"crouched" poems
All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.
Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.
Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.
Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.
Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrows sang before.
Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the sheer peaks ran before.
Paler be they than daunting death
the sleek slim deer
the tall tense deer.
Four tall stags at a green mountain
the lucky hunter sang before.
All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.
32.5k
the cockroach crouched
against the tile
while I was ******* and as
I turned my head
he hauled his ****
into a crack.
I got the can and sprayed
and sprayed and sprayed
and finally the roach came out
and gave me a very ***** look.
then he fell down into
the bathtub and I watched
him dying
with a subtle pleasure
because I paid rent
and he didn't.
I picked him up with
some greenblue toilet
paper and flushed him
away. that's all there
was to that, except
around Hollywood and
Western we have to
keep doing it.
they say some day that
tribe is going to
inherit the earth
but we're going to
make them wait a
few months.
29k
The concrete jungle.
Home of the dreaded concrete beasts
Who lie in plain sight for the world to see
Crouched in marble ledges, twisted in metal beams
Wrapped around handrails, perched in their cemented trees
They laugh at those who cannot perceive
Because they don’t believe.
And who am I,
Yes possibly me
To find my identity
In removing my wooden sword from its sheath
Placing it beneath my two shuffled feet
To answer the alluring call of the beasts beckoning
To my hero’s heart, for my eyes to blink
To suddenly see them as they were meant to be.
In a world between
Real and imaginary.
For it is I,
Yes I believe it to be
Chosen to find my destiny
In a single push
That propels me
Into the path of the snarling beasts
Approaching their stairs and rails, ledges and beams
Gaps and bumps and ramps with speed
And as they stare at me hungrily
Opening their mouths expecting me
I will stand strong on my wooden sword
As the wheels of fire erupt beneath
And the scenery blurs in the flash of the rapidity
I bend my knees and grit my teeth
My eyes narrow and the drum in my chest crescendos its beat
A shout explodes from my chest, a primal scream
As I press on
In the concrete jungle.
Home of the dreaded concrete beasts
Who quiver in plain sight for the world to see
And whimper at the sight of who they now perceive
Because I do believe.
And it is I,
Yes undoubtedly me
Who will find my destiny
Conquering the concrete jungles of the world unseen
Surfing the concrete waves of the world between
With my loyal vessel being the wooden sword from the sheath,
That remains steady in the face of danger beneath my feet.
I am alive
In the concrete jungle.
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 12:55 AM UTC
(for Christopher Isherwood)
Seated after breakfast
In this white-tiled cabin
Arabs call the House where
Everybody goes,
Even melancholics
Raise a cheer to Mrs.
Nature for the primal
Pleasure She bestows.
*** is but a dream to
Seventy-and-over,
But a joy proposed un-
-til we start to shave:
Mouth-delight depends on
Virtue in the cook, but
This She guarantees from
Cradle unto grave.
Lifted off the *****
Infants from their mothers
Hear their first impartial
Words of worldly praise:
Hence, to start the morning
With a satisfactory
Dump is a good omen
All our adult days.
Revelation came to
Luther in a privy
(Crosswords have been solved there)
Rodin was no fool
When he cast his Thinker,
Cogitating deeply,
Crouched in the position
Of a man at stool.
All the arts derive from
This ur-act of making,
Private to the artist:
Makers' lives are spent
Striving in their chosen
Medium to produce a
De-narcissus-ized en-
During excrement.
Freud did not invent the
Constipated miser:
Banks have letter boxes
Built in their façade
Marked For Night Deposits,
Stocks are firm or liquid,
Currencies of nations
Either soft or hard.
Global Mother, keep our
Bowels of compassion
Open through our lifetime,
Purge our minds as well:
Grant us a king ending,
Not a second childhood,
Petulant, weak-sphinctered,
In a cheap hotel.
Keep us in our station:
When we get pound-notish,
When we seem about to
Take up Higher Thought,
Send us some deflating
Image like the pained ex-
-pression on a Major
Prophet taken short.
(Orthodoxy ought to
Bless our modern plumbing:
Swift and St. Augustine
Lived in centuries
When a stench of sewage
Made a strong debating
Point for Manichees.)
Mind and Body run on
Different timetables:
Not until our morning
Visit here can we
Leave the dead concerns of
Yesterday behind us,
Face with all our courage
What is now to be.
13.9k
we had too much to drink and
you saw your mom crouched in
the corner smoking a
cigarette through her
neck hole
you missed with the marble
ashtray and shattered the mirror
with the hand-carved gold-leafed
frame
Melissa screamed
I followed as you tore through
puddles of sunken sidewalk
until you sat
at the bus stop and buried your
eyes
I put my hand on yours and
felt your raining pulse
we got on the bus with the
red and green stripes
hopped off at Wong’s and
bought 3 dozen eggs
to throw at the
lighthouse
Oct 29, 2015
Oct 29, 2015 at 7:45 PM UTC
Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes.
(Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in labour.)
In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor
Sewing a shroud for a journey
By the light of the meat-eating sun.
Dressed to die, the sensual strut begun,
With my red veins full of money,
In the final direction of the elementary town
I advance as long as forever is.
8.3k
He thought that he had been evicted like a raucous Irishman, late once again on the rent, his belongings and furniture strewn on the lawn
His cold, deadly stare and ruffled red, said the same, with haughty indignation written all over him
As could be expected with any eviction, belongings strewn to the street, it started to rain; large splattering drops falling from the sky with an audible impact, adding insult to the injury
But he was just a child, set free and off to learn on his own, his perch and roost along with his chair, moved to his new home
He had outgrown the large screen porch, which was such a ridiculous place for an Owl anyway
Wood and glen gone, surrounded by girder and screen, locked into the realm of old peoples coffee and cigarettes
Tucked up into the eaves ignominiously, or sitting on the lamp, grooming flesh from his over large and taloned feet
He would sit silhouetted by the dim red glow of the bulb, relaxing, until a noise would spin his head and he would become hooded and glaring death
The lamp added a glow to his eyes, which already burned with a raptors fire and he would become the personification of evil to the world of prey
Low and crouched, wings slightly spread; he would become the terrifying story that small warm animals tell their children at night to keep them in line and safe
But now he has been moved outside and all of his familiar belongings with him, or most anyways
Now he perches outside, either on the rough, twisted branches near his roost, or his favorite chair, and contemplates late into the night
But it seems that he prefers the comfort of his living room and he rests on the arm of the chair, quiet and pensive in the still and humid darkness
He stares at me while I smoke; the white plumes drifting like iridescent fog into the moonlight, while I observe him from his former home, illuminated by the dim lamp light
His saffron eyes gleam in the darkness, his dark form robed in that of the raptor, wings held down, with the tips outstretched like fingers
He stares at the lamp, standing like a pedestal against the wall and I wonder to myself
Does he want his ****** lamp moved out there too?
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 4:44 PM UTC
The almost sibling
An almost brother,
Or maybe sister,
Perches at the edge
Staring down
Searching for me,
An unknown brother
Save for short peeks
Between clouds,
And wonders of the almost life,
The almost love,
They could have found
Amongst us.
But the love was taut
Barely enough
For us to be sustained.
I’ve heard mom speak to you,
While clutching herself,
Asking for forgiveness
For taking your almost body out
Before a body could be.
I hope you know,
Crouched there watching,
Though I never met you
Or knew your almost self
I still love you.
Nov 15, 2011
Nov 15, 2011 at 11:03 PM UTC
*There was once a man
Who looked at the moon and asked
"Is there anything I could ask,
that you can answer?"
There was no reply,
as expected.
The next morning, there was a dog.
The man crouched down
in front of the dog and asked
"What are you up to today?"
The dog walked past,
as expected.
In the afternoon, there was a girl.
She was sitting on a bench in the park.
The man sat beside her and asked
"Are you waiting for someone?"
She kept gazing at the sunset,
as expected.
Night falls in a pub in the city.
There's a drunken man, had many bottles.
The man approached him and asked
"Is something the matter?"
The man finally collapsed after too much drinks,
as expected.
Lastly, in a room there are antiques.
One is a mirror in an intricate frame.
The man looked at the mirror and asked
"How do you feel today?"
There was no reflection,
as expected.*
Nov 15, 2017
Nov 15, 2017 at 12:14 PM UTC
#
They called Kierkegaard insane,
poor man, poor fool..
ink turned against him
by a city that feared
his furious clarity.
That label is given still:
“mad,” they say,
when a voice rises
against the hidden thing,
the shadow crouched in the soul,
the beast that feeds on silence.
It is not flesh that is cursed,
but the fortress
built stone by stone
from secrets unspoken,
where the child’s cry was buried
and the monster kept the key.
Yes, let it be cursed again..
that ancient predator
that left spirits trapped,
that tried to leave others
shattered in its claws.
If eternity should open,
even the darkness of God
would rise against it,
tumbling the beast
through endless years,
stripped of its power,
stripped of its stolen faces.
Call it madness,
call it folly.
The words remain jagged,
for truth has teeth,
and silence has killed enough.
At least the monster was named
when others smiled politely
and called it “past.”
At least there was no collusion.
*And if the witness is written off,
so be it
Better condemned
for fighting the beast
than praised for leaving it
enthroned.*
#
Aug 18, 2025
Aug 18, 2025 at 10:02 AM UTC
My eyes can’t keep from gazing at her
She steps into the room…dripping wet
Knowing I’m here, her parents would most likely be upset
As she would be also, if she found me here
Crouched in the dark…
Between her window and backyard
Her fingers play with her **** vanilla-coated skin
My fingers pretend to follow, not knowing where to begin
The pleasure erupts as soon her moans escape…
The contents of her inner thighs invade my mind…
(pant, pant)
The manner she caressed her body in a way no man could
The exotic thoughts of me fondling her no man should
(pant, pant, pant)
The shuffling of the branches I hid in started to make noise
Hopefully not loud enough to disturb the show, though
(pant, pant, pant, pant)
My eyes closed, envisioning me on her insides
My heart rate jumped sky high…
And at the sudden opening of my eyes…
She spotted me.
Nov 29, 2014
Nov 29, 2014 at 2:49 PM UTC
My girlfriend
Recently
Moved in with me
So she decided
To call her friend,
Who was also
A close friend of mine,
For a couple of beers
In the now 'our' house.
Carmel Scotts
Arrived, knocked,
At around 9,
And girlfriend let him in
And his motorcycle
Sat outside near my
****** old car.
He was a skinny
Ill skin tone guy
Due to his being a
Poppy aficionado,
And he dressed
Like he belonged at
A London punk rock
Concert in the early 80s.
He came in
With his huge mohawk
Flipping God and the system off
And his boots
Knock knock knocking
On Satan's roof.
'Sup' 'Sup' 'Beer?'
'Yeah man, of course'
And we drank and drank
And the now 'our' clock's hands
Moved and struck
12.
We were quite drunk.
I put on
That record
By The Stooges
That we loved
And went to take a ****
When I came back
Iggy was moaning about
Some Deathe Car
While on the now 'our' floor
Carmel crouched
Like a tiger
Above girlfriend's opened legs
As she too moaned
Being eaten alive by
the now 'our' friend.
They were really going at it
And didn't notice I was back.
I was mad,
Really ****** mad.
I was about
To slam him
Off girlfriend and beat him
To a pulp
When suddenly, I woke up.
I remembered
That I don't have a girlfriend,
(I never have had one)
And I don't have a punk friend
(Or any friend really).
So from mad
I turned sad
And got drunk without both of em.
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 12:32 AM UTC
Seeing we never found gay fairyland
(Though still we crouched by bluebells moon by moon)
And missed the tide of Lethe; yet are soon
For that new bridge that leaves old Styx half-spanned;
Nor ever unto Mecca caravanned;
Nor bugled Asgard, skilled in magic rune;
Nor yearned for far Nirvana, the sweet swoon,
And from high Paradise are cursed and banned;
-Let's die home, ferry across the Channel! Thus
Shall we live gods there. Death shall be no sev'rance.
Weary cathedrals light new shrines for us.
To us, rough knees of boys shall ache with rev'rence.
Are not girls' ******* a clear, strong Acropole?
-There our oun mothers' tears shall heal us whole
5.1k
The Miner, Absolom
(a haibun)
green hill where sheep graze
white bones and coal, buried, held
seasons all the same
My grandfather worked in the mines from age thirteen to seventy. His life was closed in by mountains, the green one at the back, the dark looming one at the front and the pit head along the valley., winding the men in and out of the shaft, day after day, dawn until dusk when they came home singing
boots ring on the road
deep valley voices echo
backyard starlit smoke
.
They worked on their bellies or crouched, often in water for days, water that undermines rock. Shaft collapses where frequent. Life was cheap. He came home covered in coal dust to his wife and two sons, sons he was determined to keep out of the mines. Yet he loved that coal - coal that he always polished with care before lighting a fire, brushing dust off black diamond surfaces.
water breaks through rock
with wood and straining shoulders
man becomes the beam
He saved twenty lives that day, men he had known from boyhood. When his lungs were affected they laid him off, no pay, no pension, no life. He bought an insurance book with the money he had and every day he trudged over the mountains and valleys gathering pennies that would help to secure some livelihood to the widows who lost their men in the mines. He never told his wife that when a family couldn't pay he put the pennies in for them rather than leave them unprotected.
winter, summer, fall
the mountain hangs over all
tired to the backbone
When the mines were nationalised my grandfather went straight back to the coal face despite his age. He wasn't going to miss those days of glory. Safety was suddenly the watchword and changes were made very fast. Hot showers were installed at the pit head and the miners came home clean at last.
men stripped to the skin
hot water, steam, baptised
brothers singing hymns
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 9:25 PM UTC
she stands here
with her back against the wall
she helps me lock my door
when i'm crouched on all four
it's just a diet
keep it quiet
my problems lay in numbers
medical language wont help me here
leave it alone
i'll do this on my own
dont tell me it's dangerous
cuase i'm allready painless
(c.m.h)
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 3:19 PM UTC
He crouched in the corner,
Huddling up against his brother;
Who made him feel safe
From his mother.
Glass shattered, and the boy ran out,
To the other room where
His mother was found.
The blood and glass shards
Were everywhere;
He reached for a towel
To bear.
His hands clutched it against
Mommy's wound;
"More alcohol,"
Mommy crooned.
He relented finally,
Giving her the bottle;
By ruby blood,
The floor tiles were mottled.
Lights flashed outside the cabin,
As the ambulance arrived;
The little boy would never
Forget that night.
Dec 14, 2015
Dec 14, 2015 at 1:29 AM UTC
if you drill down,
past the hair,
flesh and bone.
into my mind
where the ego
and id reside.
then turn to the left,
and follow the i.q.
down the alley,
you will find
a place.
where on thrones of
cogitating thoughts,
king big questions asked,
reigns in conjunction,
with, queen yet unanswered.
they watch with interest benign,
over a field of an eternal tourney,
split roughly down the middle
by a chasm quite wide.
on one side
of the gorge is arrayed,
the banners of philosophy.
at the vanguard,
the epistemological knights;
plato, descartes, ferrier,
kant, hume,spinoza
and bosanquet.
the major forces ride beneath the banners, of their schools of thought.
followed by the lesser lights,
and those,
obscure or forgotten,
who walk at the rear,carrying the gear and
to set the tent poles.
as to the other side,
that is given to,
the seminaries of religion;
bhuddism, taoism,
islam, hindu, juche,
rastafarian, sikh, diasporic, parsis, tenrikyo,
judaism and christianity
with all its clans.
they array themselves in cadres,
according to belief.
and to the rear,
there rides,
an interesting guerilla band,
of intertestemantals,
about 3 or 4 hundred years wide.
these are the few who are accounted for,
when god spoke nothing,
or perhaps
a lot but the message just got lost.
they number in their disparate clan,
alexander the great, ptolemy, the hellanic masses, seluecids, maccabeans, hasmoeans
and pompey the great,
not all, but the noteworthy.
across the divide,
by arrowing thought
were fought rallies of acumen
and battles of wit
and occasionally,
a persipacious fire was lit.
but there is one more player,
to mention.
apathy,
the great hulking ******
who for want of gumption, and get up and go,
sat crouched,
(quite uncomfortably so)
on a spire.
made of mediocracy,
cemented by woe,
in the iddle of the rifted abyss.
unable to decide
with which team to go.
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 5:37 PM UTC
"Now did you mark a falcon,
Sister dear, sister dear,
Flying toward my window
In the morning cool and clear?
With jingling bells about her neck,
But what beneath her wing?
It may have been a ribbon,
Or it may have been a ring."--
"I marked a falcon swooping
At the break of day:
And for your love, my sister dove,
I 'frayed the thief away."--
"Or did you spy a ruddy hound,
Sister fair and tall,
Went snuffing round my garden bound,
Or crouched by my bower wall?
With a silken leash about his neck;
But in his mouth may be
A chain of gold and silver links,
Or a letter writ to me."--
"I heard a hound, high-born sister,
Stood baying at the moon:
I rose and drove him from your wall
Lest you should wake too soon."--
"Or did you meet a pretty page
Sat swinging on the gate;
Sat whistling, whistling like a bird,
Or may be slept too late:
With eaglets broidered on his cap,
And eaglets on his glove?
If you had turned his pockets out,
You had found some pledge of love."--
"I met him at this daybreak,
Scarce the east was red:
Lest the creaking gate should anger you,
I packed him home to bed."--
"O patience, sister. Did you see
A young man tall and strong,
Swift-footed to uphold the right
And to uproot the wrong,
Come home across the desolate sea
To woo me for his wife?
And in his heart my heart is locked,
And in his life my life."--
"I met a nameless man, sister,
Who loitered round our door:
I said: Her husband loves her much.
And yet she loves him more."--
"Fie, sister, fie, a wicked lie,
A lie, a wicked lie;
I have none other love but him,
Nor will have till I die.
And you have turned him from our door,
And stabbed him with a lie:
I will go seek him thro' the world
In sorrow till I die."--
"Go seek in sorrow, sister,
And find in sorrow too:
If thus you shame our father's name
My curse go forth with you."
3.7k
NAY! swear no more, thou woman whom I called
Star, Empress, Wife! Were Dian's self to lean
From her white altar and with goddess lip
Swear thee as pure as her pale breast divine,
I could not deem thee purer than I know
Thou art indeed.
Once, when my triumphs rolled
Along old Rome and blood of roses washed
The battle-stains from off my chariot-wheels,
And triumph's thunders round my legions roared,
And kings in kingly ******* golden bound
Shook at my charger's foot, past the hot din
Of Victory-whose heart of golden pride in wound
Most subtly through with fire of subtlest pain-
My soul on prouder pinion rose above
The Roman shouting, to an air more clear
Than that Jove darks with hurtling thunderbolts,
Or stains with Jovian revels-that separate sphere,
Unshared of gods or man, where thy white feet
Caught their sole staining from my ruddy heart,
Blazing beneath them; where, when Rome looked up,
'Twas with the eyes close shaded with the hand,
As at some glory terrible and pure,-
For no man being pure, a terror dwells
Holy and awful in a sinless thing-
And Caesar's wife, the Empress-Matron, sat
Above a doubt-as high above a stain.
Nay! how know I what hell first belched abroad
Tall flames and slanderous vomitings of smoke,
Blown by infernal breathings, till they scaled
Thy throne of whiteness, and the very slaves
Who crouched in Roman kennels wagged the tongue
Against the wife of Caesar: 'Ha! we need not now
And opal-shaded stone wherewith to view
A stainless glory.' In that day my neck
Was bound and yoked with my twin-Caesar's yoke-
Man's master, Sorrow.
I know thee pure-
But Caesar's wife must throne herself so high
Upon the hills that touch their snowy crests
So close on Heaven that no slanderous Hell
Can dash its lava up their swelling sides.
I love thee, woman, know thee pure, but thou
No more art wife of Caesar. Get thee hence!
My heart is hardened as a lonely crag,
Grey granite lifted to a greyer sky,
And where against its solitary crown
Eternal thunders bellow.
3.7k
On the platform rolled the morning train,
I arched into position like a predator on the prowl,
I jumped into the rake and sustained a sprain,
and like a wounded dog began to howl.
I bought myself to stand and staggered towards an empty seat,
as hundreds rushed through the compartment door,
I dint get a seat, but space enough for my feet,
and that's when my phone clattered onto the floor.
I dived into the mammoth crowd,
and began to ***** unsuspecting toes,
Several people yelped out loud,
and i sustained a few hard blows.
Wounded and abashed i almost gave up the search,
when the phone came into my hand,
with relief i grabbed it amidst a jolt and lurch,
but soon realized I couldn't bring myself to stand.
I sat crouched on my fours,
and soon developed knee sores,
The crowd was so large, I couldn't squeeze through them all,
and to my horror, other phones began to fall.
Soon, we were quite a gathering, all perched on our knees,
merrily discussing the Lokpal bill and the Cricket match in West Indies,
We were soon forced to balance on a single toe,
as the crowd began to grow even more.
After an uncomfortable half an hour,I brought myself to stand,
with delicate ease on the platform I managed to land.
Fighting against the oncoming crowd i pushed through with a shove and ****
dusting myself here and there I made my way to work.
Jun 16, 2014
Jun 16, 2014 at 7:08 AM UTC
1415
A wild Blue sky abreast of Winds
That threatened it—did run
And crouched behind his Yellow Door
Was the defiant sun—
Some conflict with those upper friends
So genial in the main
That we deplore peculiarly
Their arrogant campaign—
3.1k
When we began to love each other, in my mind, I saw a room. The bedroom of an old farm house; windows open, and soft, pale, green curtains moved lazily about the sills. Light of late afternoon slipped in, whilst a faint, blue summer sky waited outside. The door to the hallway is open; the rest of the house - still. A bed is the only piece furniture in a room with wood floors and white walls. There are only sheets on the bed, old cotton sheets, heavy, limp, and cool. This room was our togetherness. Since he died, I am not in the room, and light in it is cooler. It is evening and no one is home.
I am waiting at the door of the story with peaches in my hands. The door is shut, and the peaches are unripe. None of their warmth and sweetness can be smelled, their fuzz clings to them like tight new skin. When we wait patiently for things to open, we stay with them and be, and they ripen, and the door opens. I wait for the peaches and the door as they wait for me. A story through that door will show me and harm me, it is with peaches I may come through.
I was a small child when my mother told me a story of peaches. When I remember it, I remember the peach tree across from our old house. Short and squat, with shining, skinny leaves; the tree crouched in the rose garden. My mother told me about the peace and bliss of heaven, and that when we went there we became angels. She told me that angels longed for the earth sometimes, and have bodies, because angels cannot taste peaches.
When I taste and smell peaches now, I try to give myself over to them, to live and feel the taste of them, to not take them lightly, to not keep them foreign. The day that he died, I found a nectarine in the kitchen, and carried it with me, praying to it to keep me in the world of life, to remind me that moments of peaches are worth the pain of aliveness.
Every story starts with the breaking off an indefinite number of things that have come before. To try and tell the story of Lucien from the beginning, means I will omit the stories of before, the peripheral stories which came before and bled into his, like color on wet paper.
I suppose there are so many ways of telling a story. Not one will be perfect, but each is a prayer. Can you feel this? Can I make something? Are our lives commensurable? Do my words mean what your words mean? We shall see.
This story, too, is a prayer.
A prayer for a new house, a new tree, and a new beginning.
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 4:56 PM UTC
A drugstore pallid in waning light, always illuminated in halogen halos.
I am earless with music.
Black metal loud in clanging sets and blows-
foreshadowing the smell of cleaning solution,
air freshener and the outside
sweet at my back
all steeped deep in the rip roaring undertone torrent of cigarette smoke
blended with cheap perfume until I cannot tell the difference.
There is a limp familiarity to the underlying odor
born partially of personal encounter and-
nestled in the hive mind of social experience.
A distillation of regret and remorse,
of lonely,
of irrelevance;
this black hole swallows my voice the way of my ears,
eaten by rust.
Four cans of beans,
kidneys,
in cans squeezed without any power against sagging swells
melting into other curves
and I swerve close and around guiltily,
noting you only as the source of this pungent spring.
You are smiling apologies
ignorant of my apparent inhumanity-
blind to my selfish hands..
Pinioning belly flesh,
flattening,
reaching
and gaining attendance from a better man
retrieving every dropped can.
I’m retreating,
shaken,
tense to alternatively slacken.
My sweat slippery palms with whitened red sharp fingers feel foreign
and I am surrounded by razors then shaving cream,
moving from shampoo to conditioner,
the whole store is infected with smell.
Staring at nail clippers/snipers clipping touch smooth sooth my tense mind-
don’t look
**don’t
look**
I can sense little else but dread
drawing closer
you are now crouched so close I’m gagging,
taken forcefully-swept away in an olfactory flood
roiling in rot,
currents of solitude exude from your smiling sullen appearance when I turn to you
fumbling
with my electric ears,
surfacing
in a breath of Amish silence
broken with simple request
and I want to scream at you that I am not a man to ask opinions of
that it does not matter what fake nails she glues to her body
that she is excluded and I don’t know why.
I choose swirls of cream suspended within watery milk,
over childish lady bugs framed by yellow
or dots of red alternating to black,
an epitaph to a lifelike effigy.
Dec 10, 2010
Dec 10, 2010 at 1:42 AM UTC
When I was a child I saw
a burning bird in a tree.
I see became I am,
I am became I see.
In winter dawns of frost
the lamp swung in my hand.
The battered moon on the slope
lay like a dune of sand;
and in the trap at my feet
the rabbit leapt and prayed,
weeping blood, and crouched
when the light shone on the blade.
The sudden sun lit up
the webs from wire to wire;
the white webs, the white dew,
blazed with a holy fire.
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