"distended" poems
ANGEL!*
Angel of the dark,
My night is lone-ly
-and I'm distended,
still find me comely?
Our world's upended.
Such a pressure
pres-sure of pain
Where is Lion?
I miss his mane.
ANGEL!
Angel of the dark,
Spirit of night
holder of the mark.
Such a pressure
pressure of the pain.
Long dead my lion...
-no comfort-ting
ANGEL!
Angel of the dark,
ANGEL!
Angel of the dark,
Invite no pressure here
take away my pain.
Only a child soon
-only a name.
ANGEL!
Angel of the dark!
ANGEL!
Angel of the dark!
SPIRIT OF NIGHT
i l l u m i n t a t e d mark.
LONG DEAD MY LION
fall away my heart,
-still I have you angel...
MY ANGEL OF THE DARK!
-still I have you angel...
*My Angel of the dark.
Feb 1, 2018
Feb 1, 2018 at 10:54 PM UTC
In the divet between mountains
Resides a wooden cabin – ostensibly an amalgamation of the scape
Adroitly - I - quondam female warrior flit
Down massive (ancient) hand-laid, hand-cut carved stone steps
Bounding from contingent step onto the dense pad of turned soil
Tacit compliance between gravity and soil holds footprints bound
A compressed deflating crescendo as pace ignites with bounds
Cadences of protuberant wildflowers and grasses erupt from swollen terra
A winsome chromatic menagerie, dispersed in ecstatic fistfuls
A venerably ancient ritual
My nascent clandestine vocation
Personally meted out - a beatification for my provisional sanctuary
Along glacier-fed stream
Lissome fingers shadow inert stalks –plucking dormant beginnings from their desiccated ligaments
I am austere and unadorned save for a festoon of pyrite flecks trailing my semblance
Residual gilding from my ante-meridian swim taken after requisite gathering of wild blackberries, goose berries, and rhubarb along oft-tamped path
The sun, nestling into its requisite apex endorsed my completion
I reclined into the hassock of soil, feeling the elements settle about with an embossment of my form
Imposing verdure arched subtly as compressed soil beckoned hyperbolic flux
As I lay within the basilica of opulent living columns replete with comestible bounty
Lingering dew honed inflections of sacrosanct petrichor in unison with piquant clover
Wild purple clover buds saccharinely tinted and inundated nestled nerves in mine cribriform plate
Birds pitched and galloped through the frond tips and beyond in the lapis expanse
Frequently snatching damselfly’s and assemblages of midges from their ephemeral drift
Auspicious rays transcended stippled diaphanous gravid clouds
Light inundated ether entered humbly into the cathedral oculus
Pyrite speckled terrain beneath, and my bare gilded form above
Cast a refracted aura about my sanctuary
Precipitously the elusive vaporous embankment distended further
Ashen atmospheric correspondence inaugurated liquescent sustenance to my mountain abode
And I -
Lingered beneath the descending gobbets, curls furled in a puddle
Fresh topsoil cupping my corporal topographic contours
Pressing blackberries into my mouth between smiles
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
My dearest Frank, I wish you joy
Of Mary's safety with a Boy,
Whose birth has given little pain
Compared with that of Mary Jane —
May he a growing Blessing prove,
And well deserve his Parents' Love! —
Endow'd with Art's and Nature's Good,
Thy Name possessing with thy Blood,
In him, in all his ways, may we
Another Francis WIlliam see! —
Thy infant days may he inherit,
They warmth, nay insolence of spirit; —
We would not with one foult dispense
To weaken the resemblance.
May he revive thy Nursery sin,
Peeping as daringly within,
His curley Locks but just descried,
With 'Bet, my be not come to bide.' —
Fearless of danger, braving pain,
And threaten'd very oft in vain,
Still may one Terror daunt his Soul,
One needful engine of Controul
Be found in this sublime array,
A neigbouring Donkey's aweful Bray.
So may his equal faults as Child,
Produce Maturity as mild!
His saucy words and fiery ways
In early Childhood's pettish days,
In Manhood, shew his Father's mind
Like him, considerate and Kind;
All Gentleness to those around,
And anger only not to wound.
Then like his Father too, he must,
To his own former struggles just,
Feel his Deserts with honest Glow,
And all his self-improvement know.
A native fault may thus give birth
To the best blessing, conscious Worth.
As for ourselves we're very well;
As unaffected prose will tell.
Cassandra's pen will paint our state,
The many comforts that await
Our Chawton home, how much we find
Already in it, to our mind;
And how convinced, that when complete
It will all other Houses beat
The ever have been made or mended,
With rooms concise, or rooms distended.
You'll find us very snug next year,
Perhaps with Charles and ***** near,
For now it often does delight us
To fancy them just over-right us.
5.3k
Sanguine
Choleric
Melancholic
Phlegmatic
Phlegmatic
Melancholic
Choleric
Sanguine
Blood oranges
And hibiscus tea
White wine
Carcrash memory
Hypertensive
He straps me down on the table
This is for my own good.
Too much blood they say,
Too much red wine too much liquid
Too much
My hand is swollen
My stomach distended
The vein in my forehead is bulging
Too much blood
A needle
A leech
A pen
Blood oranges
White wine
A needle is a leech is a pen
Is what the doctor ordered
He straps me to the desk
This is for my own good
A cure
Too much blood
Too much tea
Too many memories
Too many thoughts
Hypertensive
Sanguine
They say
They hand me the scalpel
And show me the line
Too much
I’ve had too too much red wine
To be doing this
A pen a leech a needle
A bucket of blood
A novel
Sanguine
Melancholic
Choleric
Phlegmatic
This is the cure
This is for my own good
Too much much blood
They hand me the pen
I’ve had too too many
Blood oranges
To be doing this
A scalpel is a pen
Is a leech is a needle
A bucket of blood is a novel
(Bleeding is the cure)
I bleed.
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 2:58 PM UTC
Brought forth from a darkness so secure, baby boy relentless in the pursuit of education gazed upon the egg shell walls and sterile environment.
Breathing as if it were natural.
A construction of steel and concrete was the new cocoon , the window was an eye to a neoteric world. Bright white lights shone from within and a dull foreboding cloud loomed beyond the glass for the child to appreciate.
Mother exhausted collapsed sighing. She is the antidote to all that is evil, she is the mother to the world. A usually stick-thin figure now distended but leisurely relaxing.
Nursing her son as if it were natural.
Swooning nurses swaddle infants, the original factory workers. Substantial days grafting, workhorses prancing throughout aseptic halls.
The heroines of our world.
A tribe appears from dust clouds, over the dunes, panting, half-alive. Heavenly Ethiope arriving in time for the world to begin. Tumescent in her ecclesiastic luminescence bearing a King destined to travel great distances primed for expulsion from the cimmerian safety of the womb.
The seas of the earth accumulate before the small band of tall-standing creatures of exquisite anthropomorphism. Creatures from across the great unexplored continent at the centre of our world gathered in frenzied crowds. The Elephants marched in earth shattering herds, the lions of the Savannah put aside their differences and sat amongst the wild dogs of Ethiopia and the grévy's zebra, the dibatag stood and eagerly waited. Shrews, mice, gazelle, otters, cheetahs and giraffes all surrounded the tribe. Taking a silent vow and allowing stewardship to be passed along to a new generation.
Every mother is the mother of the earth. Her earth, the personal concept of earth that only she may understand.
Both children are connected by the planet they learn to walk upon. Connected by a thousand generations but connected nonetheless. They are one and the same. Each bought into a world in which they have no knowledge, each merely a slate eager to be scrawled upon by the elders of this fine rock.
Jan 12, 2013
Jan 12, 2013 at 9:53 PM UTC
Passover Moon's
****** hue
eclipses
the ordinary
in veils of
miraculousness
obscure
rouge
halos
illume
elliptical arcs
guiding
footsteps in
a righteous
exodus
across
troubling
waters
forsaking
hovels
with
painted
doorjambs
dripping
lambs blood
Mezuzahs
bleat
memories
holy
murmurs
bespeaking
lamentations
of ancient
hosannas
our
desperate
supplications
flesh out a
distressed
humanity
seeking
deliverance
from the
vengeance
is mine
Elohim
may it
be nigh
we wait
watching for
an always faithful
Good Deliverer
to honor the
covenant
to lift
despair
with a
liberating
yoke
lugging
leaden
burdens
Oh Holy
of
Holies
banished
in the wisp
of a bitter herb
our
distended
bellies
fill with
unleavened
grace
sweet
droplets
of manna
consumed
with extreme
gratitude
arriving
at journeys
end to
promised
lands
fully
satiated
and free
to rest in
sanctuaries
of radical
hospitality
luxuriating
in an infinite
abundance
for all
sojourners
Selah
Music Selection:
Big Mama Thornton
Go Down Moses
Oakland
4/15/14
jbm
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 5:15 PM UTC
Blackened tides crash down upon my shores
And I'm swept away by an opaque shape
Taking a form that I can see less and more
With each passing wave
The sun becoming a distended silhouette
Obscured by the disembodied figure
Taking me deeper
Tugging my heart strings like a marionette
I feel lighter and less real,
Then a surreal glow engulfs me
And I'm suddenly pulled from my puppetry
I feel the sun finally
And it's you
A beacon of light from the depths
An exquisite view
A soul with all the shattered pieces
That align perfectly with mine
Now that I've discovered what peace is
I'm enamored as our hearts intertwine
By some grand design you've made me better
Together we will shine, now and forever
Aug 10, 2021
Aug 10, 2021 at 4:53 AM UTC
distended the pearls are red and uncovered
upon my mistakes. erasure taunts.
something stirs unbidden strangely
familiarity dissolves in tears
suddenly distant the sun streaks
through the black waves
nothing works anymore
- Vijayalakshmi Harish
02.01.2013
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
Jan 2, 2013
Jan 2, 2013 at 5:03 AM UTC
raise the glass high high high and press hard high,
a blue and cherry ring round rosy thigh,
snapped red sting of infected eye and tooth strung on string.
broken wing crunches, candid cries let tears fly
in desperate persecution.
red
sticky red and beautiful
flesh-fly's food becomes a diamond wing,
flying in swirling skies of glitter.
The world looks better through a kaleidoscope.
claw the eyes out out out and spit stress out,
a crooked view on nose and cheeks and pout
deep blue rows on distended snout as swollen skin grows.
drunken woes crunch and broken knuckles shout
in hasty intemperance.
blue
puffy blue and beautiful
deep stout bruises becomes a diamond glow
spinning in burst vein's woes of glitter.
The world looks better through a kaleidoscope.
dump the body down down down and pat dirt down,
a stealthy sin of spite and muddy frown,
**** green sight of a ***** crown hidden in the night.
swirls of light break thoughts up to run around
in crude decomposition.
green
sickly green and beautiful
dirt-drowned flesh becomes diamond sprites,
dancing in wormy gowns of glitter.
The world looks better through a kaleidoscope.
May 9, 2011
May 9, 2011 at 12:42 PM UTC
Did it take us long to walk over to the broken people,
Letting our compassion change us for a while,
I have not become a saint with an act of kindness,
I am still looking for my oasis in this wasteland,
Everything else is a passing breeze.
The sorrow that filled them in those dark hours
Was my elixir, as I walked forward,
writing my testimonies in the lives I meet on my way.
I have felt grains of sand with my fingertips, my blood
is fatigued, in its course through my flesh,
My veins are distended, toughened, and yet,
They do not tear, and this limbo between
Pain and liberation is Peace within a calamity.
My soliloquy is a bare rasping breath of wind,
Coursing through the streets which led home once,
But are now the lanes of memory, stale in their impotence,
Stinging in their truth, that my existence left behind marks
in the water I bathed in, in the bed I slept in,
in the books I read, which I held,
in the bandages I bled, over the wounds I tried to heal.
On the flag I tried to save, I have wept, Longing
for this journey to end, so I may rest a while.
The diseased have suffered their sickness with stoicism.
I have tried to heal them, succeeded,
failed with a few,
and wondered in the power of Mortality.
My oasis lies in the peaks of the wasteland, I can see it now,
A haze, a sliver of sunlight in this dark wasteland,
Past this murky slush of relationships,
Beyond the cliffs of defeat, and past the rivers
Of Self-loathing criticism.
Feb 21, 2015
Feb 21, 2015 at 11:21 AM UTC
i can still see you there,
some delirious and shining thing
a beautiful ******* with your
lips puckered, your
cupids bow winking in and out of view
sweet for me, i
feel your mouth in my hair
some kind of ghost kiss
whispering something to me,
breath soft on my brow
i can't read as well as you,
darling
i can't read a thousand things and
still have room for more, my
belly distended with the words, my
heart bleeding for it
my golden swan, did i steal you?
did i break into the giant's home and whisk you away,
little bird? i
feel the sugar on your skin
steam rising from the crooks of your limbs
smiling, a gaping gorgeous maw
head pushed back, knees scraping against
the frozen wall
so pretty i might have dreamed you, maybe
is there any version of this where
i don't end up bleeding? (probably not;
but it'll be a lovely fall down)
Dec 27, 2015
Dec 27, 2015 at 11:45 PM UTC
Every misused glass of water,
Every slight at sons and daughters,
Every successful missile test,
Cars idling, cows lowing,
All the chemtrails we don't see blowing,
Every dent, every theft, every lie and mocking jest,
Can't be held tight to the chest.
Distended stomachs, cardboard boxes,
Soup kitchens and needy churches,
Gay slamming and alternate choices,
These and more need our voices.
Add the carbon in our air,
Two-headed frogs warning, Beware,
The paltry state of our bees,
The fires devouring our noble trees,
The motors on our inland lakes,
These and more will not wait.
All that crawls, swims or wings,
All of us and everything,
Is everything to all,
There's no time to hesitate,
For I am the aggregate.
Aug 15, 2017
Aug 15, 2017 at 11:56 AM UTC
chains rattle and hiss
they slide and slither around my feet
poisonous serpents i cannot escape
twisting my steps into unknown paths
foiling my legs, movements truncated
falling to my knees, they climb
screaming, incoherent rage, wordless struggles
and they whisper
whisper
whisper
WHISPER
of codes and consequences
of right and wrong
breathless i scream in silent wrath
jaw distended, creaking
they wrap up my unsaid words
force their way down my throat
chaining tight my beating heart
beating
beating
beating
bea....
Peace.
Apr 19, 2014
Apr 19, 2014 at 12:30 AM UTC
I struggle
To be back in this place again
Warily treading a gorgeously uncomfortable river
Of crashing beauty
And the shivering memories of devastating pain.
I press my hands to the cold car window
And I let this landscape of thoughts roll through me
Dense and flat
Like the low-lying valley fog flirting with the evergreens.
The beauty rinses me clean for a few hours
Absolves my blue beating heart
Of a loneliness that falls and puddles within me
Like soft rain.
The cold smell of snowy pine is sharp
Like the crack of a whip in the white metal air.
A distended azure sky swells to fill the heavens
Smelling sweetly of snow and wind.
Wind hums gently through dense, endless miles
Of storybook forests
And my heart shudders inside me
As though it has never been touched before.
It is then that I let myself wander to you
And I feel your last kiss
Burning softly on the lips of the woman
Reflected vaguely back at me in the window.
She waits for you, as I do
Both of us dwelling in two cities so different
That a wide and courageous fjord
Holds them forever apart.
I wait for you
Life's brave soldier
Eyes that still my soul
Arms of kind and gentle steel
Heart of gold and purple and blue
Kiss of waterfall and wildfire.
Come home to me.
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 10:02 PM UTC
A billiard table imprints its damp shadow
on a yellow wooden floor. The game still
unbegun, mere fragment of the sorrow
felt by the patrons whose wilted heads will
still be here tomorrow, if tomorrow comes.
Red walls distended by burning lamps
and burned out hearts beating blood through ear drums:
Reverie to the night god / Dreaming tramps
drowning in their heads in lakes of absinthe
color of the ceiling better than being
awake but indefinitely absent.
The lamps blink, eyes floating, speak all-seeing:
Vincent, let us meet before you entreat
the crows out of your head into the wheat.
Sep 16, 2020
Sep 16, 2020 at 10:33 AM UTC
The Process
There is the notion, the urging.
The first spilling, the self-congratulatory
Commencement ceremony for
The process.
Then there is the first short-pause,
a quick-freeze hibernation. Then,
The bubbling,
The querying, the special fear,
What have I started?
Where is it taking me,
Am I properly undressed for doing
T he process?
A new vocabulary,
an arm extended, but distended,
Words are all angled puzzled,
Capable of unity, but first,
Unshaped but swollen,
By the process.
Hatching, head-aching,
words arrive rushed, but disordered,
Confused by the process.
*{The exception has it own character.
One kingly, run-on sentence birthed,
After silent labor, a full poem, fully dilated,
A shocking head of hair, full developed,
So fast does "it" fall onto the paper
The obstetrician arrives too late
To process.}*
The exception, exceptional.
The normal, normative.
Twenty four hours of labor,
False starts, much screaming,
Painful joys, hardly seamless,
This process.
Distractions the enemy,
Compulsion the master,
As you choreograph the work,
In loving servitude to
The process.
You the doctor, insert probes,
Looking for the tumors, the out of ordinary,
For normal flesh is not of interest as part of
The process.
Finally, you do exhale,
With unique the pleasure, of the longest sweetest
Female ******
The breathing less labored,
Tho whole, sensing a diminish-meant to convey
That completion is the end of part of you,
The near-end of the continuum, lessened but continuing
The process.
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 6:51 AM UTC
Even with the mood lighting inside
this lethargy induced spiced chai
I find these things elusive
like good cell phone pictures of concerts
or, dare I say, a happy poet.
Despite generations of artistic indulgence
I find these things apathetic
androgynous, as it were
with indiscernible discrepancies drawing
daft conclusions from the quick-sought eye.
I too struggle to find the truth behind the lines.
I craft as though I know my medium.
I create broad sweeping arcs across
my own right side brain
but see them smudged and distorted, distended,
dripping their dynamics through the cracks in my floorboards.
Cinnamon vanilla maple ginger
shots at first class from coach
and here on my three foot throne
I squander the warmth of my ******* latte.
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 3:25 PM UTC
His hair is poofed, 8 out of ten
Teeth polished soft white
Back is naired, nails all clipped
Underwear still clean
He is bouncy and blathy
A brassy baritone rips across the set
Co-anchor all Xanaxed and blonded
Can’t feel her glowing red mouth
About to show their favourite clips
Starving umber skinned babies
Distended bellies, chopstick arms
Fly clouded eyes, light fading
Mothers with vacant grey faces
Collapsed buildings, bodies sprawled
Terrified animals dying
Video Head man turns to the camera
Mouths the teleprompter tales
Without meaning
Can’t feel his heartbeat
He’s thinking about his *********
Of 17 year old Crack babes locked in his suite
‘N Just as he starts to get jazzed up
The lights go down and he knows
He knows
He’s just a digital clown
FFFTTT…
The electrons are gone.
Songs of the Illustrated Zombies 2010
Nov 10, 2011
Nov 10, 2011 at 5:04 PM UTC
it was the
summer
of 13
when a city
consumed in a
Cronut crazed
heat wave
amped
the tenderloin
slicing the underbelly
of Hell's Kitchen
packing meat for
Russian oligarchs
pouring fistfuls
of petrol rubles
down the
thirsty gullets
of glutinous
developers
their distended
bellies welling
with aching
avarice
from an
extended
stay at an
All You Can Eat
zero interest
smorgasbord
courtesy of
Uncle Sam’s Diner
somewhere off the
West End
getting fat
on the land
reclaimed
and rebuilt
on the dust
and detritus
of an expired
Great Society
Bloomie's metropolis
rising on the rubble
of razed neighborhoods....
the vertical leaps
shooting ever upward
the heady windows
framing portraits
of endless replication
offering the amenities
of the vain comfort
found in ghettos of
soulless high rises
and the billowing
gray perspective
of blanched out
street cafes
brewing $9 lattes
and big box
boutiques busy
busking the
latest rage
of sweat repelling
yoga mats and
wearable apps
America’s Mayor
Giuliani paved the way
he arrested all
the squeegee men
confiscated their Windex
dumped it down
the sewers and filled all
vacancies at Rikers
a year after Sandy
rolled up the Hudson
breaching the banks
of West Street
licking the streets
clean of urban
flotsam the
surging boom
bloomed
Bloomie bankrolled
a red carpet
for his global
fraternity of
plutocrats
unleashing a
tsunami of
shekels
washing away
the fading
memories of
Captain Sully’s
cool headed
lunch pail
heroism proving
that 727’s can
walk on water
was now passe
Lou Reed
left town
the wild side
monetized by
the belching
banality of
Urban Hipsters
millennial
babes in toy land
embarked on an endless
shopping spree
where credit limits
never expire and
giddy narcissism
greased with entitlement
orders up room service
as the next course
in this endless
movable feast
Music Selection
Philip Glass
The Hours
9/8/13
NYC
jbm
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 2:50 PM UTC
Distended or disgusting,
too big never flat enough
our bellies dictate our worth;
bigger means money for food,
but not enough money for lipo.
Smaller means either
a) good genes
b) exercise
c) eating disorder.
Why oh why must we all be so enslaved
to our belly sizes?
It frustrates me to be frustrated with my belly
it never did anything wrong,
it's just not as flat as my 100 pound classmates
but it's still lovely.
It still digests food, and has a special little button to remember my birth.
Why must we hate these bellies so?
May 28, 2012
May 28, 2012 at 2:44 PM UTC
YES. my simple biceps are purring perfectly slick immobile death
rictus wearing skulls. i needle my flesh and ink it and make it pretty
the smiling violence of my triceps
bulge distended arcs of fists. ladling terrifically through stale
air mingling vibrant vibrations
calm tigers of effortless dream making darkness my arms dance and
jolt pleasurably and every body loves
the infliction of their splendid pain;they roar and combust
suddenly at the night crafting carpals imbued to my wrists
jouncing and blustery voices thrash from throats
they love it
they love it they love it
i
'll do it some more
Sep 1, 2010
Sep 1, 2010 at 2:56 PM UTC
Not until you can see the pain in our eyes, the scars on our skin, the protruding ribs and distended stomachs of malnourishment, till you can gape at small black bodies disfigured by kwashiorkor and colonization, till you can gasp at people that don’t look like you being branded like cattle, like animals on their way to the slaughterhouse
(and thank goodness we’ve come so far, things used to be so bad)
Not until you can marvel at the mottled marks of a whip, the black and blue bruising only white hands can inflict, till you can shake your head at teens boldly drinking under a whites only sign, till you can cover your mouth and peek through fingers at the water hoses, the dogs, the guns, the blood— black blood on black bodies in black and white photographs
(and you inwardly sigh, relieved that it was so long ago and so far away)
Not until you can retweet teenagers face to face with riot gear and tear gas, till you can shake your head and show that you’re different because your black studies class told you so, till you can give a 40 character message about how sickening the violence is, but you keep watching the videos of him her him her him her him her him her
them
shot choked kicked punched beaten whipped slapped
killed
by government sanctioned executioners
Not until you can see everything but understand nothing
Always have to be ugly raw hurting bleeding suffering
Why can’t we be smiling laughing eating dancing breathing
Why can’t we be smiling
Why
Feb 4, 2020
Feb 4, 2020 at 1:21 PM UTC
my mind frays in poisson distribution.
small remnants of your heat invade my chest
like shrapnel. the moths lose constellations
to buzzing lamps that light our careful rest.
we cup our heat in folds of fragile flesh
the way the oysters do––these streets are queer,
don’t bear our weight correctly. pavements thresh
small bones out from our soles. they **** ants here––
the sacrifice of insects builds our nest.
air mixes carefully, distended by
the probability of night. the breaths
are small and incendiary,
but dawn means i’ll grow tall and be again
human and able to understand pain.
Dec 23, 2012
Dec 23, 2012 at 10:24 PM UTC
Maria's mom
had an ***
A nice
peach.
The kind that made
Maria
uncomfortable,
because her mother wore
green bikinis
to the grocery store
and bought
every green thing,
even the hard bananas
that wouldn't be soft
for months.
in the lime bikini,
the creases
of her upper thighs
were places
where men wanted to put
their tongues.
Maria's mother
was a
thirty-seven year old
milk-skinned
body.
And other than
the green bikini
she wore
the black skirt.
When her mother
wore the black skirt
it made men
want to slide fingers
up the black hemisphere
and feel for the rabbit
in between her thighs,
to feel the magic
of soft
stomach flesh
and a still-tight
almost hermetic
***
Maria's mother,
called Ms. Herrera
by Maria's boyfriend,
resumed the old name
Judy
in the mirror.
She spent long, distended moments
in front of that
mirror
in the black dress,
watching the folds of fabric
slide.
Although her stomach
was starting to sag
and she could hold
the flesh
in between
an index
and
a thumb,
She could still take solace
in the still-tight
gift;
the one part of her body
that she could turn her back to
while it gave her
gracious returns;
It was a capsule of the past:
intact,
still vital
and still
hers.
Maria's mother
wore those tight black dresses,
g-strings
and bikinis to the grocery store,
because they were
relics.
Maria was a relic,
but not the kind
that made her mother
still
feel pretty
or young
or at least
valuable.
Nov 23, 2011
Nov 23, 2011 at 10:28 PM UTC
can’t be sure.
can’t be sure.
can’t be sure that it’s dead until its heart is in your hand
can’t be sure that you’ve won until the competition is all dead,
hearts in your hands,
can’t be sure so don’t turn your back on the bodies.
can’t be sure(surety: n; the state of being sure
surety: n; certainty
surety: n; ground of safety
surety: n; is when it’s all over
when the moment is crumpled at your feet
and the guts of the present are clenched in your hands
like the trophy you’ve ached for since the past.
surety: n; is when it’s all over
when you bleed wax from the candles in your chest
and the ball ends so abruptly
chandeliers clinking over fallen dancers.
surety is when it’s all over,
the jig is up and the game has been played
and all the characters are dead on the stage
but the fool who gives the final line.
surety you’re sure,
because your hands have grown now so large,
rolling knuckles and long fingers
enough to hold all the strings
and now you know what they meant when they told you watch out for the puppeteer
[[it’s you, it’s you,
you’re the puppeteer and the malevolent god,
you’re the one that they told you stories about at night,
the one that pulls naughty children to bits
and laughs at the good children because *how long will that last,
how long before you’re stealing and murdering and ****** and*]]
surety you’re sure,
starving with a distended gut
the guts of the present too insubstantial when what you want is
to eat blind justice whole
surety you sure are pretty,
prettiest hangman i ever did see
a noose and a knot, we can waltz all night long,
sing me the convict,
the convict’s song
surety it’s sure to be,
surety it’s sure -
the universe has ways of getting what it wants,
has ways of dragging everything it hates
down to its gut
to rot and die at the bottom of the universe.
to rot and die in a pile of stardust.
survival’s a game and you’re losing fast,
but ********* if you’re going down you’re going down swinging,
you’re going down with cracking skulls
and you’ll take the world down with you.
surety you’re sure to leave
the world in a pile of stardust.
surety you’re sure to be
the killer in the operahouse:
the best and the brightest shot through the throat before they can sing the last verse,
because the end is always the worst part,
the conclusion where all the worries are ended because they never tell you how
the villain hung himself from loneliness.
the hero died purposeless with no-one to oppose.
so don’t end until you end it right
don’t end until you tell the ******* TRUTH.
death is not grand and ****** and beautiful.
death is the pathetic puff of stardust
stirred up by your last breath
as you rot and die in the gut of the universe.
surety you’ll show them how
the universe meant to die
and blind justice weighs your heart.)
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 12:54 AM UTC