"crackly" poems
Stretchy sticky tape can be used for plenty
like preventing loose lips from spilling secret information
make 'em taste adhesive next time they lick crackly mouths
serve as a reminder of the importance of person-person confidentiality.
Some just can't keep a good story in their head
which is why they shout
and beg for the forgiveness of their unpopular ways
I love all these outcasts
because I feel I should, as do many others
they want to feel like good people
holy
and sometimes you find
you do enjoy the company of the strange
and I find
that I thrive on absurdity and being a ******
because it's exhausting to try to be normal
so you just act a fool and laugh
because you love to read about politics and physics
and you still enjoy
being un-sober
though it isn't apparent to all because you aren't so obvious
(except now)
and you know roughly who you are
at least have some ideas as to who you aren't,
you aren't a princess or an athlete,
you're not valedictorian, not perfect
just a humble little ****** with birds for brains
flying out of your ears
a whole flock of 'em
chirping away eating worms
early in the morn'
just insane in the dark.
Jun 2, 2012
Jun 2, 2012 at 10:32 PM UTC
By some Remove privy to self-preservation's
extras...to be, or not to be had...beached, I've
been...electromagnetically torn asunder!
Odd sounds do, and do come in and out...
a crackly chirp singing the foundations of worlds.
The melancholia of space junk stuck to a mind of
distance...hoards copious amounts of love-filled
forgetfulness.
Bye...bye...Buddha, in all your "suchness"...bye...
bye...letting go is the only Way.
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 19, 2013 at 11:53 PM UTC
There you were:
Second to last track
Side 1, “Atlantic Soul Classics”.1987
R.E.S.P.E.C.T. (Take out the TCP)
The power, the control, the energy,
Never heard a **** thing like it.
Then that Cliff Richard Show footage I saw on some old BBC clip show (yeah, I know…Cliff, eh?)
“Don’t Play That Song” in crackly black & white
Sorry for the language, Sister.. but **** the power of your piano playing in that moment made me realise that you were not “just a singer” but a full-on force to be reckoned with.
Like Sinatra you studied lyrics like a monk deep in illumination and then blew the song away with your received otherworldly knowledge:
Eleanor Rigby
The Weight
The Dark End of The Street
Border Song
Bridge Over Troubled Water
I Say A Little Prayer
Oh, these were your songs, now. Don’t let anyone forget it.
But there was something more to you than all of this.
The way MLK kissed you with beaming pride at some long, forgotten award ceremony.
The way you sashayed African culture when you stepped out in public.
The way you ripped up your own records when you tread the boards & faced your humbled audience.
The way you stood by Angela Davis when she was hooked up on some stupid jackshit Hoover charge.
The way you verbalized the black American experience not just through countless moments of sheer liberation but in the solemn way you stepped up to the piano on Amazing Grace
You comforted this whiter-than-white Paddy on more than one occasion and forged a path of hope in many of his troubled waters.
Oh, God we will miss you & your power – all of it.
That once in a millennia voice whose measured restraint & joyful release touched millions.
You will never walk alone.
Farewell Queen.
You are finally at peace.
Thank you, thank you Ms. Franklin
Sean M. O’Kane
16/8/18
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 5:21 PM UTC
yeah, the strawberries probably weren’t fresh enough for this.
and yeah, the crust was a little tougher than i meant it to be because i just. kept. kneading it.
can you blame me? i needed it to be uniform. smooth.
and yeah, maybe i used too much flour in the dough. Maybe it was a little too dry and crackly for your taste and maybe mine too.
but you ate it, right?
you ate it even though it was sour and dry and tough.
you ate it even though you would have done it differently.
you ate it even though i know you don’t even like strawberries.
or pie.
Jun 14, 2020
Jun 14, 2020 at 2:38 PM UTC
The pale lips are smashed together in a fake smile, the teeth not wanting to show in the little pod of the mouth, hiding like scared peas. It’s frightening.
The eyes crinkled just right so that it looks so plastered on that you can tell it is fake, the folds overlapping again and again in an unnatural way. I blink.
The cheeks covered in makeup, splashed on in spots, smoothed over in others, splatter painted to look realistic. It doesn't work.
The fingers resting oh so stiff on the stomach raised a bit so that they are hovering above the skin, like he doesn't want to touch the dead fabric. I wouldn't.
The suit, so neatly pressed that not a wrinkle shows, except for on the collar where nobody notices. But I do.
The silk lining of the box he is resting in is shiny and overly polished, like a cherry wood dining room table with an overload of Pledge. It hurts my eyes.
The bouquet of flowers is a bundle of Death’s heavy perfume disguised as a bunch of roses and daisies. The smell is disgusting.
The picture frames surrounding the box are shined like pairs of leather shoes, embedded with gems and memories that are long past. It makes me sad.
The stuffed animals in the corner gaze deadly at the group, mold and dust sapping the life out of their beady eyes. They make me shiver.
The chair I sit on is hard and stiff, the cushion starched to the breaking point, the crackly material hardly comfortable. I squirm.
The vent above me blows a gale of cold air and underlying currents, which whips up my hair in a flurry of brown. I pat my head.
The people around me clutch tissues in bony hands, the wadded up paper soaked through with tears and makeup. It looks gross.
So as I observe every detail of this morbid place, I close my eyes and breath deep. Mistake. The air is ripe with anger and sadness, misery and frustration. Musky lady perfume, sharp man perfume. My hands clench, unclench, furl, unfurl. My throat closes up then swallows that lump of matter lodged in my my esophagus. What is death? What is Heaven? What is God and Jesus and church? What is all of that if it ends up like this? Like a cancerous tumor, like a lump of mutated cells, like a painful death? It is forgiveness and freedom and newness.
With that I open my eyes again and cry.
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 10:14 AM UTC
its not filthy
its just unappealing
its just the grooves
the places between the melody
that desperately need a cleaning
the tune no longer resonates
the tone dull
and crackly
its has nothing to do with
amplification
or projection
its the source material that fails me
im no good at this
at a loss for tools
which could make completely clear
the soaring voice that is love
impassioned and dedicated
but they are contained
within the outmoded technology
wax or vinyl
it could be
though
that my table is just on the fritz
Mar 23, 2013
Mar 23, 2013 at 5:57 PM UTC
on top of the world
the veritable top
staring down at the others
climbing to the top of the stars
and call on nigel
who didn't believe in you
and call him his best pastry
burnt
a crispy blackened burn
not a heavenly, crackly, toasted burn
a burn that seeps to your core and throughly
blackens all other senses
cutting them off
leaving you with only a sense of deepening despair
as you consciously realize that
you've fallen up the stairs to the top
and are falling down
away from the stars
toward the mud
Feb 25, 2013
Feb 25, 2013 at 12:09 AM UTC
I feel ever so lonely
Looks like theres just me and me
no body else to interact
my social skills begin to lack
their true nature, I can no longer sleep
I can't remember how to swim in the deep
ocean or even a swimming pool
I try to act as if I'm cool
but who am I to impress?
When theres just me in a summertime dress
with make up and mascara, don't forget eyeliner
I go to the old time diner
down the road and to the left
then I meet you...but... youre deaf
how are we to interact when you cant hear?
My crackly, old voice inched with fear
and happiness that I found someone
but youre a girl and we'll never have children
What are we to do?
when theres just me and you?
There's no one in the world
except for two lonely girls...
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 7:09 PM UTC
prayer of hope, for young and old, who suffer from the slings and arrows sadness and the loss of love; I offer up this prayer of hope and offer you my hand around your shoulders until you no longer require it
more than once,
for lengthy periods,
by events, other people,
my self was eradicated
and limping from day
to night, and J faced
absolutes, choices choking,
alternating alternatives that
offered zero, or even less
than zero, and the inkwell
wasn't refillable, and I could
point to nothing yet encouraging a mystifying purposed existence
then came a woman
who asked nor proffered
conditionals
pre, prior post or otherwise
and
offered up the miraculous
drink, human kindly notice,
snd it
drained the bitters,
began fluid replacement,
and slow resuscitation
and then
poems rebirthed me,
liberated the angry sacred
gory sadness words devoid of glory,
with a reworded score, and
the eyes could write without
a patina filter of jaundiced hatred,
and whispered private internally
many times a beloving
hallelujah
and when ever the remembrance of
the near misses are crackly occasionally appearing, the surge dissipates intact quick
into a netherworld for suppressing
and bid "away with you," and a
thin lipped smile part sneer
for having survived
even
prospered when
then came a woman
and the self, the my self,
returned
after an absence of destructed
decades...deadening decades
and I smile when
the grandchildren tell me
knock knock jokes
and gently knock me on the head,
to make sure I'm alert,
then came woman
who had already~all ready
knocked me on the
heart
Jul 9, 2025
Jul 9, 2025 at 9:32 AM UTC
it’s nights like this
when my fingers are sticky and reek of popcorn
and my stomach purrs like an antique car
that i cease to exist
just a quiet little thief
tucked away in a prison of white stucco
stealing oxygen and racking up an electricity bill with a lopsided pink lamp
honey on my face
a “beauty treatment”
an edible headband sunken into my hair
gnats crawling between my eyelashes
black dots just as hungry as i am
the music of the wind plays outside my window
rattling long forgotten memories
and stirring up dust of the past
there’s a constellation in my hand
universes up my arm
purple lines swirling together into incoherent shapes
semi-deep whispers escaping my lips
that are pale and dry and hurt to touch
bad pop music crawls through crackly headphones
same song, different artist
and my sheets
animal print, picked from years past and never changed
due to either nostalgia or laziness, the world may never know
disengage themselves from my bed
twine around my ankles
sly cats looking for milk
and hunger eats at my heart
i count the minutes as they spin on
by the soft timpani as it thumps eighth notes through my chest
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 8:27 PM UTC
The sparkling turquoise
of an enormous sea
so hot and crackly
my close friends by
I smile sparkling white
at the sky so clear and bright
a soft sand against my hands
and I am home in this place
of sea and sun
of poor and posh
"I like Mexico," said mom.
Jun 2, 2013
Jun 2, 2013 at 9:33 PM UTC
Winter is cold, with gusts of tumbling snow
When rain falls down and nothing ever grows
For children it's the snow that they desire
And cups of co-co in front of the fire
When winters gone, the grass grows green again
Roses and Tulips sprout, with bright green stems
The bees are buzzing, the birds are singing
Sheep are grazing and cow bells are ringing
And then the sun starts to shine too brightly
It's so hot that fans are put on nightly
And so then it's off to the beach or pools
Where people swim about just to keep cool
All the leaves on the trees turn golden-brown
And when on the ground make a crackly sound
In autumn a lot of money you make
For clearing backyards of leaves with a rake
Each season has its own goods and its bads
But since they are all different I am glad!
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 3:55 AM UTC
Along the grass,beneath the sky
The draconic sun vitrified
The lover figurines.
Flattening them
Adjacent to the surface,
Skin blent in crackly tessellation,
Deforming to fit the sphere,adhering to it's
Wondrous silence.
Frail limbs minute,heart's heavy as whole islands.
Is it not love embodied to lay defined as an image?
To be held as shatterless glass,reflecting it's deity's melting
In progress, 'neath the star that impelled a shelter,
The star that paved their meeting,that overlooked
Their life and death in a predetermined stasis,
The divinity that shimmered underfoot at all times,
The star that held all places of the earth in one.
The figurine lovers, faceless mannikinis
Sentenced to worship forever without a choice,
For prior love, for prior sins,
It matters not--they rot and twist as the Sun's play-dice.
Aug 20, 2019
Aug 20, 2019 at 10:40 PM UTC
prayer of hope, for young and old, who suffer from the slings and arrows sadness and the loss of love; I offer up this prayer of hope and offer you my hand around your shoulders until you no longer require it
more than once,
for lengthy periods,
by events, other people,
my self was eradicated
and limping from day
to night, and J faced
absolutes, choices choking,
alternating alternatives that
offered zero, or even less
than zero, and the inkwell
wasn't refillable, and I could
point to nothing yet encouraging a mystifying purposed existence
then came a woman
who asked nor proffered
conditionals
pre, prior post or otherwise
and
offered up the miraculous
drink, human kindly notice,
snd it
drained the bitters,
began fluid replacement,
and slow resuscitation
and then
*poems rebirthed me,
liberated the angry sacred
gory sadness words devoid of glory,
with a reworded score, and
the eyes could write without
a patina filter of jaundiced hatred,
and whispered private internally
many times a beloving
hallelujah
and when ever the remembrance of
the near misses are crackly occasionally appearing, the surge dissipates intact quick
into a netherworld for suppressing
and bid "away with you," and a
thin lipped smile part sneer
for having survived
even
prospered when
then came a woman
and the self, the my self,
returned
after an absence of destructed
decades...deadening decades
and I smile when
the grandchildren tell me
knock knock jokes
and gently knock me on the head,
to make sure I'm alert,
then came woman
who had already~all ready
knocked me on the
heart
Jul 1, 2025
Jul 1, 2025 at 9:57 AM UTC
Little tiny notions and bigger thoughts fly
above our gracious and small ways try's.
Like little pictures drawn on very big pages
that flash before our half blind sore eyes.
With our little red eyes bugging wide open,
yet missing the minuscule things that occur.
With our crackly little voices barely even spoken,
and our Big Ideas in the way, as we try to confer.
The million little hands we try so hard to teach,
and millions of little minds that we'll never reach,
amid all the somber voices crying without speech.
The short little lives that are spent on the Big World.
All trying to be worldly, wealthy, and so very wise.
Millions of little faces hiding behind a big disguise,
here where little is said, and even less is done,
to save the Big World, under the bright, bright, Sun.
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 3:40 PM UTC
When we find ourselves
bewitched
by the once-again
betwixt a barest bare
season (of not-there)
and the rock-hard
reason (for there-is), let’s
Place the lemon-sour wedge,
where it can be tasted
with expectantly peppered
peeks and the snowy soft pines
for a gifted we we’ve been
too white-elephant
wary to unwrap.
There’s a transplant
future. We pretended
it (to-be
forever sutured to our bristly back-
then), and it meets the it
it was beneath a scrub-brush
Christmas tree we’ve stowed
Carelessly in the cramped space
where our sameness
lets crawl the other. Tinseled,
pre-assembled, past-
their-prime-time specialty
brands of static
clinginess have diminished,
But not-enough,
as the persistence of any-man
attraction shows,
would if it could bring
Whitman’s samplers
of sentimentality
to cuddly bear on a leftover
Choice (What’s-next,
warmed over and over). We
will stick to it,
fuzzy ornaments
on the crackly loud, paper-
thin present. We didn’t give
up but we did give away
Boxed-up angels
in exchange for one red-ribbon
day, its frilly bow tying us
so tightly to
the pressed-down rule
of our highest of highly
evolved thumbs.
Nov 22, 2010
Nov 22, 2010 at 5:51 AM UTC
an feeling ever darkly creeps over me,
It spills out onto the city streets,
As the night draws down upon the suns lovely glow
The familiar feeling, quick to come and quick to go
Paranoia and madness quickly begin to show,
One with the moon, dash through the night
So quick to move, always out of sight
I awaken, under the shadow of darkness
The teeth shoot from my gums,
I begin to hunt, It's soon over,
Though the games have just begun
I find myself staring through a window,
A lovely woman sits alone,
Quietly humble, stiller than the oldest stones,
Her eyes fixed upon the screen, her favorite show
Our eyes met, just for an instant,
A moment in time of no relevance,
But played into the hands of her fate a great deal
Through the roof I enter the dank apartment complex
Mildew and alcohol soked into the panels,
I hear staticy programs on various channels,
The smell of blood and hopelessness reeks from the floors and walls
Coursing through the veins of those whose will to live continues to fall
I can feel the sorrow of the places inhabitants
So mundane and drab..
She won't be missed at all,
I track the smell of my lovely prey,
I knock upon her chamber door,
She says "Enter, if you may"
She appeared to be a sickly *****
Who hadn't seen the sun in days
Who are you and why are you here"
she says in a dry, crackly voice
I don't mean to scare you, there's no need to fear
I respond, careful of my word choice
There's no need to fear, for your end is near,
And when I'm done, draining your blood,
I'll then soon disappear
She's fallen under my influence,
Drunk on the pressure of the souls,
Of a thousand nameless victims,
I give her my best smile,
As I bear down upon her neck,
I'll make this worth while,
Find some meaning in her death
I carry the burden of so many souls
gone, forever from the world,
By my hand, and teeth,
I can never justify the souls that I eat...
Aug 25, 2013
Aug 25, 2013 at 7:19 PM UTC
I hate how the darkness of the sea
Brings out the blue in your terrifying eyes
But the sea isn't made for, any other human
(but you)
You could be with me above sea
If you would only try
But your stuck in the sea, no
With the sea forevermore
So I will continue to come visit you until I die
The only thing you will ever touch isn't me
It will be, the sharpness of the sea
Your hair floats perfectly
(of course with the movement of the sea)
Sadly the sea makes you, you
You are all I ever wanted to see
(but I cannot breathe in this sea air)
So I swim away and try to remember
Your too soft, golden hair
The only time I could truly recall happiness
In your crackly, small voice is when you cried
"I'm so perfectly under, with the heavy secrets of the sea."
Now I can't even remember what you sound like
And barely what you look like
My eyes aren't made for the sea, I cannot see
********* sea! You've taken her from me!
You should have let her be! With me!
I plea, give her back at least
the slightest thought of we
Her eyes see nothing in me
Mar 26, 2015
Mar 26, 2015 at 4:28 PM UTC
Little tiny notions and bigger thoughts fly
above our gracious and small ways tries.
Like little pictures drawn on very big pages
that flash before our half blind sore eyes.
With our little red eyes bugging wide open,
yet missing the minuscule things that occur.
With our crackly little voices barely even spoken,
and our Big ideas in the way, as we try to confer.
The million little hands we try so hard to teach,
and millions of little minds that we'll never reach,
amid all the somber voices crying without speech.
The short little lives that are spent on the Big World.
All trying to be worldly, wealthy, and so very wise.
Millions of little faces hiding behind a big disguise,
here where little is said, and even less is done,
to save the Big World, under the bright, bright, Sun.
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 4:40 PM UTC
when i slip into
a phase, I find it
exhuasting now.
every minute, a test of character.
every hour, a new demon to fight.
They hide inside, chip away at the interior, until it's like peeling paint.
Those days, I feel barren and broken, my detail is failing.
I watch jagged pieces splinter away and drift in the air
cruelly landing underfoot in
the crackly, dead leaves
that the streetsweeper missed that week.
"But what if..." it says. And that's all it takes.
I become frigid inside.
I feel it slide in my brain, clicking
and prying inside.
crooning, throat just out of reach; caressing, hands just out of reach
until it slaps me to the familar ground,
where I frantically gasp.
It's laughing now, as I curl back to darkness,
wiping my silent tears from my red cheek and my cramping heart from my sleeve.
My head pounds as my
unwelcome, yet comfortable
friend of mine simply
opens the door.
I can't even lock it.
Apr 9, 2013
Apr 9, 2013 at 10:01 PM UTC
I catch myself getting progressively more angry.
I safely yell at things that don't give 1 iota of emotion in response.
I watch myself getting mad at TV's, cars, computers, even light bulbs!
Most days I am able to 'hang tough' primarily through my own strength,
but partly because it is expected of me.
I've never asked to be anyone's hero
and I certainly know first hand
what a fraud I would be
to ever claim such status when so how many times,
far more than I will ever let on,
I have found myself curled up in the fetal position SCREAMING guttural SCREAMS primal.
I no longer ask the glib question of "Why me?",
when I know the true question is
why not me??
Once I had led a life of figuratively being spoon fed from utensils made of silver,
thriving on that bliss that does indeed come from an existence of ignorance.
Maybe why not me
balances the scales.
Sept. 26 2013 will be the 5 year anniversary that my sweet little boy seemingly fell off the face of the planet.
It hurts so bad I could just scream. SCREAM!
And I do.
At technology.
I scream at my TV with it's crackly surround sound speakers that are going out,
I scream at my car when strange warning icons flash on the dashboard,
I scream when the florescent light bulbs through out my house flicker
and burn out
and S C R E A M E D !!!!! at my computer when in the middle of typing this diatribe
the browser crashes
May 6, 2015
May 6, 2015 at 3:31 PM UTC
Your voice runs through my head
A tape recorder
crackly and old.
I remember every word that
you have ever said.
They string along
flowing out of my ears.
Everything is backwards.
You can't control your destiny
but you have tried nonetheless.
Backwards and forwards.
Your fate is relentless.
You can only have the best
You never stop to rest.
Where are you going with your life
I wonder.
And how did you manage
to avoid such a blunder
This blunder meaning me,
My life.
Your run your life like you run your car.
Spewing out harmful toxins.
riding by the small things.
constantly looking ahead
you never stop to smell
daisys, daffodils.
you keep running over cats
you tires tread over my head.
what you say is harsh
and has no meaning.
i watch you and start silently seething
everything from your dandruff
to your hairy toes.
makes me want to knock you out cold.
you cant seem to string along thoughts that make any sense.
but i seem to remember what you say
more than ever.
your so hypocritical to me
and you say you want to be free.
you
are
a
joke.
the words you said to me
that night are branded into my brain
how am i even sane?
"You only want what you can't have,
i loved you,
did you know that?
Your insane for not loving me back,
you have more hidden issues
than ive ever had.
i did everything i could for you,
Did you know that?
i love you,
you know that."
Jun 25, 2010
Jun 25, 2010 at 11:07 AM UTC
Say goodbye through the crackly shield of my car .
The eyelids of mine so heavy as steel.
I'm tired and weak an I have drove to far
To a place that's far from real
Don't let your heavy wings pull you down , make you frill
Make you frown,
My angel
Let me lift you up, as you have done since day 1
Make me a drug to heighten your mind
I can't be alone at this time
I saw your hurt, like a mirror
Movingly blood through veins I didn't know we're real
Somewhere deep, came a tear
Rubbed on your cheek, we were sealed
Don't be down, don't leave me down
Ill be your king, just give me the crown
Don't let your heavy wings pull you down, make you frail, make you frown,
My angel
Jul 16, 2013
Jul 16, 2013 at 11:58 PM UTC