"clamped" poems
With regards to Thomas Sayers Ellis
Look at the
Lucent lava lamps,
Dark craters
Hiring hands.
We walked,
Mimicking magma.
Hot, why is
This heat?
Forget Vulcan
And his illusion
Of kaleidoscopes,
A rip tide
On the shore
Of our conscious minds.
We held fire,
Pretending to swim
Underground,
But only out
Of pure respect.
Some had boots
Made with
The clippings
Of funky tripwire,
Others wore suits
With goggles
Clamped to their faces,
Gripping like
Bay Area earthquakes.
One-by-one,
Jang-strangs were
Attached to us and
Hurled into the Pit
With rhythmic rituals,
Waves of S and P
Flailed away
Like flags.
One nation
Under a new.
No one looked away
From the fiery daze.
No one wept.
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 2:31 PM UTC
Bound, wound, and tied up all tight
With porcelain features, I drowned in her sight
Dominant I control her, she submits to my needs
I punish and tease her with preferences of sinful greed
Bound, wound, and tied up all tight
She lashes and thrashes but I control this fight
Blindfolded and gagged, aroused from my touch
Candle drips between her hips; she loves this so much
Strapped to the bed with a fistful of her mane
She enjoys pain and pleasure; I love this **** game
Bound, wound, and tied up all tight
My fledgling fun toy I command her tonight
She moans with pleasures and screams when she’s bad
Electricity attached, her fears makes me glad
Vaginal to **** play, or no *** at all
A new ******* kit arrives; I’m bouncing off the wall
Bound, wound, and tied up all tight
Under the bed restrains, ****** clamps, and leather cuffs in my sight
She’s cuffed, restrained, clamped and all ready
She needs me it feeds me and keeps me rock steady
She gives me her all in suspended animation
Together we are driven by a powerful lustful twisted sensation
For Bound, wound, and tied up all tight
You’re my favorite present, my fix, and my all through the night
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 11:03 AM UTC
I try to cry
but I can’t
I mute my tv
so I can hear
the pain reverberating
from my nostrils
like I am being
clamped together
in the fetal position
until blood squirts
out my ears
I try to cry
but I can’t
I mute the dog by
giving her a bone
I mute the sun by
drawing the shades
I try to cry
but I can’t
this muted pain
it’s locked in the attic
deteriorating
I mute my neck by
taping it to the fan
I mute my breath
with my belt
roll down my eye
to my lips
I want to taste
this ******* stupid world
for myself
Apr 3, 2016
Apr 3, 2016 at 3:36 PM UTC
My phone clamped to my ear,
Listening to you think.
We were punning.
(We would combine categories like ‘The Royal Mail’ and ‘Sea Life’,
And come up with things like Octo-post and
Cod-espondence.)
That night it was ‘Crockery’ and ‘Celebrities’.
You thought of Plate Moss
And
Camilla Parker Bowl.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 7:31 PM UTC
There, in the corner, staring at his drink.
The cap juts like a gantry's crossbeam,
Cowling plated forehead and sledgehead jaw.
Speech is clamped in the lips' vice.
That fist would drop a hammer on a Catholic-
Oh yes, that kind of thing could start again;
The only Roman collar he tolerates
Smiles all round his sleek pint of porter.
Mosaic imperatives bang home like rivets;
God is a foreman with certain definite views
Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure.
A factory horn will blare the Resurrection.
He sits, strong and blunt as a Celtic cross,
Clearly used to silence and an armchair:
Tonight the wife and children will be quiet
At slammed door and smoker's cough in the hall.
4.8k
Write these words on empty stomach
unasked, I spilled my guts.
You said, "My life's a joke
and every choice a punchline."
You just wrote my prologue and the afterword
is dangling off my lips, now;
on the tips of tongues.
Steel night skies thrum and echo
when the bells are struck.
Goose Creek pays tribute to the wide Missouri.
I can't offer much--
clenched hands and mouth clamped shut.
Fling some words at empty wall space
from corners, room warms up
My reddened face obscured
behind two frost-fogged lenses
Guess I penned the punchline. Now my line-worn face
is crinkled up and frozen didn't get the joke
Tried to make a map out of the
words we spoke.
These streams pay tribute to a sea of memories
Now you don't say much
"Good luck," and "Stay in touch."
Clenched hands and mouth clamped shut.
Apr 12, 2013
Apr 12, 2013 at 7:09 PM UTC
Treated the plywood to be weatherproof, jigsawed to size base, sides and roof.
Applied non-toxic wood glue,
clamped pieces 'til sturdy and dry
not forgetting an entry hole through which birds may fly.
Took time with the birdhouse,
hung it snug in a tree.
If it will be used for the winter
I'm waiting to see.
Oct 17, 2015
Oct 17, 2015 at 2:19 PM UTC
The rock slept
Genghis Khan clamped fingers
Over the edge of a land mass
And peeled freedom away from the East
The rock slept
The mob beheaded a woman who aided the American Revolution
Americans denied it later
But every town called Marietta is named after her
The rock slept
A vegetarian who didn’t drink and smoke
Commandeered information technology and chemical engineering
To commit the biggest murder-robbery
In the history of daylight and star-shine
The rock slept
The vegetarian cowered from justice
Committed suicide like the milksop/milquetoast he was
The rock slept
A fourteen-year-old boy clamped his fingers
Around it
Aimed it at High Strength Lexan riot shields
Protecting flesh, blood, and bone minimally paid
Protecting shields of numbers, theories, interchangeable office holders
Until he realized the futility of it
Dropped the rock
Turned south (or maybe north)
And walked away
The rock slept
Snoring unheard through the next spurt of tyranny
Sep 23, 2012
Sep 23, 2012 at 6:33 PM UTC
The play is written to be staged in a pub or a large cave like yurt in Cardiff. Its action and dialogue provides characterisation, with sound and lighting being used to establish context. The setting a darkened pub corner that is modelled on The Bunch of Grapes in Pontypridd. There are only 6 characters, five speak in haiku-ed verse with the exception of the Drunk who acts as my 'Greek Chorus'.
- Hand-in-hand she enters to **** her thumb in a corner
- Chocolate ice cream soda demanded from Daddy
- Joking banter ceased slowly as the regulars all begin to quaff their brown pints
“Balll uut eass swept -
Chimrrrrr, Chiirriica,
war is never won”
- Church quiet, the village pub listened lips clamped tears swelling
“ ***** cut swapped with eyes -
Chimerica, Chimerica,
war is never won”
- The cornered hero of two Afghanistan tours is seen regressing into childhood**
The set darkens slowly then after 30 seconds a spotlit conversation in lines and stanzas begins.
Haiku and tanka that inspired the coming play include:
*********** -
thoughts sought, taught and wrought,
testosterones
Fighting aggressive games,
Afghanistan camouflage
Globalism and War -
cloned greedy conspiracy,
that third tower
Titled selfish-self-grandiose,
deliver warring terror
Springs cut Irises -
dripping vital red not purple,
far from my window*
.
Apr 28, 2010
Apr 28, 2010 at 11:11 AM UTC
i woke with a **** and
a windpipe full of butterflies, so i
swallowed them down to my chest
my stomach and below and
it was then that i realized
they weren't butterflies
but backward flies
that turn to maggots and
eat dead things
so it was then that i realized
i was dead, in between that
chasing-my-breath consciousness and
sepia splotched dream
which featured my favorite
human being
waking me, winding me
up...
hey saige, come on, so i
unlocked my eyes
even though i knew it was my
little brother
all along...
bright
cobwebbed windows at my
feet and
brighter fringe above me
brushing my forehead, like fingers
he leaned
over me, nudged me
hugged me, come on
saige...
i began to rise, which is why
he stopped me, that's when he
kissed me, and that's when i
forgave him
because i knew it was
an accident
except for, that was when
he did it
again...
my lips inside his, and
i kept my eyes
open
kept telling myself to
just kiss back, since we'd
already ruined everything, because
that was all he
wanted
because maybe
we could go back, maybe we'd still be
inseparable if
i hadn't screamed, enough!
maybe nightmares
are second chances at
being better
best friends...
i was torn
worn threadbare and i felt it
in every fiber of me
lying there, but i couldn't
pull away and i've
never wished to hurt him, so i
couldn't push, either
just clamped my eyes
shut, as he did the same
with his mouth...
and that was when
i woke
without a soul nor a shame
save for the maggots
in my veins
May 5, 2018
May 5, 2018 at 2:53 PM UTC
The sound of a sigh
From a lovers lips
It echos through the night
It reverberates through every cell
Creating a hum under the epidermis
Breathing gets heavy
Inhale
1
2
Exhale
The heart only speeds
When sweat forms on their skin
Adorn by salty appetence
This is the sweetest taste
Of lips on a secret place
Teeth clamped in skin
Lovers wrapped in sin
Bodies traversing what it is to couple
They'll lay quiet for quite a while
Bodies humming and hands intwined
Feeling forever is this instant
Guiltless love
Uncontaminated by fear
They could spend eternity here
The day goes on
So do they
They hold forever
In their hearts and minds
Until after the end times
Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 5:02 AM UTC
Tingly under the daisies;
Glassy-eyed, glazed, greasy;
Shaking, shivering, shuddering,
Wishing, wandering, whimpering,
Westernizing—
Romanizing—
Constitutionalizing—
Institutionalizing—
Perpetually searching
And dying
And living,
Watching Death survive
And scythe the frolickers,
The prancers,
The rompers,
The merrymakers.
A rose clamped between his
Grinning teeth glistens brightly,
And he dances so joyously.
“Yes!” say the naysayers,
Confused are the soothsayers,
Lost are the cartographers.
Oh, Utopia!
The monks are extravagant;
The meditations are a farce!
The preachers are beggars
And swindlers and chargers,
And Machiavelli fulfills his wishes!
Babies are stillborn, stabbed, and
Ritualistically sacrificed,
And their blood is spilled, drunk,
Slathered over the ***** man.
The evangelists scream and lie:
“You are all predestined to die!”
Oh, hail Utopia!
Wedded are the girls to the girls;
Wedded are the boys to the boys;
Wedded is Death to Death,
Life to Life,
And Life to Death.
Wedded are the living to the existent.
And the milking babes are slaughtered
Ceremoniously,
Surreptitiously,
Ostentatiously.
Oh, hail great Utopia!
We are all dead and unintelligent:
Laugh, laugh, Einstein, at your
Stupidity.
Laugh, laugh, Temple Grandin at
Your retardation.
Laugh, laugh, laugh!
Look at the sluggard, thou ant;
Look at the boy, sobbing wolf;
Aesop was drunk,
Aristotle was delusional,
Michelangelo was blind,
Beethoven could hear,
Poe was sane.
And I can't read.
They ramble,
I watch.
They sleep,
I watch.
They dream,
I watch.
They sleep-talk,
I watch.
They scream,
I watch.
They choke,
I watch.
They suffocate,
I watch.
Stone-faced, I stare;
Raspingly, I breathe;
Uncontrollably, I twitch;
Inwardly, I rage.
I hope you die, I hope you die.
I hope you bleed, I hope you die.
I want you begging and crying,
I want you blubbering at my feet,
I want you gnashing at my ankles,
I want you writhing in pain,
I want your arm twisted off,
Cracking with the snapping sinews, I want your beating heart in my hands, I want your genitals uprooted and stuffed in your throat, I want your stomach so I can eat the still-digesting food, I want your shrunken head and I want to force my thumbs into your unblinking eyes and I want to tear your face in two and I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die.
Nov 3, 2015
Nov 3, 2015 at 9:47 PM UTC
Spine clamped,
blurred sight,
and choked.
Brow furrowed
like an indignant dog,
or a suicidal brigadier ****
commanding failure.
Paralyzed in those
Past and future
tsunamis of shame.
May 12, 2018
May 12, 2018 at 2:42 PM UTC
Mid-20 doldrums never really wore off
still slay the summers with smiles
like punches
Still walking wounded through the bad joke lanes,
questions clamped under your tongue,
with an aching brain
Can't believe we thought we'd left a place.
Still rattling 'round inside these tin can
roadways.
Carrying cards after we fold the game
Poured pretty comforts down our throats--
so many candied gas tanks.
And I agree: these couches
are feeling more like graves
Will our crutches craft our coffins
'til we bobble routine plays?
Nothing changed before we knew it.
6-year blink, it's all the same.
It's just that
Mid-20 doldrums never really wore off.
Still blur the border between wants and needs.
Still **** our thumbs when all the
lights turn off.
Still check our pulses,
then start laughing loud as
knocking knees
Can't believe we thought we'd left a place.
We're still too comfortable with our own kind.
Still fall in love with the same friends
for just a few days at a time
And I concur: these routines
are looking more like chains
Will these crutches seal our caskets?
Would we notice anyway?
Nothing changed before we knew it
6-year blink, it's still the same.
Mid-20 doldrums never really wore off.
Still chasing sunsets and a 10-cent dream.
Still rattling 'round inside these tin can
roadways
Still placing patches over fraying seams
Still checking pulses, still on quaking knees.
Still too scared to make up our minds
Still turning parties into 3-day headaches
while we pretend like we can take our time
Can't believe we thought we'd left a place
Still slay the summers with smiles
like punches.
Jul 29, 2014
Jul 29, 2014 at 12:13 AM UTC
After you ignored her legs that she held clamped together so tight that magnets would be jealous of the strength she possessed to try and keep you out,
Did you confuse her groans of pain as moans of pleasure?
Did you not see the tears of shame glistening on her face?
Why didn’t you listen to her when she yelled for you to stop because of the pain you were causing her?
Is having *** with someone as she lays anything but still on the floor comfortable?
When she dug her nails into your flesh and bit with teeth into your arms, releasing the pain you forced on her, returning it into the monster who destroyed her,
Did you think that was permission for you to start again, when she had yet to finish fighting you off for the first time?
How did you confuse her silence when she finally laid still because she knew she could not push you out from inside of her as enjoyment?
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 2:28 PM UTC
She bleeds ‘all tragic steam work blasted mists
‘All hobbled clamped free fall for ‘all seasonal depression slump
She’s ‘all death knell cramp urgency and held back suffering kneeling
on kitchen floors ‘all like boarding school broomsticks lessons
with ‘all that theoretical **** the ***** save the man type
schlock shock rhetoric shtick
so ‘all I’ll be is her savage heretic wagon burner page-turner
on the hot coal back burner ‘all boarded up sealed shut in the walls
until she calls
Expecting me to be 'all combat ready
‘all back with a vengeance
while her thrift store hazard suit groups and droops
‘all over my haphazard dream sliced hang nailed hangover hands
hiding ‘all derelict style while between the sheets confessional
gets voided by social media air raid sirens
bringing me ‘all too close to rocks and crystals
and who ‘all needs another pathetic apathetic
junk punk when
‘all and ‘all
I'd rather die for you
because
I just can't live with myself
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 3:08 PM UTC
I sat behind the barricade between the street, the bar, and the park overlooking that glistening pause-asteric of the water... my phone was clamped closed at zero battery life so I was alone with the city and the city was alone with me. as subtly as I could, I pulled my pipe from the bottom of my over-encumbered backpack satiated with 6 books (and they tell me knowledge is power, but they'll probably just drive me insane with question after question after question because the study of the world is one in which the brain falls victim to exponential growth 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256)
MY SKULL ISN'T BIG ENOUGH
I couldn't find my grinder, so I tore the bud by hand. More than half a nug was spent, pushed solid in place like a **** mound about to reach apocalyptic ****** thanks to the soft clitoral bonfire of a red Bic lighter.
blaze, set, and fade til you rise again
little stoner boy.
Jun 7, 2017
Jun 7, 2017 at 2:45 PM UTC
My absence was a mortifying misfortune,
The ponies drew their swords at the amity,
The sunset hung close to my crackling toes.
And the rings of ardor were a constant reminder of the fall.
We know we rise again in the sunrise
but the plastic hair gave fraud to wishes we made days before.
The soldiers clamped their wings tight
The circle had not comprehended the fight we fought for.
The context of these misused actions could be used to modify.
“Please come again” The narrator spoke.
We rode the carousel again.
Nov 14, 2011
Nov 14, 2011 at 1:33 PM UTC
Poem
I watched a truck churning under a wire convergence
and the sky above doped entrails coming from Europe
Where had the turtle gone, the one puffed in the curve of the fox?
Now clambering onto the icy porch
I open the door into
smells of brass polish, wood polish
pots full of bones.
Winter’s wind rattling time holds me in
I must make marmalade with Seville oranges
with their thick rutted craters, sadly moon-like
a little sweetness of the blossom
worn on bridal veils will come back
as the flesh boils soggy with pips
and Demerara’s sweetness pummels
and I’ll be beaming ear to ear, beaming, full
of a sugar high, then fall. I don’t think I’ll be flying
to Jamaica, but at least I have a box of jars
My house will be dressed
of stiff forsythia branches, blooming
while I pull on stupoods of wool
socks, and wax my boards
I watched whirling snow collapse, loshing
on my face, signs of a dream, unsettling
separating mills and boon from reality.
If I had cast a spell stirring boiling sugar
And whispered ancient simple words
And as spring soars from
the dirt he would say agapa me
and my house full of worms, fat as fingers would dissolve
which is why I must plant, for butterflies to flutter
O my mighty easel, you are not like nature
though you are like a highway
of roots, clamped with straps
Supported or shaded, you reveal
all that I am.
The light begins to drop out of ticking stars
onto the snow bank behind the studio
the place where crimson and ochre mate.
I am really a painter
and my brushes are words
which glaze accidentally across
vellum, spurning censure.
Feb 15, 2012
Feb 15, 2012 at 6:02 AM UTC
Pause like a comma
Breath hesitates
Anticipating distraction
Contemplating mistake
Throat dry as desert
Words clamped to tongue
Exchange of introductions
And we've only just begun
© JL Smith
May 5, 2017
May 5, 2017 at 7:40 PM UTC
Poem
I watched a truck churning under a wire convergence
and the sky above doped entrails coming from Europe
Where had the turtle gone, the one puffed in the curve of the fox?
Now clambering onto the icy porch
I open the door into
smells of brass polish, wood polish
pots full of bones.
Winter’s wind rattling time holds me in
I must make marmalade with Seville oranges
with their thick rutted craters, sadly moon-like
a little sweetness of the blossom
worn on bridal veils will come back
as the flesh boils soggy with pips
and Demerara’s sweetness pummels
and I’ll be beaming ear to ear, beaming, full
of a sugar high, then fall. I don’t think I’ll be flying
to Jamaica, but at least I have a box of jars
My house will be dressed
of stiff forsythia branches, blooming
while I pull on stupoods of wool
socks, and wax my boards
I watched whirling snow collapse, loshing
on my face, signs of a dream, unsettling
separating mills and boon from reality.
If I had cast a spell stirring boiling sugar
And whispered ancient simple words
And as spring soars from
the dirt he would say agapa me
and my house full of worms, fat as fingers would dissolve
which is why I must plant, for butterflies to flutter
O my mighty easel, you are not like nature
though you are like a highway
of roots, clamped with straps
Supported or shaded, you reveal
all that I am.
The light begins to drop out of ticking stars
onto the snow bank behind the studio
the place where crimson and ochre mate.
I am really a painter
and my brushes are words
which glaze accidentally across
vellum, spurning censure.
Feb 15, 2012
Feb 15, 2012 at 6:02 AM UTC
You crystal ballroom, all windows and walls, sewing light like seed over everything you touch.
Glass eyed stare, hands growing like they're getting away with something.
Everything you love is a trick of the light.
Everything it touches feels just like you.
Hiding heads under street-lamps like sin is some sort of choice we make, like growing is something to be done in silence.
They say that people in glasshouses shouldn't throw pebbles, but how can you expect to let people in if you can't even get out?
My grandmother looks straight though me, thoughts locked in, hands clamped around her bag of dead friends like holding them tight enough could bring them back.
She tells me how full of life I am. I want to tell her how we all carry echoes around in our pockets but I don't think she'd understand.
And I just want to call you. Hand you everything I have like:
'Here's the dirt from under my nails. Call it apology. I hope it finally makes something grow'
'Here's that poem I never finished. Here's to hallelujah. Here's to all your leaving'
'Here's my storm cloud. Here's my salt spray. Here's my window all dusted and bruised. I don't know how else to tell you that I have loved you in all four seasons'.
Everything you love will one day become sandstorm, cliff face, the blunt edge of a knife.
One day it won't be you holding the match.
Everything you love will turn back to dust
Everything you love will turn back to light
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 8:00 PM UTC
MARY has a thingamajig clamped on her ears
And sits all day taking plugs out and sticking plugs in.
Flashes and flashes-voices and voices calling for ears to pour words in
Faces at the ends of wires asking for other faces at the ends of other wires:
All day taking plugs out and sticking plugs in,
Mary has a thingamajig clamped on her ears.
1.9k
A drowned beer-hauler was hoisted on the table.
Someone had taken a dark-bright-purple aster
and clamped it in his teeth.
As I cut outward from his breast
under the skin
with a long blade
and removed the tongue and palate,
I must have touched the flower—
she slid into the brain which lay nearby.
I packed her in the cavity in his chest
amid the straw stuffings
as he was sewn up.
Drink yourself full in your vase!
Rest softly,
little aster!
Feb 15, 2010
Feb 15, 2010 at 6:28 PM UTC
rhythms en trance
***** princess dance
come **** me cruel
eat me like ants
wont you hurt me sir
out comes the dagger
her eyes get so large
she wants me to bag her
she knows im in charge
wont you rip me sir
foot arched **** puffed
where are the whips
she moves like fire
and slink-ally strips
my ******* bleed love sir
howls like the wind
for **** and the blade
begs for it now
***** **** in the shade
the knife between my legs sir
*** shakes and prance
to the congas beat
eyes flirt wild
as she whips her own feet
won't you cut my toes sir
***** *** aches
whirling dervish
break me my love
as she dances the curvish
use my mouth sir
her ankles clamped
legs spread wide
arms pulled back
theres no where to hide
smother me sir
head *****
gut ***** spleen
eat it all
devour the queen
my belly is yours sir
she looks in my eyes
says thank you for my fate
spreads her legs wide
i take the bate
disembowel me sir
oh lover bleed
im up deep inside
i work you down
and cruel is the ride
my ****** sir
she cries and writhes
and she **** so hard
she wants to burn
and is slathered with lard
my rose **** sir
i break her in half
and lick up her ***
she cries and she squeals
as she starts to pass
pluck my eyes sir
i crush my love
to finish her off
she begs for more
and starts to cough
take my ******* sir
face to the the floor
the music turned down
baby death dance
in water to drown
remove my head sir
I did the dance
i love to be slain
stretched flat by a roller
i loved the pain
dinner is served sir
thank you sir
may i **** you **** sir
drink your **** sir
lick the toilet clean sir
you've crushed me to nothing sir
beaten me dead sir
****** me a thousand times sir
is there anything else sir
yes sir
thank you sir
what ever you say sir
your so good to me sir
ill be right back from the dead sir
i love you sir
Jun 29, 2016
Jun 29, 2016 at 6:03 AM UTC