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Lark Train Jun 2016
You smile like a wolf about to ****.
Your cruel, sharpened fangs barred in spite.
Your voice was gold, your white cuspids alight.
You smile at your prey; we deer stand still.

I know the smile shall end where it will.
I know it never reaches to your eyes
And I know, like one bitten once or twice,
That the wolf closes its eyes to ****.

The wolf leans in too close, panic sets in
Stumbling through apologetic speech in
An effort to get somewhere else, again...

The deer springs into action, can't win
For wolves hunt in packs, the wingman swoops in
Now trapped by foes unbeatable, I'm slain.
This is a Petrarchan sonnet about wolves and deer.
Connor Reid Mar 2014
False memories and track marks pave your arms
Sudden revolt of youth pressurised to fail
Painkillers doubled and stacked for a head to slumber
Soft heads and dead leg spasm attack pillow piddles in *****
Fictitious tesla coil blue breath mortifys mortality
And your goggles won't fog out the underwater current miscellaneous
Digital tectonic pushing ideas you brainstorm
Shadowed reluctance to consume the musk of infrared roses
This romance is one that was jealous of itself
Pre-divorced in its own certainty on incompatibility
Basin top full too top heavy to predict precarious
Living in a shaded sense of erased memory lapses continuing truth
Toward magnificent still life categorised by perdition
Forward thinking ruby gold phong shaded hatred quantum conversate Unthinkable
Nebula of gas
Face first head in hands
Euthanasia between my thighs crush my head
Choked neck
Throat
Strangle me and give me breath
I roll and the conductor pulls apart my mouth
Diseased by euphoria lips separate and teeth show
Pupils land home and iris jumps ship
Perfume gum dry bitter butterfly kiss
Head held back in place tongue falls back into the razor-front of the mouth
Caution held simultaneous irrelevant body load carries my smile
Jump knee deep into the silence of my own lungs
It's been a while
I breath vindictively in time with the respiration of the country
Somewhere out in the hexagon sun I burn candles and whisp
Hold in smoke
Die
Twitch forward in palliative peace motionless and still
Cuspids and lochs
Spread across the grass the harmony touches yours and mine
A hole and whole dream
Conscious and dead
Content
Voices rattle in unified mono-chromidity
Sadness
Carrion
2011
gd Mar 2014
I tried to recall
your face again,
because I remember
its frame being as
familiar as the
back of my hand:
the slight crook
in your cuspids, the
deep dimples under
the ends of your smile,
the shining whites
of your eyes always
being a little too
white, but then
when I tried to
put these pieces
together, I always
come up lost
within your
floating matter,
which quite frankly,
just does not
matter anymore.

gd
As if I remember the tiny parts of you, but when I step back to witness the whole, you become nothing but a blur - a faded memory that just keeps deteriorating.
(21st century pearly white prosthetics,
restored jaw bar wah key)

Aye noel hunger bristle,
and when false teeth soak at night
     in tandem with stubby ****** gristle
har reckon noah kisses

     far me under mistle
toe, which prickly stubble
     ma home grown thistle
the downside being, not one
     chic chick, foxy gal
     can I sound cat call whistle.

All those years I underwent
     orthodontic care for naught
cuz profound gum recession
     and bone dissolution
(advanced periodontal disease)

     found me fraught
with angst riddled necessity,
     whence dentures bought
and brought emotional relief,
     where financial cost to me equaled aught.

Though grievous o'er grandiose
     diet of baby food – reg gar agit
tay shun rubs raw rib bill bit
subject recently queried fit
ting lee (tummy eldest sister)
     now answered with true grit

sans state 'o me health
     of body, mind and spirit
yea...yea...with the following
     poe whet tics *** writ.

Ten re guard ding learn'n tuck
     cap cha current day coup page
with collage of words that best
attempt to convey how one feels
after half dozen teeth removed,

yes, that day of departure fur remaining
lower teeth transpired countless
months ago with gums sorely adjusted
dats da tooth full testament to grinning,
and bearing final surrender
of thine bottom choppers.

Twas not with glee this dear bro
did accept fate, and now twitters like crow
adjusting new sans parabolic learning curve
     to talk where speech
     formerly akin to blob of dough

being formless, yet with for
     rest full gumption resignation
to these extractions did flow
into mine psyche (with twinge
     of accursed displease), boot go

to the University of Pennsylvania
     Dental School and heave I've hen ***,
this scrivener and regular joe
tried to find silver lining ya noun owe
removal of upper teeth from those
less than five centimeters below.

Long since scheduled
     about four bajillion weeks
(in the past, and relegated tummy
     personal dustbin of history)

     i.e. aboot Bad Jillian deux fortnight
found yours truly unable to reef er
     to the skin of my teeth,
yea this circumstance
     doth null hunger **** n bit

'though once dentures fitted,
     thee psychological gloom
(per maxillofacial situation)
   with relief insurance
     picked up tab breathes
     sigh of relief all day'n height.

if hi ignored grim state
     of vital accessories to chew
this har chap experienced additional
molars, cuspids, canines...
     falling out though few
remained upon embarkation,
     per painful turn of events, grew
ling a smidgen less worse

     than getting tossed out hoo
chee coot chee mama into
     the freezing brutal cold
by none other than Donald Trump
     eskimo master of royal igloo,
while Sarah Ann aid ding howling winds
of n arctic monkey shape shifting
into polar vortex, wood dove probably
found me coo wing in deleterious
state of health thru and thru.

Other than the above
     Matthew Scott Harris feels great
well.... on the bright side -
     no need to brush nor floss,
when ma mouth opened ajar -
   bing permanently totally toothless -

     aye noel anger viz self hate,
hence nor feel inclined
     to master ventriloquism, boot
     axe hep oral void analogous
     newborn as innate
vis a visa discover ring
     joyus toothless state.
his woebegone **** dental daze today May 5th, 2021

No particular rhyme nor reason
garden variety indentured flunky (me)
revisits his salmagundi salad days,
when oral blight smote
left front adult tooth,
which hellacious quandary commenced
when yours truly experienced
broken said central incisor.

Inxs of cold playing air
froze natural pond, where over head
Canadian geese (imitating
black counting crows) did blare
honking the latest goose sip loud and clear
when from behind a (Georgian) bush
(color of smashing pumpkins) did peek a deer

alert to any danger by parking
upright either one or both ear
lest predator doth lurk and induce fear,
while Harris Family and friends
oblivious among themselves
attired in wintry gear
which protection from cold
caused difficulty to hear

necessitating cupped gloved hands
to punctuate every muffled word
to be but barely heard
akin to talking with mouth full of custard
above the quiet riotous mirth
from this then gawky child nerd
precariously maintaining balance
on his skates heed glide like a bird
such attempts made
this boy didst appear quite absurd

ah, if only this mind of mine
did two step quick think
but woe misfortune awaited
across the bumpy natural rink
blithely jettisoning myself hither
and yon like a rolling stone going plink
unaware while in camouflage pose
disguised as one sneaky slippery fink
that snuck up in a blink

that found me squarely
face down shattering left front tooth
immediately discovered via
tongue as private sleuth
finding me in extreme agitated state forsooth
as if on fire from red hot chili peppers
wrought from jagged booth

winning sympathy from parents,
who did level best to tend distraught son
who ushered playback of events
with less disastrous rerun
praying for an angel
to grant reverse outcome brought none
gut wrenching grief
immediately terminated former fun
damage irreversible and
perfect white smile forever broke.

So much of my precious existence since
found me rooted with mouth ajar
as sigh asper the dentin-cementum
so mud dear reader (with dem perfect
enameled pearly whites), aye har bar
envy for those with a complete set

of eight incisors, four cuspids (i.e. canines),
eight bicuspids, and twelve molars
(including four wisdom teeth) tabulating
many hours in the car (engendering
saddle sore bony tuckus)
plus regarding chunk whereat,

pernicious cementum funk
viz distraught psyche,
when muss self as a lil monk
key decades after being examined
by family dentist Doctor Marcus (NOT WELBY),
excellent practitioner (button irate pulp pill

people, especially children) hater –
the grinchy, grouchy, and grumpy,
whose private practice located
in Levittown, Pennsylvania,
and when prepubescent self underwent

pertinent more explicit focused
intense noninvasive procedures
asper subsequent cause of speech impediment
determined why air didst jump

thru nostrils, (speech therapist
at Henry Kline Boyer),
neither thin nor plump informed parents
of Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic –
fifty plus miles one direction),

where chief prosthodontist (the curt
Doctor Mohammad N. Mazaheri, DDS, an Iranian
whose expert reputation,
sans strict manner didst trump
his aura, karma evincing clipped commands
forceful as a vocal whump

before launching into meat and potatoes
of crux comprising real aim
constituting modus operandi
(and cresting away from details indirectly tide
into main intent, nobody aye blame)
for thine dental debacle quandary

(managed by gumpshun,
whereby eons hyperbolically
toted beyond google),
and despite optimistic stance
wool worth anesthetized numb skull claim
nascent malocclusion faintly affecting,

hinting, pointing toward Periodontitis
(despite diligence attending
to oral hygiene frame)
the manifestation
of major looming crisis compromising,
forgoing, instigating, et cetera loss of teeth,

this (after agony in league with separate occasions
twice wearing braces, concomitant extractions
of wisdom and removal of crowdsourcing –
close up toward the front of mouth teeth - game
some microbial bacterial
agent provocateurs didst maim

self-acceptance, and (found thyself
as a boyish twenty something
weathering onset of gum recession,
maxillofacial surgery, impressions,
x rays galore, scaling)

necessitated (score years later) urgent intervention
i.e. treatment plan under auspices
re storied name
University of Pennsylvania
Dental School to mitigate malady

entailed every last tooth plucked with ease
since no other recourse could tame
accompanying jaw bone loss,
which destabilized rootless choppers,
and despite the state of the mind turning to pulp
(this haint no “fiction, nor FAKE)

thus I acknowledge sincere gratitude
vis a vis thru poetic aire
for the entire fleet of dental students,
and staff that didst care,
who assuaged distress,
exceeding the best expertise flair
which eventually warranted

being fitted for dentures here
bringing an exemplary end result
encompassing yours truly writing in his lair
after about a dozen years encompassing
so many wing (bitten) angels far and near
across webbed wide world to help repair

chronic distress minimized now, cuz there
prevailed the most blessed delight
when Medicare picked up the tab
now smile more willingly
with artificial dental wear
donning blitz end until
mine last mortal year.
Onoma Sep 2024
a curved stony enclosure whose seawall gives
way to hulking cliffs--with chiseled ramparts
akin to bottom cuspids.
standing before foldable reflections--aside from
the accelerating interpolation of sea-clouds, prone
to negatives.
the guiding intelligence of a flood cupped by an
isle that is unmet with a return.
its interior of entryways are desolate modulators
of tides.
as the two main entrances to the isle set stone apart,
the first as ruggedly cut indicators--the second as
altar-immaculatus blocks.
its baselevel of algae--fed by browning runoffs of rain,
along cracks filled with ivy.
leading into cypress trees expecting late visitors, with
an adamance that gives an odd calm to the out-of-place.
though they unnaturally crowd & surpass their enclosure,
with a tingle of wildflowers anticipating them.
making a point of something, already at its most advanced
stage--withholding a shade solid enough not to have been
under a burning phos.
come the skewed vision of a boat, progressing in the way
of water.
the sea peering at the back of the void's head, as it's shone
upon.
the forward tilt of a boatman's oared tension--stiffly even
keel, with enough momentum to float to the isle.
the boat becomes sensationless...the figure in the white
shroud knows nothing else but what is about to transpire.      
as if Lazarus dazedly brought to his feet, remaining there
for all the world.
the only thing that the cypress trees can see, as take into
their shade the coffin.
*Isle of the Dead, is a painting by Swiss Symbolist artist: Arnold Bocklin.

— The End —