"dredged" poems
Stumbling into ancient scripts, authored a decades plus ago,
ago being a modifier of time quantities, minute or large, unspecific
without an objective adjective additive, that faucets a stream of an interlocutory elocution of a batter of rooted emotional histories,
but not histrionics
fanciful words for dredged up memories, acute, but tarnished,
powered yet worn by a cousin of ago, a/k/a,
age
and yet
renews as of,
at this very second, as if it were a first, a tumult of visions, swelling of remembrances, embodied scars, and I weep anew but not
for me, as much for the resonating simpatico souls with whom
they even now vibrate with resonance of the immediacy of
If not now, When?
Aside: The exterior environment is noisy wet pelting of thunderstorms and ****** sheets of bulleting rain, piercing projectiles, but I am safe in the sunroom, sadly happy my dog is no longer here to shiver and tremble, cuddle and be soothed by steady stroking
But I am here, wrestling with this dredging operation, digging up
tons of sand that require dumping, and I ask, inquire, beg:
Who will take this detritus off my hands, once more, now uncovered,
now recovered, the soil is already soaked and can absorb no more,
the soul is already soaked and can absorb no more, the weakened
heart, damaged and occluded, suffer cannot bare twice the
outrageous misfortune
of unbared recollections, twice, or thrice, and I feel myself drowning in revisiting pain, **** **** **** these old poems, not nuggets, but boulders dropping from night skies, shot from a pitching machine, without letup, piercing of agonies that once ago
freshly desecrated and decorated my basic training in humanity.
Enough whining:
*I wrote those poems to
eject out those pains,
and I write this now, once more,
to realize that so so many still face
uncertain and unrelenting similarities,
doing their own sums,
and I wish them easing,
strength to compose and
thereby dispose of
the ineloquent
and eloquent
words of staining suffering*
3:30am
Thur
July 10
2025
Jul 16, 2025
Jul 16, 2025 at 5:39 PM UTC
Oh architects of concrete
How you have stolen my plains
And dredged my soul
The Falcon hovers in vain
And the Hare has no hope
While you swing you clubs
For glory and embrace the
Walls filled with accolades
All at nature's dire expence
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 1:30 PM UTC
There was a pirate who came from afar
Who sank his ship for a h'penny o' tar
He had a scar on his cheek,
Gold in his teeth
And like Prabhu, a thing for the noir
There was a vicar from Kent
Who gave up religion for lent
He enjoyed a spree
Of being un-holy
Nobody knows where he went
For the tourists to impress
She wore traditional dress
She liked the grass skirt
And the flowery shirt
But the coconut bra caused distress
One of the tourists she knew
Was really enjoying the view
He bought her a drink
Tickled her pink
And said may I remove it for you?
The limerick man was on top
He was writing such a lot
The barrel he dredged
He lost his edge
And didn't know when to stop
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 12:17 PM UTC
I picked my emotions
out of the night sky,
and dredged up my guilt
from the wine dark sea:
packed them into a suitcase
with socks,
and that old wool sweater.
I stepped off the plane
into the Miami swelter,
but for the first time
in to
a Miami
without you.
I watched the life fade out of you
like a tide slowly receding -
- inexorable, cold, without mercy.
I could sense you from afar
as your body fought a civil war
down in the depths
where it was too dark
too dark to see.
I am not sure if I want to say the bowels of hell
or just...
your bowels -
- I am not sure if there's a difference.
You waited there.
In a room filled with neon lighting
charts, beeping lights, and cords:
with nurses and strangers passing by
until life stole even you
from yourself.
Apr 22, 2018
Apr 22, 2018 at 2:00 AM UTC
We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell
Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.
Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime,
Kept slush waist-high and rising hour by hour,
And choked the steps too thick with clay to climb.
What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men
Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,
If not their corpses...
There we herded from the blast
Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last,
Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles,
And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping
And sploshing in the flood, deluging muck -
The sentry's body; then his rifle, handles
Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.
We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined
'O sir, my eyes - I'm blind, - I'm blind, I'm blind!'
Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids
And said if he could see the least blurred light
He was not blind; in time he'd get all right.
'I can't' he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids',
Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there
In posting Next for duty, and sending a scout
To beg a stretcher somewhere, and flound'ring about
To other posts under the shrieking air.
* * *
Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,
And one who would have drowned himself for good, -
I try not to remember these things now.
Let dread hark back for one word only: how
Half-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps,
And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,
Renewed most horribly whenever crumps
Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath, -
Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
'I see your lights!' But ours had long died out.
2.5k
To trust the rust wrought lemon husk
To edge the endeavour far beyond cussed
Weft warped kisses dress un-silken chest
Cleft clawed viscera separated not even
by breath.
Dust dredged surface beds descry all but
the separation of legs
our bodies dressed in skin and flesh
our eyes undress what was left
as feet fold right to our chest
Remembrance seeds your rosemary breath
An eternal path gained through worldly deft
As voids are filled like celestial nests
May 1, 2016
May 1, 2016 at 7:10 PM UTC
I cannot restore the lakes that teemed with fish,
nor the maples cultivated by the Mohawk,
the Adirondacks now more remote than boyhood,
a lost dark conversation with jejune oblivion.
Events became the storyline of my life,
and events were always stronger than resolve.
My journey took me inward without time schedule,
dredged up expediencies as layovers.
Still, I felt drawn to the people,
who bejeweled my dreams in neuron flashes,
became therapy, billboards along the escape route.
Turned out that vital knowledge would suffice.
Jun 1, 2012
Jun 1, 2012 at 10:02 AM UTC
I am the coy smiling handsome man
and my feet beat the darkness away when I rush.
And I rush, in the alleys, sightless,
an actor led by lines of wilting dialogue.
And jasmine litters the gutters, fit to be dredged, the
aroma and the petals streaked with reminiscence.
I rush. I am the man toward an apogee,
a scalpel, with tastes as keen as winter lavender,
and eyes that feel the weight of tastes behind them.
As I dredge the depths for rarer tastes
I rush toward the gutter.
And like the gutters I thirst, in the levees and fen-
In the fen the rush of prey caught
Idling fills the space inside my eyes like oil,
and I dredge the lake for traces.
I am the actor, the dredge, my wit rehearsed
and I am acquainted with the lady of the night.
I smile as she caresses my oily deluged eyes-
And her eyes are filled with bile,
accented by jasmine, even
in the dimmest light of
gutters are rushing to an
apogee, fiercer than I'd like them to
appear, but I am the scalpel, to incise the insincere-
I am the prince, an heir to exacting the coerced-
I watch her eyes like windows from the gutter like a vigil
and hold tight to her breath.
I pour her blood in paper cups
until her breath is weightless-
And I rush, an actor, in the scene that we portray-
I am the giver, the oily deluged eyes that close around the flesh
and rend the fruit from the rind.
Mar 27, 2010
Mar 27, 2010 at 12:52 PM UTC
after some time
and some distance
it's safe to say that
i love you
like a best friend,
and i can't describe
the relief that brings me.
my heartbeat
doesn't feel so painful,
not anymore,
and i breathe
so much easier
now that i know
i'll never have to write
another heartbroken word about you
ever again.
god, i love you still,
i really, really do;
but it's so much easier now,
not struggling to swim
through raging waves
under the weight of
expectations and assumptions,
hesitation and guilt
it's so much easier
to be in love with you
with almost none of the romance
that went with it before,
and i really hope that
you're okay with that,
because you promised me:
"you're enough", you said.
and it took every ounce of courage
dredged up
from the marrow of these aching bones
to trust you,
to believe you,
to dare to allow that someone―
that you―
could love me
unconditionally.
Aug 16, 2016
Aug 16, 2016 at 4:22 PM UTC
Everything is happening so quickly
so many negatives surpassing the
insignificant glimpse of positives
that never seem to suffice,
there’s always this light at the
end of the tunnel that everyone
speaks of, yet i continue to see darkness;
a journey down this long tunnel brings
no illumination but only a continuance
of nihility, the damp walls
seem to bring the chill humidity
closer and closer with each step,
the droplets echo the narrowing,
flickering lights dissipate at passing,
the gag sparking stench of sewage
and ***** make the voyage to
light even more unbearable than the
previous hesitant inching towards
the so called spoken about bearability of life,
sudden scintillations of light bring sight
of russet, worn doors, consecutively placed,
discoloured of crimson roadkill,
I open the first door and see a woman
tied and bound, gag in throat,
beads of sweat turning the white gag
to watered milk,
the dirt beneath her nails entwines with skin
and blood dredged by her own fingertips,
to front is a tray of what seems like
torture tools
*intrigued, I slam the door
and avoid a kiss
from Judas*
The next door, I open and see a man
sitting facing the corner,
wrapped in a flickering fan,
staring at a wall of carvings of ticks and dashes,
to see arms of cuts and gashes,
with a tray next to him
comprised of razors and knives
he sits picking at skin of bruises and hives,
tempted to grab the tool and corrode self,
with the reflection of whats within, I slam the door
and avoid
Finally the third door
eagerly stares to
me with anticipation boiling veins,
I press my ear to foreshadow,
I hear a cries; a man of hatred
and a woman of pain
I open the door and find a bottle of whiskey
I take a swig and feel as if Judas kissed me,
Within the third door; walls
with peepholes to confirm the calls
on the left I see the sliding knife
over-panting roadmaps of russet to
the neck of the bound woman,
the screams are deafening,
they present a vibration,
stuttering thoughts, and releasing the fixation,
prompting the admiration
to view the second door,
I see myself, in door 2
tremors and convulsions
seeing blood expel every vein
as the verticals
halt oxygen to the brain
Departure brings me
to the abysmal realm of society
where the burden of negativity
proves to provide no proof towards what
differs between the endless, narrow
tunnel-visioned cesspool of bone marrow
and psychosis driven visions and the
narrow pathed voyage of life.
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 1:37 PM UTC
There's alot of things that i think about now
that sends signals of pain to my head
When they pop up in random moments
fleeting moments of significant memories
I once held so dear.
But i can't think about them anymore
I'm not allowed to remember.
Remember how much i miss the color of your walls
deep red
And how long i spent looking up at them when we layed in your room
The way the sunlight came in and bounced off the walls
Giving your room an eery red glow
even though you never let me part the curtains.
Remember how much i miss your bed spread
how much comfier it was then mine
The amount of time we spent entangled in them watching movies and playing games
Kissing
touching
I feel you most when i'm alone
I feel your ghost still around.
Remember how much i miss having my fingers tangled in your hair
Or the way you were scared of being alone when it rained hard
When we went to the theme park for my birthday and we got on the ride i was terrified of
But you were so excited about it and so brave
so in some way
I enjoyed it more with you.
Definitely not allowed to remember when you took me on our first date
you made me try your salad and i almost puked
You got overexcited and tipped the waiter too much
Or the first time we ever met
on that really awkward double date and the awful
Photobooth picture with them
we were in the background of 2/4 of it
And i'm pretty sure that was my favorite worst picture of us ever
I wish i still had it.
That's right; I miss your euphonious voice in my ears
I miss the time we spent together
even if it was ephemeral
It was the best year of my life
I miss the corny photo we had that so many people thought was oh so charming
Every photo of us was really
we looked so clinquant next to each other,
Even though that was all just chimerical.
I miss it all
I have dredged up that word about you so many times it's almost sickening
How i've wanted only one person for so long the mere idea of someone else touching me makes me
Want to throw up
I miss your smile most of all
so much
It lit up the once so quiescent soul of mine
I feel like this longing for you will be sempiternal.
Can you miss someone so much it starts too circulate in your veins?
I guess sometimes someone gets under your skin and as much as you feel you must tear apart that part of yourself
No matter how many years have past
you feel if you ever did that you'd lose a part of yourself.
Well that part of me died a long time ago.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 1:59 AM UTC
Forlorn pleas, angst and aching laments,
Thick like a melange of surreptitiously smoked cigarettes,
And plastics that have melted and burned while too close to the heater.
The teen angst hangs in the depressions and around the corners of this place
Where it is damp and wet in the just-breaking morning.
Among the verdant green, earth-rupturing sprouts
There are flower buds that threaten to burst.
The spring landscape here reveals hewn timber,
And crafted structures
Yet also black loamy dirt
Dredged up from beneath the swollen green carpet
Of ferns and sod,
Marking the unmistakable path
Of an errant vehicle,
That skidded unexpectedly from the narrow road.
Aug 17, 2013
Aug 17, 2013 at 5:38 PM UTC
What is this poison,
that dims hope like light in a room,
caked with cigarette smoke?
The sour bath of sins
that spoils the fertility of our souls,
like the black sap,
clogging the crimson holes in our conscience.
What is this medication
that murmurs obediently in the tunnels
of your flesh like a blind fly trapped in an hourglass?
The thick soup that sinks the dredged
pulse of life as it croaks and awakens in
hesitation
for the next perpetual dawn.
A sign tacked like an eviction notice in the skulls
of your dreams, telling them:
“I’m sorry Sir, but for this magnitude of pain,
there is no cure.”
And still like an earthquake, death
trembles at your fingertips like an
old, worn man— asking, perpetually,
“When’s the next train to Calgary?”
I have not the guts to tell him
the smoke has held me
captive
all this time.
2011
Sep 12, 2012
Sep 12, 2012 at 4:01 PM UTC
Shaking the fur
off the holes in my skin,
microscopic, little dens
for every fox that comes my way.
They release,
instantly,
and I stand in the room,
bare and naked and bleeding and screaming
for the whole ******* world to
hear and hurt and hug and help and
love
me.
I'm crying and laughing and singing and dreaming
for the whole ******* school to
stop and see and sting and string
me
up
into the jewelry
wrapping their pretty,
little necks.
I am
inexpensive jewelry
to give to your
finest French *****
Read me like
one of your nudey books,
I'm just a spreadshotted eagling on the
bareskin rug,
bearbottomed with the brutish blues
of the bruises and the bites.
And maybe I
want to hide,
to run and whisper myself
into the secret,
hidden spots behind every
shadowy curtain--
but when you're up and out
and over and through
and wrapped around their evil,
little eyes,
there's nowhere to go.
You're trapped in
every word they say,
the kind,
the cruel;
you're trapped like a rat
stuck inside a cat
stuck inside a dog
which was eaten by
a North Korean man last Kim Jong-il day.
You know,
they call that day
the
Day of the Shining Star--
and maybe the man
plastered on every poster,
draped carelessly on the street signs
and erotically fixating a nation
didn't want to be the Star, either;
maybe he never wanted to
be the constant, single thought
on each of their hateful,
dreadful little minds,
dredged into the
swamps and mires
of their moist
and
sweaty
dreams.
Maybe,
he, too,
didn't want to be the
*****
drunken,
distasteful
STAR
of their hate.
Oct 13, 2012
Oct 13, 2012 at 10:02 PM UTC
I think of you when I am alone.
When I am cold, and the warmth of a duvet does not quite match the heat of your body.
When it is 2 in the morning, and my thoughts jumble up and form a caricature of you.
When I am asleep - my few hours of refuge from the constant letdown of sober consciousness, bombarded with images of you, dredged up from memories I would rather forget.
I wish that was it.
But I see you everywhere else.
Jun 19, 2014
Jun 19, 2014 at 1:50 PM UTC
Here within these walls
We are taught the tools for life
To live it, survive it,
To thrive in a world full of guise.
But
See
People think that here the learning's based on grades
That books and pencils dominate our lives.
But in a world small as a spinning globe,
We learn more important things.
Lessons go untested, uncharted, unacknowledged.
Here and now
We learn what stays burned into our brains
Etched into our thoughts
Lesson's we'll never ever forget
So drilled and memorized are they.
And that is why we want to leave.
To run.
To forget.
Here we learn the unendurable lessons that our lives revolve around.
We learn to love, we learn to lose,
We learn to be used and to act to perfection.
We learn to suffer, we learn to hate, we learn to feel jealousy
And shame
And fear.
We learn that in a world as small as this
One person can turn the sky black, or blue.
One person can bruise the soul.
We learn to take our hurting seriously
No matter what small thing has dredged it up.
We learn to endure, to go on, to give up, to play dead, to play alive,
And oh, god, do we learn to wait.
For the day we might be at least an inch removed from our teachers.
For our truest teachers in high school have no degrees,
No qualifications.
The most important teachers we will ever meet
Have nothing whatsoever to do with grades.
They teach you that
You can't leave
You can't hide
You can't run
You can't try
They teach humiliation and obsession and seduction and depression.
In twenty years, when somebody asks me what I learned in high school,
I cannot be sure that the first thing I say will be
Mathscienceenglishgeographyfrench
I cannot be sure that the words won't fall from my lips
Before I can reel them back in-
Even years hence-
"In high school, I learned how to bleed."
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 9:45 PM UTC
Funny how we all woke up
standing still
with our arms reaching for the sky
in a blue twilight too young for dawn.
Some mornings it was movement
that dredged our eyes to the vivacity
of sunrise
or sometimes it was soft sounds--
maybe our calico pattering and puffing away
the morning dew across the kitchen floor.
But when we awoke there
all standing together
(shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand)
it was like the assimilation of earth and beyond
had come to pound down our door
That day was to be our
[up]rising
birds singing after a thunderstorm
or water trickling into a desert
we were to be the catalysts
but weren’t afraid.
Oct 5, 2010
Oct 5, 2010 at 8:41 PM UTC
tick toc tic tock
time is ticking away
click clock click clock
to count down the last few minutes
or count away what has past
can't wait for the time to pass
to leave work and drive away
but then when you look back
at all that time
all those years you've lived your life
doesn't it seem as if time flew by
to hurry it up or slow it down
can we ever agree on one solution
to live as if there is no tomorrow
but then to be in the perfect moment
they are often not one in the same
the best of times
go too fast
and the worst
are too slow
but then they are all too fast
when dredged up from memory
Aug 15, 2012
Aug 15, 2012 at 8:50 PM UTC
how do I love a family that failed to protect me?
a mother who refuses to advocate and stand up for me because she’s so entrenched in patriarchy that she can’t imagine holding her son accountable
a father who taught us every day that violence, manipulation, and fear were useful tools against the ones you love
a brother who I emulated and admired, who took a piece of me that I’ll never get back, who attacked me and almost killed me, and now asks for my forgiveness and friendship
a sister who I have failed, despite my only intention being the ability to show up for her
I find myself bound to this, the repression wearing off with age as anchors disregard gravity and float to the surface, bringing with them darkness dredged from the depths
I keep wondering when I will transform into the me that isn’t defined by this, but the internet keeps repeating that the only transition I’ll ever make is from victim to survivor
I wish there was a slate to wipe clean, instead I am left human with humans, people with stories like the one written above, flawed and unsure of how to go on
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 3:46 PM UTC
I will never remove you from my brain's synapses altogether,
Particles, dust-speckles, piceous ashes of you, broken half of
Where the crowning splinter lies.
Heffalump-bray, Big-bird whistle, and feverish laughter
Sink from your tiny lips.
It's worse than preschool television programming.
Maybe you consider yourself a god.
Mouth-rush, crooked sickle-spine, of the cranes' dead oath,
Or like some hindered devil at the reeds on your tongue.
Seven years I have worked with the crutch, and worried
Like arc-lightning, thickly-paned, frail as a frostbow,
Palely lit uvula at the glowing alter.
I am none closer now. To amend the acres where my feet wallow blindly.
The shivering, baroque, tumuli where my splinters clear my steel-hide.
An orchestral bow of crimson blight,
I had dredged supinely through the pithy Latin vowels.
Like the month of a flower, hitched to the acanthine wings of a moth.
The moon clung to your shivers and sickness.
No longer can I keep my hair to frosty old anarchies.
Nights, heaped on the bowels of a smoky weir.
The blank stones that struck my hands of warning.
Beside the clogged, rancorous doom I had reflected
Feb 2, 2017
Feb 2, 2017 at 2:58 PM UTC
pain brought on by an apathetic existence
a desire to taste chaos in the flesh
i ***** my soul, dredged from the depths
as death rises, creaking - a gory deity
from my shattered, broken back
gnashes it's filthy, cracked teeth
this barbed, twisted creature rears it's ugly head
as guttural growls wrench free from a torn
throat - wracked with convulsions, sickeningly
sheds a blood and gristle carapace
reborn into rot, steaming flesh sloughs
from it's face to reveal an impossible amount
of needle-like teeth, stretched into a wicked grin
slowly, like creeping mold, the mouth opens
and regurgitated from it's putrid depths...
...a single beautiful butterfly - spun from the
finest gold, inlaid with the most vibrant precious gems
floating on the whisper of a breeze, it lands
on my empty eyes and begins to feast
Feb 28, 2012
Feb 28, 2012 at 4:39 PM UTC
I'm tired of these ghosts of which I hold so close
I'm sick of having them hover so near
I want them to disappear
White and black shifting shadows
Circles that breathe in and out
I want to shout and release, but with them comes no ease
They are reaching into my skull with their bony fingers
They grasp on to my train of thought, I can't even say I fought
stabs across my skin
signals from my nervous system
Dice up my heart and feed it to the shadows
I'm tired of these ghosts of which I hold so close
They whisper my name constantly beating me insane
I swear I'm mad, because sometimes it makes me glad
twisted and knotted in my veins they cackle inside my brain
Sometimes we're friends and the fun never ends
we sit together in gray weather
dredged with darkness I whisper your name
I turn it over on my tongue
waiting and wishing becoming so much more
numb
Days seep into nights
switch off the lights in my head
put myself to bed
Say goodnight and close your eyes so you don't see the shadowed demons and where they hide
because in your head is where they reside
I'm so tired of these ghosts of which I hold so close.
Jan 21, 2014
Jan 21, 2014 at 9:11 PM UTC
Eleven thousand
three hundred
sixty one miles away
in a place I’ve never been,
you are thinking
of all the places
you have never been
or haven’t been,
some for seasons,
some for years.
A Paris pomegranate sunrise
from the Pont des Arts,
bright colours shimmying
at the pulse of romance.
The blood cell rush of Shibuya,
Tokyo at night among
a river of strange symbols,
blinking TV screens.
Prague dredged in frost,
feet-chatter on cobbles
past the Jan Hus memorial
under a cool periwinkle sky.
Glossy tulips in Bilbao,
metallic curves,
trill of syllables
by the teal Nervión.
I think of you, far away,
same planet, different spot,
the future washing towards us
full of scrambled images
and white noise,
a trickle of hope at your toes,
through my screen.
Dec 28, 2016
Dec 28, 2016 at 4:33 PM UTC
He took a heart and he plucked its
Strings recklessly to compose a second quartet -
Of love! Of passion! Of chaos! -
With sounds dredged from a hollow
Box inhabited by his masterpiece - Kamila.
Not the young, flattered, other man's living wife,
But the manifestation of his desire to depict
Longing;
An artificial, delicately moulded, fervent
Wanting.
One of the great classical passions -
Up there with Dante and Beatrice -
Tarnished by a most deceptive
Embellishment in exchange
For radiance.
His melody - although bracing a lie -
Sings to the fizzle in your chest and
The tingle in your fingertips --
A lullaby to the desperation he required
To convince us it was at all possible.
"And in your withered heart you know it's crap."
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 2:28 PM UTC