattresses*
And appealed to her sensitivity.
He too had been alone
- His rhombic truths
And scared
- A slant on the straight and narrow
And when it was time to leave
He asked her to dine with him
In his burrow.
But still she hesitated
So he scuttled away
Leaving her to follow
And apologize
For having vexed him so.
*If he had wanted to **** her
He would have done so already*
And she was very hungry.
So they talked of books
*Peter Rabbit
And the Velveteen Rabbit*
As he sharpened his knives
To dice potatoes
And chop carrots.
They were going to have
A German dish
-Hasenpfeffer.
-What does that mean
She asked
Sniffing the broth.
- Rabbit stew
He whispered.
And then he bit her
Hard
And held her
Until she stopped struggling.
He really did love rabbit.
Nov 22, 2011
Nov 22, 2011 at 3:44 PM UTC
If only I could summon the will to banish my daemons;
Exorcise the rot that for too long has brought me low;
Waged a war unseen and unheard by the outside;
Inside, a mutinous cacophony of a ****** battlefield;
Where the parts of me unfouled by corruption, weep;
Tears of crimson blood run down as flowing rivers rage;
Anger, that the current refuses to change its course;
Sadness, that I was the one who had diverted destiny;
Swept away by tides no mortal man can hope to shake;
Trapped, like mighty Atlas, beneath the weight of fate;
An unfortunate purgatory of endless indecision;
A fear to see myself beyond the scars I have caused;
Calloused, my pessimism knows no boundaries;
There can be no going back to brighter days;
When days are comparable only to the blackest night;
Sunrises carry the gravitas of the setting sun, reversed;
Life, loses the beauty that once inspired the muse;
Leaving me feeling empty, lost on 'oft forgotten seas;
Praying for Charybdis to churn and drown my daemons;
Finally setting me free from this self imposed slavery;
Shattering the chains holding my past to my present
Jun 15, 2024
Jun 15, 2024 at 1:21 PM UTC
With a body of curves, like no other, a true image of the magnificent, celestial mother.
And flowing as a spring with infinite roar, yet one small detail one could not ignore.
Her hair was a torrent, a weathering storm, scattering birds, attracting lightning; a whirlpool in form.
This visage, this appearance, so strange, so bizarre; face of spinning waters, as brilliant as stars.
Falling in love with her, into her flows, where everyone knows where the torrid passion goes.
In drowning descent, never returning from the throes, Land of Sleep, a beast awaits; the awful Kro-nos.
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 11:29 PM UTC
The soul has as its sextant the ribs opened wide,
The heart its compass in fluid circuitous diatribe,
When each to zone the geometry of Greek sky
With its powdery fabulism of centaurs and jars
From Aesop’s wine of words, the untimeliness
Of sundials to Charybdis’s bloom of giant watery eyes.
To know oceans by the dry riverbed of my pulse,
To scale only as high as the sparrow’s tomb of my heart.
Jun 15, 2020
Jun 15, 2020 at 5:05 PM UTC
Insatiable need to be near
Pulled close
Orbiting sphere
Laughter
Ringing me like cattle
Slight touch
Accidentally enveloped
Friendship
Companionship
Ship lost at sea
The waves in your ocean
Putting Charybdis to shame
If I knew why
I'd turn myself away
Magnetic pulling
Of the opposite ***
Never saw it coming
Never would have guessed
One long talk leading
One long reminisce
Of the last time your
Touch felt me
Slight brush
Skipping rhythmic beats
Unknowingly drawing close
With every part of the lips
But we're just friends at best
We would never cross the line
Unless…
Mutual kiss
Jan 21, 2013
Jan 21, 2013 at 8:55 PM UTC
On your laurels rest
The waning harpies of Oblivion
The rude flock
Preening Sorrow from ash.
And Bone Lips click
Their vicious riddles
Into the Deaf Charybdis
Of your God.
Born Again
Out of the Wasteland
Your every phantom
Marks time
And only the fickle joy of surrender
Defeats the tedium of breathing...
Where you Are....(Strange feasts Unfurl)
Upon dead tongues
that speak of It
Never as kind.
You remember Honey
As if in a dream.
All desolation, Glory-
Yawning from
Birth.
Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 8:24 PM UTC
Now, here, is a woman who conquers.
She seeps into you,
between the cracks of your magmatic soul
to etch her love into your subconscious.
She will consume you while you gaze upon her,
spinning and sparkling, reaching the sky before the sun begins his shine.
That is her gift.
Her lips form words you’ve needed to hear whispered softly,
only to you;
and her body curves into your touch because tonight
you are the wind on her shores.
She is seduction; crashing destruction;
and you will lose yourself
only to her.
Aug 28, 2013
Aug 28, 2013 at 6:36 AM UTC