"contortionists" poems
Scars are fireworks.
They dance like breaths,
breath, pause, breath, pause.
Breathing is a cry for help.
You brushed my forehead with your fingertips
like wind and smiles and time
and what kisses are supposed to be.
Like time, time, time,
memory typewriters tick and tock.
They sound like footsteps,
like pallbearers and raindrops
and heartbeats and whispers and
time and time and time and time.
Scars are like spiderwebs
and patterns in half-full coffee mugs
and scales that shield, that measure.
and they're like empty stairs
and definitions the textbook wouldn't accept.
Scars are dreams.
A skirt and skin and whatever else that implies.
Scars are consensual, like sugarcoated suicides.
Scars are bodies.
Bend them, break them,
cracked contortionists.
Watch stardust pours from eyes
and arcing, narrow roads.
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 8:38 PM UTC
we drove for over an hour yesterday to
reach mother nature's home,
a playground for adults,
we only wanted to reach a destination
that held sincere afterthoughts and
the smell of moss covering our sight.
it was off the grid, only the locals
could direct you to the tree coverings
and caves that whales could sleep in,
but my brother and i decided it
was only right to keep looking on
our own, we have stubbornness
engraved on our foreheads.
not short of three hours into the
wilderness, wearing out our shoes
and losing energy in our joints,
we found panther caves parallel
to where my brother and
his roommate from iraq
dragged on cigarettes for answers
to show them the way to go.
they were magnificent with majestic
slabs of sediments that had stories
dating from the 1800's,
graffiti painted in fluorescent shades
and charcoal from the last fire,
presented on the highest cliff
as if the last person had something
to prove.
we climbed and angled our bodies
like contortionists, we
were nothing short from nature -
our existence was made here,
within the grains of sand and
the tangled roots from trees
growing on the embankments.
i wanted that to be reality.
when we found our boundaries
and landed back into the car,
we drove away in silence because
our eyes were heavy and our hands
could tell facts of frustration,
senselessness, livelihood, and something
words cannot measure up to.
that world could be my gateway drug,
the ignorant bliss from social networking,
the war with no apparent reasoning (with the
amount of debt we are in),
the pressure on myself.
i felt so simple when everything else
has been so complex.
i now know i want to be an architect
of the woods, to preserve
the chiseled names of strangers
who felt alive, who had nowhere
else to be at that moment.
i want to be a navigator,
the one who could tell you what
the markings on the bark meant.
i want to fall into a love so deep,
only the leaves could catch me.
i think i found home.
Jun 3, 2011
Jun 3, 2011 at 6:32 AM UTC
it is not just pink for girls
and blue for boys
or laundry for moms
and desk jobs for dads.
it is self confidence plummeting
because your nine year old legs
look different than the others
girls aren’t supposed to be hairy.
it is watching the cheerleading team
through the windows of the gymnasium
hoping the other kids don’t see you
boys are supposed to play basketball.
it is being called bossy
for voicing your ideas
to say what you believe in
girls are supposed to be quiet.
it is a lack of empathy
from years of quieting
your emotions
boys aren’t supposed to cry.
it is being placed in a box
that is too small and
being told to cut off your legs
so you can fit inside it
we are not contortionists.
Jan 10, 2019
Jan 10, 2019 at 8:21 AM UTC
habitat for angry things
his face is a contortionists wet dream
his fists flex through three hundred versions
of ready but are rendered immaculate by
the thought that binds him to this difficult maze
that there's got to be a way out
there is a light at the end of the tunnel
he suffers from smaller and smaller
versions of self esteem
and as that window slowly closes
his innermost thought is
that someone somewhere holds the key
that somehow at the last possible possum of a second
she will jump out of yonder shrubbery
and save the day
so rather than show the ever watching world
his apparent weaknesses
he will wait for her
reality is playing dead today
and all the goth girls say in
horrible unison
that your cute and all but
i don't date outside my species
could ***** Mae have been less cruel
she wont be coming to save anyone
not even herself
habitat for angry things
his face contorts with the simple pleasures of destruction
and dances with glee over the graves of the once defeated
but in the small hidden room of his soul
he sits in his discomfort chair
and works the meat of his sorrows
with a weeping
a terrible weeping
that fills the cathedral of his hearts broken dream
like a photograph folded in upon itself
one image is the end
one the beginning
but only the blade separates
and that sound of weeping
that awful sound of weeping
that goes on for hours
that goes on for years
benith it is the sound of creatures
that defy
that are unspeakable
sharp little monsters of thought and feeling
that are contortions of rage
etched forever into his soul
he is buried there in the quiet cemetery
with his rages and sorrows replete
with his soul intact
forever to be in that small dark room
working the meat of his regrets
never to know the solace of her hand
never to know the freedom of forgiveness
it is in his hand
in smaller and smaller versions
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 11:00 AM UTC
it’s the time of the parochial
baby
tread with care;
it’s the time of fear and violence
walk with eyes
before and behind you
the barbarians are everywhere
tearing down libraries;
there are demon contortionists
who can bend Truth and sense;
and there is violence
blessed by God
and justified in anyone’s Holy Book
there is a man
who looks at how you dress
and look;
there is a team taking notes
the mindless are everywhere
and they want to eat your minds;
there is blackhole-distortion
and everything you might hold dear
is taken to be twisted and turned
look to your mind baby
look to your heart;
there’s the dread of Satan
who walks in God’s clothes;
they try and take what you got
and give you salt and sand to eat
it’s the time of the parochial
baby
tread with care;
it’s the time of fear and violence
walk with eyes
before and behind you
Sep 23, 2010
Sep 23, 2010 at 12:25 PM UTC
i see him straightening the
ruffle of his native clothing,
putting words of truth
inside the empty parentheses
of mendacities -
it is through his leonine eyes
that i see the pointlessness
of men. through the
TV's hoarse static i can hear
his voice occupy the space
of obligation without swerving
to paths made available for ease
without clear trudge.
sir, you make it painless
to conceive these cutting truths -
death trembles in these taut attestations. in half-lighted periphery i can see the shadows
threatening to cast us into damnation, and it is in the bright ray of your speech that i have started to uncover the beasts
and their diminutive language.
dark as dark these ploys could be,
now that they are whiter than
ever with their transparencies,
you have handed these people
flames to torch effigies
and use their glare to light
the intransigent paths
to this nation's true calling!
spare us from the debaucher
of this once sacred land, the contortionists of these ill fates.
and preserve our just tillage
over these archipelagos!
save us from the vertigo of these
mangled, twisting roads!
give our speech obdurate
magnitude so we can hammer down
the lies thrown at us and cast them away together with their wretched demagogues!
let us once more, be brave
to withstand the eye of storms
and emerge wizened like
trees in the summer of
our old, resplendent memories
where everything is
and nothing
is speaking loosely
of something far from our hands
to hold, like
prosperity,
or effulgence - altogether!
Sep 18, 2015
Sep 18, 2015 at 9:32 AM UTC
The clouds in
the sky
are talented contortionists
Vital beauty
to rival
the most talented goddess
My lungs eat
a meal
of purity and exhale clarity
My eyes ease
at the
sights of great complexity
I'm free to discover
the language
of the wind
Witness the birth
of
new generations
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 1:07 PM UTC
Laying Contortionists,
Bodies twisted, tangled together,
in beauty,
For in this moment,
our selfless souls are twisted,
twisted in our purity,
in our naivety,
all an act to try for transcendence,
yet it is all in vein.
All the effort in our entanglement,
a failed attempt at two souls becoming one,
We are always left alone in the end.
May 11, 2018
May 11, 2018 at 7:25 AM UTC
I'm from the side of the tracks where you won't come back
Sometimes fade to white, sometimes to black
Secreting the pus of another failed lust
My intentions only bending on a whim or a ****
So break the glass over my face and watch me go hard
If I got no other outlet you better hope you'll go far
Because sickles and hammers aren't only symbolic
They can be used to intrude on your systems metabolic
Contortionists form a fist and slick the road for communists
A bottomless populace heavy handed and cacophonous
Desolate like postulates from existentialists, mop your ****
And follow it with sawed-off **** shotguns for columnists
So open up these ******* veins, I got no reason to try and change
Scatter-brained, like blood insane in dark fantasies untamed
Unchained and ********* and horse-laced with your taste
My way is the highway so don't **** with my **** deranged
I'm sick like
*** it's exciting
To know you're dying
From the first breath
You're primed for death
And there's nothing left
Like 21 grams
And ***** sexts
It's a blank slate
And my blood's paint
For the walls of
The Satanic Saints
To **** my brain
And **** myself
Because it's easier
Than killing everyone else
No ******* effort, no giving a ****
Surely I am broken like a Muslim's ****
So you're right to be scared
Sure you're checking my history
To make sure that no one
Is trying to **** me
I'm ugly, my soul is black
And I'm happily taking nothing back
I told you I needed an outlet
But don't assume I'm finished yet
Nov 24, 2017
Nov 24, 2017 at 11:33 PM UTC
Groggy and hungover
Pounding in her head
Aggravated by the gull screeching
Lulu….. Lulu
They call her girlhood name
Same each morning
Get used to it all over again
Grappling with her self-pity and disgust
Dead weight
She can’t not hold herself back
She’s seen so much worse, in the day
Bellies torn open, guts strewn
Limbs twisted like contortionists
Heartbreakingly graceful
Rotting, swollen faces she dreams of
A man, mummified
Head held up
******* from a ****** straw
Invisible man
What did that soul see when the bandages came off
Welcome to the final decline
Still got her mind, probably
Not sure what she wants to lose first
The inevitable slide
Unfit for the task
It’s her own fault
They were her choices
But where could she have gone right
What had she to do- what she had to do
That’s all over, done, and gone now
Bloodbaths and blow-ups
She’d forgotten safety
Her ground still shakes
Run for cover
Still, everyday, everytime
Why her not them
Why them not her
How dumb is God
“Survivors guilt”
But the doctors know nothing
Solitude made for her
Broken way too much
Why can’t they let her be
Isolation… fight that war
Wrong choice then and no choice now
Desolate in disrepair
She’s in ruins more than it
The house leans in around her
They’re a good fit
It works on its own
Devil or angel
She has it back
The original vice
Good thing she’s all alone
She doesn’t know
Doesn’t want to remember
Distance and isolate
Intimacy out of the question
She’s useless anyway
What good is left
Where has hope gone?
Bloodbaths take lovebeds
She struggled
She fought
Stalemates rule
Why must she live
Good and right
Evils be gone
War is blinding
Wipe away schoolgirls
Why have hope
Why bother with love
Nothing gold can stay
Why fight a victorless war
Oct 14, 2017
Oct 14, 2017 at 4:13 PM UTC