"drills" poems
The Noise, it drills through me as if I have become the subject of the vicious hammer.
Its piercing din never fades.
As silence looms, and the stillness of nothing hums
It soon begins again.
The sharpness suffocates me, smothers me, chokes me.
And then it’s too late. You chose her and your words destroy me.
Sep 5, 2012
Sep 5, 2012 at 11:12 AM UTC
Dawn in New York has
four columns of mire
and a hurricane of black pigeons
splashing in the putrid waters.
Dawn in New York groans
on enormous fire escapes
searching between the angles
for spikenards of drafted anguish.
Dawn arrives and no one receives it in his mouth
because morning and hope are impossible there:
sometimes the furious swarming coins
penetrate like drills and devour abandoned children.
Those who go out early know in their bones
there will be no paradise or loves that bloom and die:
they know they will be mired in numbers and laws,
in mindless games, in fruitless labors.
The light is buried under chains and noises
in the impudent challenge of rootless science.
And crowds stagger sleeplessly through the boroughs
as if they had just escaped a shipwreck of blood.
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An upright abutment in the mouth
of the Willis Avenue bridge
a beige Honda leaps the divider
like a steel gazelle inescapable
sleek leather boots on the pavement
rat-a-tat-tat best intentions
going down for the third time
stuck in the particular
You cannot make love to concrete
if you care about being
non-essential wrong or worn thin
if you fear ever becoming
diamonds or lard
you cannot make love to concrete
if you cannot pretend
concrete needs your loving
To make love to concrete
you need an indelible feather
white dresses before you are ten
a confirmation lace veil milk-large bones
and air raid drills in your nightmares
no stars till you go to the country
and one summer when you are twelve
Con Edison pulls the plug
on the street-corner moons Walpurgisnacht
and there are sudden new lights in the sky
stone chips that forget you need
to become a light rope a hammer
a repeatable bridge
garden-fresh broccoli two dozen dropped eggs
and a hint of you
caught up between my fingers
the lesson of a wooden beam
propped up on barrels
across a mined terrain
between forgiving too easily
and never giving at all.
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Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn ****** our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.
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Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pin rest; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the ***** sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining **** among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a *****
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no ***** to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
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The future has no mouth,
No tongue,
No teeth.
The Earth speaks, but it's easy not to hear.
Easier still,
when drowned by the rising noise
of trucks and drills,
destruction and greed.
And you want more,
And you want convenience.
you don't want hassle,
you don't want consequences,
of what you choose.
That's inconvenient.
You're busy,
you've got things to do,
you've got a job and a family,
and you don't care about much more than that.
Excepting, most notably, yourself.
So you turn the other way.
We sit on the ground before you,
we sing songs of generations before us
who tried to help the Earth too.
We sing the words of those who protected our lands,
before the coming of this new age
of willful ignorance.
And you walk past us,
and on top of us.
And you blame us for being in the way.
You yell at us to move,
you've got things to do!
Things to ignore!
It's easier not to know,
easier still not to change,
but the teethless, tongueless, mouthless future
continues to approach.
Melting, heating and shaking.
We must hear it,
before there is no-one left to hear.
I carry these bruises with pride.
I carry knowledge of my actions with pride.
I will do my best for the future,
I will not regret my caring.
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 2:16 AM UTC
It's dark outside except for the pale glow of a fingernail moon sailing through the starry sea of night.
The wind has tucked itself to sleep with the birds, weary of bustling about and playing with my hair.
The whippet snuffles his way along the rabbit trails, delighted with this late night walk, white tail wagging in the air.
I wander down by the edge of the swamp, grass all soft and dewy 'neath my feet and spy the pallid uoow reflected upside down,
between the reeds along the creek.
The constant, shrilling chorus of frogs and crickets drills my ears yet I find it strangely soothing - a well known voice across the years.
I turn to walk back, whistling the dog and notice in the low fields, the usual ethereal fog begin to form.
I look up at the dark shape of the house and see light from my
kitchen window painting squares upon the lawn.
Amphibean bodies seek the brightness, bellies pressed against the glass and if you warm them with your finger on the other side, they move.
My man and I bet kisses on whose frog would move the most - one of those silly games you play when you're in love.
As I close the door behind me, grabbing logs to feed the fire, the dog flops down upon the hearthrug letting warmth dry swampy mire.
I make cocoa in my blue mug then pull down the kitchen blind - cutting off the froggy light source - abruptly silencing the choir.
Apr 27, 2017
Apr 27, 2017 at 8:42 AM UTC
The sun is setting,
The painted sky,
All I see is black lighting,
Which makes me cry.
The silence that kills,
My heart collides,
The fire drills,
All those painful rides.
The drips and drops,
Like on a rainy night,
A rabbit hops,
I see no light.
Dreading myself,
In endless sorrow,
In mindless shelfs,
The screaming crow.
And now it's the end,
Of this painful book,
Memories end,
My heart shook.
... I feel hopeless ...
Apr 26, 2015
Apr 26, 2015 at 10:15 AM UTC
Nero was not worried when he heard
the prophecy of the Delphic Oracle.
"Let him fear the seventy three years."
He still had ample time to enjoy himself.
He is thirty. More than sufficient
is the term the god allots him
to prepare for future perils.
Now he will return to Rome slightly tired,
but delightfully tired from this journey,
full of days of enjoyment --
at the theaters, the gardens, the gymnasia...
evenings at cities of Achaia...
Ah the delight of **** bodies, above all...
Thus fared Nero. And in Spain Galba
secretly assembles and drills his army,
the old man of seventy three.
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They are so much cunning and cruel
Yet they possess, intelligence and smartness
Yes, they are filled with over confidence
They are absolutely shameless too
Don’t you feel my dear?
They don't have any sort of fear
They are beating us, hitting us
And we are helplessly watching them
They are neither allowing us to weep
Not they are letting us to cry loud
They are snatching our source of livelihood
They are looting our meagre savings too
They are boring bigger holes in our pockets
By their powerful invisible technological drills
Selling all sorts of stuff they use to produce
Drugs, sanitizers, hand washes and what not
They are asking to keep our ugly mouth fully shut
By putting beautiful, colourful and fancier masks
They are not letting us to meet our friends
They are not letting us to share our meals
They are not allowing us to share our views
They are not allowing us to share our thoughts
With any of our friend, relatives and fellow citizens
They are just telling us to follow whatever they say
They are throwing ******* and garbage on us
In the name of science, health and hygiene
There appears to be not much science
In their so call science and modern science
Shamelessly they proclaim to be our saviours
Saving us from the army of an invisible enemy
Although existence of any such army is doubtful
But their intentions are doubtful and doubtful
If any such invisible army of enemy really exists?
It may have been raised and owned by them only
To **** the lives of all the other fellow humans on earth
And to fulfil their greed and lust for power and money
They are planning to inject in our bodies
Some drugs, chemical or any such thing
They will even charge money for that
And try to fill their everlasting greed
I wonder, who they are?
God, Demi Gods or the Devils
Or they are just a band of inhuman
Resembling a band of nasty humans
Do they really have some superpower?
Or they are just a bunch of ugly parasites?
Trying to draw everything from our lives
Just to feed himself and to recreate his own life
Jun 16, 2020
Jun 16, 2020 at 6:41 AM UTC
Mercies at juxtapositional refinement
Abandoned constitutional confinement
Handshakes on the bridged ligaments
The sweet melodious serene dreams fleets
One after the other like peculiar inventions
The mellow scenes of frames realignments
Wonderful crafted words verses paradigm
Harmonic jazz awesomeness, decode freeness
Orchestral spontaneity drills pragmatic energy
Yet, as the gingered steams rise from the hot brew
The scented breeze of life vaticinates with a smile afar
Whispers of "no obligation, no expectations" reverbs..... on and on....on and on
Feb 25, 2016
Feb 25, 2016 at 6:54 AM UTC
This day, it feels like I am going traditional
All this while I've always done the magical
Its feels, it kills , and thrills me
Even when my body is in pain, your soul , drills me
And it always soothe when I say '' KE A GO RATA ''
My heartbeat goes faster
And if feel locks on my head like a rasta
When the skies are built in lies
When the evening is green in styles
It feels so good to say '' KE A GO RATA ''
Even when your mind is set in doubt it doesn't matter
When the earth is dark in gloom
When a grenade rocks like boom
Its fine, if I whisper KE A GO RATA
Written by
Joey Percival Ikechukwu
Jul 22, 2017
Jul 22, 2017 at 11:24 AM UTC
Although I haven't witnessed
Darfur's eyes run red.
Rivers full of skeletons,
and bodies torn and bled.
I've read about the pigment
of fearful hearts so lost.
A dreaded world within a world;
there are no lines to cross.
Money paid for power.
Power, bodies, bills.
The Janjaweed at noon,
are cleansing for their drills.
Washing down stern orders
with blood on unclean hands.
Babies and their mothers
decomposing in sand.
Weapons worn like diamonds.
Lust and **** colliding.
Torture becomes normalcy.
Living only hiding.
So long as Omar al-Bashir
sees families as roaches,
death is understated.
In greed, he people-poaches.
Pity is for damsels
parading in a tide
of much needed attention
with ego on the side.
To you, my friend
who listens, but fails to comprehend:
Those who live for nothing
are nothing in the end,
I ask you, pray for Sudanese
fed horrors for their lunch,
their bones becoming rubble,
under tires they will crunch.
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 1:49 PM UTC
Within a veil of light rain
a redheaded woodpecker
percussively rap drills
his evening dinner.
Mar 19, 2012
Mar 19, 2012 at 6:39 PM UTC
you know? i'll stop being so empty sometimes. i'll fill myself with words, so they will be dripping down the carefully creased seams of my lips and dents in my cheeks. i am tired of margins and paragraphs to box in what i have to say. i'm ready to let things out like a destroyed dam barricading a swift, roaring feline river; distorted reflections of the day racing past. i am a goddess with dripping hair and naked skin, you can't stop me from feeling. i feel with my soul i feel i feel I FEEL and i am alive. i am the start of morning, i am red tinged and purple, i am the end of the afternoon, dark skinned and starry. i am everything that this universe is made up of, and i intend to be that way till the very earth splits my bones and drills my skull, and my skin droops tiredly to the ground. i am whole, and i am divine. i am eternal, like the dust scattered across the milkyway, and you can't stifle me.
Mar 7, 2014
Mar 7, 2014 at 9:56 AM UTC
A ***** drills inside my core
It nags, graps, pans, the hands
They knot in spins and twists
My crux left at the river side
Breathing,gasping fast, faster
Body out in the open rawness
Persisting resistance of the force
An outward shield winning
Winged left,right, up, down
Another day, a greater pace
A passive taste, ranting in haste
In bricks ***** all I taste is hate
All walking in dead silence
Heads shouting with dreams
A roll of sweet and sour sate
Echoes of taxes and budgets
How will they evolve us?
Snatching more from pockets
The rockets burst to mock us
Pulling our all to fund them
Nuclear bombs creating tombs
Distribution of lies and wars
Missiles disposing as lyrics
An objectification of reason
Figure brushes on magazines
Incisions of bits and **** hoots
To boost of the hot posed ***
No truth is scaffolded as real
A psychological brainwash
Pollutes and limits indefinately
Mar 16, 2016
Mar 16, 2016 at 2:59 PM UTC
You my friend love to run more than anyone I know
You run so fast your body has to catch up and when it can't it slows you down pulling a hamstring
Then the other
And then your left one again
You had bruises for months trailing up and down your legs-your battle wounds
Weeks upon weeks of stretching
Icing massaging caring bracing eating
Trying so hard to sooth the pain
So bad it hurt to sit
Slowly but surely your legs came back
A tedious process of long nights and good mornings
One day you were new again
In the sweltering heat you taught your legs what it felt like to run
And they loved it
The months flew by chasing you down
You were unstoppable getting first and second a states in the winter
Things were looking up and you started to get anxious about college who would choose you?
But in the end, you chose them
You are an official member of OSU
Proud to be a buckeye
Outdoor season started and you are oh so careful
Spending an hour every day before practice to warm up slowly to not repeat last year's trial
Hours spent after practice to ice and stretch hoping that this horrendous day would ever come again
Today I watched you
I was sprinting on the field while you were meticulously counting and calculating your speed and steps by doing drills
Our brothers strides by-racing each other in the 600
You strode along their side-beating them all when you started to limp
Your eyes turned glossy
Your face crumpled in despair
I to you asking if you were ok
You looked at me like a deer in headlights
To scared to tell me-hoping that the devil couldn't possibly come back to haunt you
Your eyes told me everything
Two pops and a pull
Bad
Very bad
But it's your right leg- your good leg
Impossible
The emotions hit you like you were on a bumpy roller coaster
Frustration
Angst
Anger
Sadness
Frustration
Anger
What did you do wrong?
What variables didn't add up?
Why you?
Why?
I wanted so badly to comfort you
To hug you
But it would put you in so much pain
Who knew that a hug could do so much harm?
I helped you to the trainer
Every step was another test and another reminder
Why can something you love so much it hurts you?
Why should someone so good feel the pain of a pulled muscle?
Why?
Apr 10, 2014
Apr 10, 2014 at 9:57 PM UTC
You sit in your chair, crazy lenses on your eyes
As you perfect your perfect human disguise,
Poking and prodding inside of my skull
With ice picks and drills, never anything dull.
My jaw is locked, and my tongue is now tied.
“This won’t hurt a bit,” you tell me. You lied.
I lay here, strapped down, for what feels like hours,
As your assistant sits in the corner and glowers,
And you slip me some music as if it’s all okay
As blood rushes and gushes out, clear as day.
The buzzing and shaking is all just too much,
And I can’t stop my body from quaking at your touch.
Quaking in fear that this will go horribly wrong,
For I have already been trapped here far too long.
A smile grows on your face as my heartbeat quickens,
And you laugh as it gets louder, and as my body stiffens.
Finally, days later, I’m released from your experiment,
Only to find out, in six months, I’ll be back again.
Dec 20, 2013
Dec 20, 2013 at 8:41 PM UTC
OUR POVERTY HAS COLOUR
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; [email protected])
Most illusive and elusive
Like the devils of Congo forest
Is the impish poverty
Permeating all seals with vicious wily
Into the midst of callous humanity
Biting country men and country women
With carnivorous dentalities so ruthless
Putting man to a forlorn shame
As the wife looks in desperate flaggerbastation
Putting matriarchal womenfolk to humiliation
As the expectant sire wallow in the askance of looks
Condemning communities to status ad absurdum initio
Thinning man from man, culling woman from woman
Eating flesh by flesh social koprpers of man
Eating the native flesh in the farms of Brazil
Tearing the ***** steak into ghetto lacerations of Chicago
Whizzling sombre morning tunes to the Zulus in the black tundra
Cementing pale casted clusters for the Patels of India
Commanding suave drills to poor (wo) menfolk; left! Left! Left! –abouuuuturn!
With its accomplice Mr. Hunger son of starvation, they both command drills
For black factory workers, Maids and gravediggers to dance
Watchmen, thieves and prostitutes to match
In the hinterland of Africa all the riff-raff in deep despair
Dance in a tandem to the irritating drills of the duo;
You come on! Left! Right! Left! Right!—fowaaard match!
Backward match! Left! Right! Left! Right! Sharpp uuuuuuuturn!
The duo communiqué; Go home and wait for your pay announcement.
Surely; what colour is our poverty?
Nov 29, 2013
Nov 29, 2013 at 11:13 AM UTC
Melodic…Mesmerizing…Symphonic words.
Taking me away, whisking me off my toes,
In my mind, my head tilts back, my arms transform to wings,
As clouds form and the angel sings.
The clouds, they move, and twirl me to the sun,
It’s blinding, blazing beauty blissfully moves me,
Not just physically, but emotionally.
I cannot let this be, my words will not be undone.
I cannot allow this vulnerability to consume me.
Tears shall never fall, arms will never wrap around me.
I will never be the weeping lady,
That so much, they threw aside.
Forever, they will try to break the clouds below your feet, to make you feel obsolete.
Clouds of love, clouds of dreams, clouds that make you want to cry,
Clouds blur the vision, clouds will lie…
Clouds shed tears you will never catch,
Clouds will never find their match,
Neither shall I; matches make fire, and fire makes you cry.
Melodic music, is what they speak,
Like sirens, I will crash the wreck that is me,
Wreck inside, I will not be transparent,
But I believe, perhaps blissfully, that I can be, oh so much more,
But I can’t keep closing door after door.
The way that bed of clouds did make me feel,
Drills around my brain in a desperate drumming beat,
I yearn for that feeling, yet fear it all at once.
How can you fight with ones own self?
Yet hope for the best?
Brooding, introvert, but that’s not me,
It’s just what I know I have to be.
Who’s to say that living in a bubble is wrong?
Yes, it will burst, and those inside feel forlorn.
You can find those inside again, all by yourself.
No world-wind weapons of intrigue to entice you to lay down your soul on a table,
I am not weak or feeble!
No one shall lie with me for they lie about me.
And sigh, I will let not it be.
I am happier alone,
Forlorn, lost and oh so sad,
Happy, in my day, however each day may be,
For who knows what tomorrow may bring,
And that’s just the one thing,
A kiss, A feeling, is it worth it all?
Please my dear darling, never ever fall.
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 3:18 PM UTC
286
That after Horror—that ’twas us—
That passed the mouldering Pier—
Just as the Granite Crumb let go—
Our Savior, by a Hair—
A second more, had dropped too deep
For Fisherman to plumb—
The very profile of the Thought
Puts Recollection numb—
The possibility—to pass
Without a Moment’s Bell—
Into Conjecture’s presence—
Is like a Face of Steel—
That suddenly looks into ours
With a metallic grin—
The Cordiality of Death—
Who drills his Welcome in—
2.7k
my body is simply not conventional
to the clothes I wear
there are dips and hills plastered on my figure
hanes doesn't take into account
my weight or my height
so pulling up the waistband
drills the cotton into my skin
with no room to breathe
but I've gotten comfortable
my body is not conventional
to the clothes I wear
the hunch back of Notre Dame meets
a protruding belly that widens my waist
when I wear shirts
fabric strangles my hips
displaying my grotesque body
but I've gotten comfortable
my body is not conventional
to the clothes I wear
aged binders do their best
pools of skin are dipping out the sides
my ribs ache and it's hard to ignore
when my body wails a cracking chaos
pain and overstimulation have crept into dreams
but I've gotten comfortable
my body is not conventional
to the clothes I wear
my body is not conventional
but it doesn't bring despair
my body is not conventional
and you can't begin to understand it
because it's too crippling to bear
it's staggering to peep into a mirror
seeing my being labeled unpleasant
with the unnerving urge to rip my eyes out
and splatter my blood on the glass
why don't I just break down and sit there
it's heavy to carry my weight and be hyperaware
it's easy to not care and maybe I'd take that route
but I'm not conventional
so I'm taking another way downstairs
Aug 13, 2021
Aug 13, 2021 at 2:53 AM UTC
You unscrew the jar; Orion’s climactic sigh spills—
A cello’s low A hums—our triad, C and E—the night skies.
Your thumb caresses pulse down my throat, andante, it drills
through myth—not his hunt, but the damp heat between our thighs.
We’ve plucked Lyra’s rusted chords, restrung her spine
to thrum with your breath, not some dead muse’s cords.
Stars crack like old records; we skip, we refine—
our bed, a cradle for light, shed our sheer white peignoirs.
You fear the jars dim? Let me mouth the black core
of Cassiopeia—choke her brittle groan,
then laugh as you arch—my crescendo, your score—
each note a plum’s burst where her language had flown.
Your teeth score my shoulder. The dark soars, unconfined—
We swallow the arias. Let the void choke on mine.
Apr 18, 2025
Apr 18, 2025 at 8:06 PM UTC