"congeals" poems
A simple bottle,
Cheap chunky plastic,
Designer garbage.
Empty of its liquid energy.
Glossy label parrying the flash,
Glaring retrieval of light.
Sickly bold orange cap,
Impudently tight,
Defending the blanched carpet below.
Moment of fragility,
Suspended on the humid waves of air,
Eternity in an insubstantial moment.
It wafts away from his fingers,
Plastic given wings,
Fixed by his steely eyes,
A forced arc,
Stretching to the ceiling.
Focused intensity.
An infinite gap looms
Instants before the catch.
He didn’t notice the stray,
A camera pointed his way,
Capturing this moment,
Making it magical.
Clarity is threatened by obscurity,
People pressing in,
Bending the frame.
Time is lost,
Too much wasted on boredom,
And playing catch with yourself.
Spine lax, body slumped.
Interruptions and distractions surround.
His face vivid in the mix,
Lost in the wash of faces,
So much like his,
Flushed by the same blood.
His unwavering gaze
Holds the emptiness in shackles.
Second of silence in the crushing sound,
Relentless muttering rumble,
The voices of family,
So constantly buzzing.
Jumbled tumbling voices.
A peanut gallery seeking constant attention.
The camera congeals the moment,
Silencing the mass.
In the absence the bottle and the boy
Infinitely alone,
Endlessly still.
Oct 20, 2012
Oct 20, 2012 at 10:33 PM UTC
Swallow hard
the food that congeals
under your skin
to divert the gazes
of perverted men
and hangs you closer
to your death bed
where calloused man hands
can’t ***** you,
your memories,
poor girl.
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 4:58 PM UTC
Art painted, art confined, art denied,
The skin of the canvas cages and congeals the art,
Colours more plumbed than the peacock of paradise,
Yet trapped and tossed about in stormy framed emotions.
In the end it all bleeds away,
The paint dries, decays, and dies,
Faint leaky lines leave behind faded memories,
Life’s canvas rusts on the ground in solemn silence.
Hark now! Unhinge your ears!
Hear now music flowing from elegant veins,
Listen to how the strings pulse and weave the notes,
Watch how the music flies free and completely unconfined,
Those butterfly melodies entwine and in the air flutter and swirl.
Their dance is the ecstasy of a nightingale’s song,
They sprinkle and circle round and round, up and down,
The music of the cello is love’s supple spine, smooth and sensual,
Hear it, inhale it, caress it, sway with it, and be at ease and free with it.
Oct 7, 2013
Oct 7, 2013 at 7:01 AM UTC
Confessions of a dull blade, it tasted life as it
seeped and sealed death with Its last ******
It was inanimate but had existence of life seeped
in to its hilt,Voices silent trapped under the hand
Their grip soaking sealing in fallen silence, looking
in to the eyes of so many and then kissed there forehead.
A last rite the au revoir as the dull blade made slow
Work of a mummer, words bleed silence out.
They cherished this moment of intimacy, this personal
Exchange, of life and death, slumped on soiled ground.
Dull blade, tainted handle, of voices silenced this inanimate
Object of desire that crafted by another's macabre thoughts.
Blood congeals as life condenses into nothingness, walking
Away the dull gift takes it now pride of place.
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 7:26 AM UTC
This.
Stimuli.
It depletes me.
Turn, turn around.
And complete me.
I, lost all control.
And this sense of lament is visceral.
I bleed, from the outside.
Numb death, turning, becoming inside.
I.
Just need one thing.
A child’s toy, nostalgic and stuffed.
A somnambulant hymn.
To remove me.
Disassociate, please.
Your hand is soft.
Placed places that comfort.
I miss your scent, that congeals.
I wish I didn’t have to feel nothing.
Emptiness is so guttural and potent.
I can’t help but see.
Everything slip by.
Dec 1, 2021
Dec 1, 2021 at 1:54 PM UTC
r
R E
A d D A e
M
M
ensconced
magically transforming everything i am
shrinking pungent times that shock
a jolt that makes apparent the
I
L lies E
S
the tragic muse she swells and fills
k p
every sense that confuses and s i s
drawing blood with every breath
a hurt that transcends the depth
of sanity
the boundaries that fate decree
a dwelling that disallows the free
R
a T rap A
P
until all i do is go round about
a confusion that deepens
the maze that thickens
a black-red ooze that congeals
and seals
the burial grounds of dreams
that steal
the memories of a deeper psyche
that swirl and swarm in our midst
the ghosts of a beaten past.
Vijayalakshmi Harish
23.08.2012
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
Aug 23, 2012
Aug 23, 2012 at 7:19 AM UTC
At 3 a.m.
I’m awake still.
Of this ashen night
I’ve not had my fill.
Apparently all
Apathy congeals
As hours elapse
And at last justifies
Procrastination;
Placating initially,
Shortly producing
My pretty folly
This habitual hang-up
Helps only those who
Have the predisposition
To hang themselves too.
Oct 11, 2012
Oct 11, 2012 at 6:25 AM UTC
A dark Cloud of obscure atoms swirl around in Brownian chaos..
Time's a bit different ere.. Eons but a flit on tis clock..
Quantum effects play poker probability,
gravity the sinister Attractor ..
The cloud congeals, darker still than b'fore..
Attraction, it's nature Hot and crushing at primeval depths..
Ignites a fire so deep, fuses the insides at the wave level..
Particles unite, merge into each other,
becoming something new altogether..
Out pushes the brightest light the universe's seen..
The light of God, searing, nourishing and warm ..
drawn out of the breaking, fusing hearts,
Ignites Life on a distant Rock..
The cloud now a big Star..
Observes in rapture as Life grows from infancy to Damsel in frenzy... She Remembers the ancient pattern, dances around in fatal Attraction.. Fornicating, Merging, consuming, birthing in Heat..
Blues fade into greens, white streaks surround browns ..
Colours pulsing, coursing in a ballet..
Star is hypnotic, it watches..
********** a flare or two at ecstatic moments...
Smitten by Attraction, Star wants to hold Life to its passion..
Can't bear the distance tween the two..
It burns and turns, curious quarks, neutrinos play havoc inside,
turn Helium to Dark Carbon..
The Star sickened of burning and watching for Gods years,
spreads it's arms to hold Life in its magnetic swarms..
It's million Kelvins approaching in Love, Blow Dry Life,
Evaporate the tiny blue Rock..
Star muddled by tis sudden development,
can't put its tendril to why tis happened..
It's heart broken, embraces empty space,
where Life pirouetted a few ages ago..
burns all the more, turns Carbon to Heavy Iron
and novas in green, orange and gold.
The dust settles,
Star now a mere smoldering lump of Neutron..
Looks in the dark depths in feeble ruddy light,
pulsing out signals to find its beloved Life.
Rueing on the beauty that was..
Destined to wait..
For the Clouds to congeal again..
Jun 21, 2016
Jun 21, 2016 at 12:55 AM UTC
Air congeals
with a baby's cry.
Spray paint proclaims
that you don’t
****
with HCB,
*****
Darting eyes of venom
warn against complacency
as iPods beat
hard-house hits
and lyrical dreams
of somewhere else.
Masses lurch forward,
brakes screech with agony,
waiting for oblivion
or 5:17pm express
as city succumbs to night.
Jun 15, 2012
Jun 15, 2012 at 11:47 PM UTC
Powdered eggs from powdered hens and powdered cars, Mercedes Benz and diesel, perfumed fit for use.
It's changing now and how it feels, like blood on cold water as it congeals and this sets the seal on what we are
perfumed in a powdered car.
Someone has to pay for this,
unload the bank accounts
and kiss the cash
Swiss the cash,
miss their cash,
goodbye
and quite rightly so.
I love the real in you
the deja vu of you
the outside shell of you
the feel of you
when will it get through to them
that powdered milk from powdered cows
is not the same,
never will be when a
real egg only comes
from a real live living hen.
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 3:14 PM UTC
Prompt: Persona superficially apologizes to his or her in-laws.
I’m sorry I’m not the same as you,
dressed to my best in Coco Channel, Ralph Lauren and Giorgio Armani.
I didn’t come from money, my baths were never in a porcelain tub,
my toilet was not made of gold.
I thought that my love for your son would be enough
to put my economic status in the past.
Yet, there is no disguising the thick line that is drawn between us,
the way the air congeals when we’re all in the same room.
I’m sorry that your eyes have been programmed to see me
for where I come from,
instead of who I have become.
It doesn’t matter to you that I have found a job worthwhile,
or that your son is not the sole provider.
You hate me anyway.
So this is my apology,
from the bottom of my heart.
Maybe someday those clouds will clear from your eyes
and you will notice that I am better for your son
than any of those stuck up *******
you call equals.
May 15, 2011
May 15, 2011 at 8:03 PM UTC
The meadow glows with a soft ambivalence
The air is humming with the chattering of birds
They try to do their best to impress with nests of decadence
But eyes aware see through the facade
My heart dreamt of days when wounds will be shared
In circles of trust and love
To heal that which congeals, and blocks the flow of love
I spent some time to tread the earth as a sojourner,
I set out alone
Though I never felt lonesome
The world spoke to me,
The earth kept me company
Her symphony carries through the universe
I felt loved and warm
I felt found
Though some may have described me as lost.
I was so profoundly found
In the company of the earth.
At night I would travel to the silver moon
And dance upon her
I would see the world below me
Blue and green and beautiful
My heart felt like a treasure beating in my chest in that moment
There was so much to be grateful for,
And there always has been.
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 9:49 PM UTC
Don't waste perfectly good loneliness.
Don't waste it on the wrong person.
Don't even waste it on the right person.
Don't waste loneliness during the day,
When there are things to be done.
Don't waste it in dreams at twilight,
When there are dones to be thinged.
Don't waste loneliness at night
When your time should be your own
And could be filled with anything
Other than everything you're not.
Take your loneliness
And denigrate it.
Crumple it. Crush it.
Throw it in a blender.
An industrial oven.
Take it out
For a few drinks too many,
And a few more after that;
Lull it into a false sense of security
That congeals with its drunken state
To create a blinding dichotomy
Of vulnerability and arrogant invincibility,
So it suspects nothing
As you lead it
Down a dark alley
And beat it to death with a brick.
Have a too-close-to-call
Fight to the death
With your loneliness
In a public toilet,
With it almost getting
The better of you
Until you smash it
Teeth-first
Off of a porcelain
Sink basin,
Before dragging it
By the hair
To a cubicle,
Where you hold its head
Under the toilet water,
Long after its body stops convulsing.
Do what you can
To transmute
Your loneliness
Into solitude,
And wear it.
Inside-out.
Back to front.
Upside-down.
Right side up.
Wear solitude so well that
It ends up wearing you,
As its skin.
Use solitude to learn thyself.
To feel thyself.
To know thy changing self.
Let solitude remind you that
The existence of loneliness
Begets the existence of
The antithesis of loneliness.
So definitely don't waste
Perfectly good loneliness,
Especially if you're forgoing
Perfectly good hope.
Jan 30, 2020
Jan 30, 2020 at 2:30 PM UTC
autumnal leaves
frost brittled lattice
under their own weight
crunch
exposed nerves
toes gasp through clay
fatigue threatens clench
yet splayed arms extend
heartwood congeals
coercing ebullience to Earth
intrusting tendril
beneath edged billows
scalping innate patina
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 8:33 PM UTC
People always want to know what it feels like, so I’ll tell you: there’s a sting when you first slice, and then your heart speeds up when you see the blood, because you know you’ve done something you shouldn’t have, and yet you’ve gotten away with it. Then you sort of go into a trance, because it’s truly dazzling—that bright red line, like a highway route on a map that you want to follow to see where it leads. And—God—the sweet release, that’s the best way I can describe it, kind of like a balloon that’s tied to a little kid’s hand, which somehow breaks free and floats into the sky. You just know that balloon is thinking, Ha, I don’t belong to you after all; and at the same time, Do they have any idea how beautiful the view is from up here? And then the balloon remembers, after the fact, that it has a wicked fear of heights.
When reality kicks in, you grab some toilet paper or a paper towel (better than a washcloth, because the stains don’t ever come out 100 percent) and you press hard against the cut. You can feel your embarrassment; it’s a backbeat underneath your pulse. Whatever relief there was a minute ago congeals, like cold gravy, into a fist in the pit of your stomach. You literally make yourself sick, because you promised yourself last time would be the last time, and once again, you’ve let yourself down. So you hide the evidence of your weakness under layers of clothes long enough to cover the cuts, even if it’s summertime and no one is wearing jeans or long sleeves. You throw the ****** tissues into the toilet and watch the water go pink before you flush them into oblivion, and you wish it were really that easy.
Dec 1, 2013
Dec 1, 2013 at 3:44 AM UTC
Is it cold there I wonder just beneath her chest does the wind howl with a bitter sigh
is the land covered with frozen riverbeds holding back icy tears
a flurry of unused emotions hardened into ice showering everything it touches in a hail storm of self-pity
A pint of warm whiskey chips away at the frost bite numbing the boarders of your heart
but it only leads to a blizzard of regret
The harshness of this tundra burns through flesh and bone and sinks into a man’s soul suspending it in a seemingly endless winter
where longing congeals into sharp jagged shards of glacial malice
Yes it is very cold there, but I remember better times when the cool air twirled around me embracing me more like an old friend instead of passing through as an unforgiving gust that chills already achy joints
I would lay there flat on my back, and sink into the velvet snow,
indulging in bliss as I am taken in by inner warmth
Catching crystalline snowflakes with my tongue as they melt into something that tastes of something salty and sweet
ending in rapture with a shiver then a sigh
I would imagine, hope and pray to never leave her winter this home my frigid paradise
I would imagine being her absolute love the only warmth within this white abyss
No matter how cold it gets I’ll be here, I would say as I lay on my back
and stare into her pale blue skies
Jan 19, 2013
Jan 19, 2013 at 11:39 PM UTC
(1)
In a moment
the adrenalin rush
courses through my veins;
a torrent of frustration.
Rational expression gives way to loss of all reason
as vitriol spurts forth from my lips;
a stream of abuse:
I want to goad you
I want to hurt you
I want to abuse you
The foul profanities are carefully aimed
sent hurtling from my mouth
in a barrage of spittle, all semblance of sanity gone,
and the air reeks with rankness from my verbal barrage.
A vein pulses at my temple
and the crescendo of my heartbeat
is a rhythmic chant that drives me on
to ever greater extremes.
And as this onslaught congeals and festers in an instant
inside my head, it forms into a clenched fist
that assumes control of its own existence
to strike out and feel the satisfaction as it makes contact
with your soft flesh and delicate bone.
My froth and spittle is flecked with your blood
but I am removed from the person flailing you,
punishing you,
and I have no control over him.
My eyes, if I could see them reflected in your fearful eyes,
are wide and wild,
my lips are curled back over my teeth,
my mouth opens widely as my screams of rage
are vomited at you,
my gasping breath rasps between rants,
my chest pistoning,
as you lie at my feet bloodied and subdued.
Now as I stand over you panting: an animal subjugating my ****
your eyes look furtively and fearfully into mine,
wide and frightened.
(2)
In a moment my wild triumph flees and such regret washes over me as I kneel, cradling your head in my hands, brushing away the sweat-bonded strands from your face.
I plant a soft kiss on your lips and our tears mingle saltily:
I lick my lips and taste that salt
But it only serves to heighten my guilt.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, and pull you close, letting your tremulous heartbeat calm me.
May 17, 2013
May 17, 2013 at 7:50 PM UTC
I see the rigours of time
Etched on your sulky face
Though the sun's fingers caress
The brow of your ambitions
Nostalgia tinkles solemn bells
Of dreams maimed and cobwebbed
By time's blunt knife
I see you mourn
Life is molten wax that congeals
With a caress of the air
Life is a wagon swaggering downhill
A liberating spasms
Of wee wet dreams...
I see you mourn
I see your determination thawing
Like white icicles on white winter window pane
I see your patience wane in pain
Like dry cakes of mud in the African sun
I see your conscience rot and ooze
Black brackish slimy rot
Tomorrow they will declare you
A disaster no-go-area zone
I see you mourn
Emotions thunder, tempers glow
And voice a shrill mingle with unknown
Raucous whispers of the gods of doom
This world has been terribly nice to you
I see you whimper like a miserable dog
That has lost its tail
Brother you have lost your tale
I see you mourn.
-dougwa-
Feb 24, 2012
Feb 24, 2012 at 6:40 AM UTC
I have penned many emotions that bled endlessly
on the page, but blood only flows for so long before
it congeals and then it evaporates and a stain is left
reminding me of a time I once bled.
It was like water to my mind but water has many
forms and the form that intercepts my mind is one
of solid matter. All are instances now frozen within,
the thought is there static non linear and remote.
My words may die, but my thoughts progress.
I am only human and we bleed less and less.
Fear not for the thaw will come and like a river
my words may not bleed but trickle ever so often.
Jun 24, 2016
Jun 24, 2016 at 3:31 PM UTC
trace your faded prints upon the dirt
around them, mud congeals to form my hurt
failing falling stars confuse my path
I shuffle feet for miles but stay inert
all false the trails refusing to subvert
antipathetic strands to stir my wrath
The trees all flay themselves to spill the secrets
thou swore undying oath to never keepest
lest all worlds align to hide the truth
Pausing, taking breaths beneath the deepest
floors of pits that tenderly would keep us
undestined, lost and wild to know our youth
And seek you out I must, I must, I will,
at universe's end, a galaxy
where we would rest, reborn; become, to be
where every breath relaxes into still
Ever will you walk alone, until
you witness me in my entirety
Come, my unforgotten one, you see
arrival less one is a bitter pill
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 5:51 AM UTC
I feel pretty sick knowing
you’ll be a part of my
art.
My poems have you in
them like a metallic aftertaste.
A hint of nuts.
Did you put vermin in
this fricassee?
Some people put God in
their poems but with me
it’s always you.
You’re the inky air in
the corner that congeals like
bad music.
No, I don’t want to
listen to that song.
Just put it on “shuffle”
for Chrissakes.
You sit there in the
crack on the wall and
scrunch your body at me.
You’ll ruin your posture but
you’re not really there.
It’s a metaphor.
It’s what poets do when
they hate you as much
as I do:
You blast my taste buds
away from the ordinary and
force me to talk about
you in euphemisms.
Or dysphemisms in this case.
God, I don’t freaking know.
You just make me angry!
“I’ll treat you to dinner.”
******* go treat yourself to the bottom of a lake.
I told you you were
black space in the walls,
but I’ve opened a window.
Weren’t expecting that, were you?
Still, perhaps you’re too utterly
utter to suffer the flutter
of the breeze.
I’m going out.
And believe you me pal, you’d better be gone by the time I get back.
Even though I know you’re not really there.
It’s the principle of the thing.
Jul 31, 2010
Jul 31, 2010 at 9:39 PM UTC
IN THE AFTER-TIME
" Alice thought she
had never seen such
a curious croquet
ground in all her life; "
It was somewheres near
Roswell
18 something and something
there or there...abouts
& Billy the Kid &
the boys have just
...paused:
in their croquet
for a tintype photo.
Billy's the guy
in the cardigan sweater.
Him & his gang
( the Regulators )
are posing like
they were a prototype
for
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
or the band
THE BAND.
Pure Americana.
Billy the cardi-cowboy and
his gang of croquet playing outlaws...
Not exactly how
one would have somehow
imagined them
. . .passing the time.
One of the outlaw...eh...gentlemen
points out that
Billy
" . . .the Kid has spooned
his shot!"
A ricochet of tobacco coloured
spittle hits a spittoon.
Silence congeals
about the accusation.
Now, whether Billy has
merely pushed the ball
silently through rather than
soundly hit it
is:
neither here nor there.
A cold revolver
clicks &
"I says I hit it...I hit it
get it?"
The other gentleman outlaw
begs to agree.
"Ok, Billy boy...keep yer
cardi on!"
And so, we leave them
there
in the croquet craze of
1878.
Time like a yellow ball
hit through hoop after
hoop until: it arrives
at this
present...NOW!
And a photo found in a store
for a dollar or a few dollars more
repays the expense
by morphing into
the 5 million dollar
photo.
But I hit the ball
back through hoop after
hoop after hoop
until it arrives back
at Billy's boot.
And a voice cries:
"Ok, kid...play!"
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 5:29 PM UTC
I trace your faded prints upon the dirt
around them, mud congeals to form my hurt
failing falling stars confuse my path
I shuffle feet for miles but stay inert
all false the trails refusing to subvert
antipathetic strands to stir my wrath
The trees all flay themselves to spill the secrets
thou swore undying oath to never keepest
lest all worlds align to hide the truth
Pausing, taking breaths beneath the deepest
floors of pits that tenderly would keep us
undestined, lost and wild to know our youth
And seek you out I must, I must, I will,
at universe's end, a galaxy
where we would rest, reborn; become, to be
where every breath relaxes into still
Ever will you walk alone, until
you witness me in my entirety
Come, my unforgotten one, you see
arrival less one is a bitter pill
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 4:30 PM UTC
Welcome to my basement
there are plenty of things, toys and tools
play me a song of dismal fools...
You are welcome, but can never leave
I need your parts for the puppets I weave...
It's a place of madness, messes and mayhem
as my machine sews limbs into marionettes...
Dead bodies galore, that I shall resurrect,
as i work diligently to delicately intersect.
drilling holes and threading string
"creep" plays in my mind as I violently sing...
Replacing your eyes with the brightest of blue
wiring your mouth to move on cue.
mechanical hinges and formaldehyde a plenty,
you'll love your new look as will many...
My workshop my joy, my happy place,
except for the stench a horrid disgrace.
look at the walls and all the pretty puppets
lined up in a row like the famed Henson Muppets...
A vast collection of blondes and brunettes
redheads not allowed they're crazy at best.
don't mind the blood it congeals so fast
unlike your beauty it's essence won't last...
Feb 18, 2015
Feb 18, 2015 at 12:25 AM UTC