"effluvium" poems
or "let's order takeout,"
or "small ineptitudes in the kitchen"
1.
butter
lop
it liberally
silver clinging
scrape it
pan side
sputters and hissing
smoky?
turn the heat
down
crimsoning
elemental
browning the
butter
2.
sizzling whites
diaphanous
stiffly whitened
bubbles surface
spatula stroking
poly—
tetrafluoroethylene
roll the egg
yolk
shattering
yellow
3.
**** the water
nothing—
evaporated
gasping
blue effluvium
windows
fanblades
blackened ***
the bite of a
char upon
it
tea for
tomorrow
Mar 5, 2014
Mar 5, 2014 at 1:28 PM UTC
my hair is falling out more--
i don't quite understand why.
could it be the food I've been eating--
or lack thereof.
am i pulling too hard on my ponytails--
or yanking too tightly while twisting my braids.
can it be the stress of my final days of school--
or all the assignments still marked in red.
possibly the ache in my heart for him--
or the rage simmering in my chest.
maybe it's simply symptoms of ***
or just my mind pressing buttons at random.
would it be because of my anxiety flowing over--
or the jitters from my morning cup of coffee.
funny if I've been tearing at my scalp in my sleep--
or clawing the demons from my dreams.
Aug 17, 2021
Aug 17, 2021 at 10:39 PM UTC
I awoke in a dream
Surrounded by a bilious familiarity
Angry shades of the drying blood of hope
Caked over venomous fangs of discontent
Stagnant shadows of effluvium
Emanate from the molten flesh
Of this creature I seem to know
But how, how do i know this putrid soul
This being, born of irascible acrimony
Seething breaths sear my senses
As I feel the pounding heart
Scream within it's chest
Aflame with the atrocities it has incited
Yet, in it's gentle eyes there is no malice
There is only the reflection of an angel
Gossamer vestments blow in the stillness
So effulgent in the darkness
Again, familiar and uncomfortable
It's eyes bore into mine that reflection of heaven
I could not see myself in those eyes
That gaze seemed to hypnotize in its polarity
As I floated unseen, I looked at this being
Seething miasmata while reflecting a seraph
Acidic tears of truth fell from within my poisoned soul
As the creature and the reflection merged in the bluest flame
And transformed my spirit into flesh
I am both the reflection and the being
Living the anguish of the truth of what I am
Fighting every moment to be less than and more than
Pretending that I do not embody the dichotomy of bile and bliss
Seraph and succubus
The truth and the lie
Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 1:29 PM UTC
what happens to an effluvium held in?
does it seep through minuscule pores in the skin?
or does it skulk out like the phrase, "silent but deadly"?
does it stink like choking sulfur mined?
or does just hang close to one’s behind?
perhaps it leaves a telltale mark
and even causes your dog to bark
does it tell the smeller’s olfactory
something revealing about thee?
or are effluvia all about the same
whether ‘tis prince or pauper to blame?
alas, all we hominids produce several pounds
of the aromatic elixir each day
making it fairly safe to say
that holding it in would be a ****** crime
and cutting a big one hardly makes one less sublime
Aug 12, 2012
Aug 12, 2012 at 11:28 PM UTC
even from afar I could feel
his eyes on me; he seem
to mouth, come love let
me breathe my essence
between your lips;
allow my effluvium
to fill you with my misty
enchantment inhaling
my sweet aroma as it
floats from the snowcaps
of yesteryear so, I can melt
between fertile breast;
branching out stem to stem
affecting every capillary upon
entrance to your portal; I take
a double take blanching from
his stare, I cover my olfactory
senses; masking disdain
with every whiff of assault;
letting him know my lungs
are clearly off limits
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 12:45 PM UTC
Floating
engulfed in penny light
the coppery-brine amalgamation penetrates my mouth
swallowing
viscous globe of blood-riddled ***
the shards of shell
spines split by the tide
echo my sentiments
current eschews shallow alluvial grave
cognizant cicumvolution
ambient gyre
diffuses carapace shrapnel into my calves
gulls enigmatically screech-stripped
slap briny padded patterns into the shoreline
pausing only upon my primal glottal stop
toes curl about inundated sand
clouting divets shift
dilatory run – slammed inert by invariable wave
cochineal effluvium plumes lilt
crepuscular rays refract further distortions
Neath the water I blindly ***** my body
Ridged projections jut from smoothed flesh
Puckering at my own touch
I sink beneath atmosphere
liquescent folds embrace promptly
I drop beneath chaos
Bare palm dig into viscid terrain
rung after rung demanding presence into the depths
I claw forth onto a sand bar
emerging
shard flanked form
eyes blazing
cuticles numb
pulse flit
patina of blood and grit
Fulgent tread propels
Upon shore
I walk back to my residence
A warrior - mortal
plated in copper and brine
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 8:46 PM UTC
white surfaces flash in fluorescent lighting –
this is no opus, heaving on cold bathroom tiles,
blood and grain against porcelain,
convulsing creature in all its grotesque obloquy:
bleary and snotting. four-walled, windowless, antiseptic vivarium;
life crawls outside. it thrives, it devours, it fortifies.
inside, here, it repulses. ****** effluvium of all kinds.
sharp shrieks of skin across glossed floor, tears soak
before the cliff of the jaw. nothing stays.
wiping drool off the sterile sink and sweat off my knotted back.
snarls choking into sobs, sobs gasping for air.
this is no opus; blackening from corners,
the repugnant vignette held between fingernails –
for the contagious odium of the resigned abhorrent
bleeds and drips and stains.
neglect and rejection strewn like pearls,
pearls, worth nothing, feeling everything.
a fly buzzes in the stark fluorescent light,
and blackness climbs in. blackness consumes.
May 2, 2020
May 2, 2020 at 9:32 AM UTC
The catiff faces flashes of flame-colored streaks within an effluvium of a Chinese-red aura;
Alabaster feet descend into a lucent, moist,sensuous terra cotta of an ancient Acoma clay;
The inner sanctum is torn asunder,a convulsive maelstrom gyrating in a vertiginous gale;
Formerly coherent chambers designed neatly to fit the one and only size reclines in ruins;
The newly anointed vagabond shivers, bones radiate,an icy hell,skin shredded to the soul;
A flood-tide rolls through the wanderer's field of vision ,as it provokes a foreboding terror;
Total disintegration of the rover's den fails to obscure the scion's bent and battered corpse;
Thoroughly shattered, the frenzied creature discerns a well-tapered icicle dangling above;
A stray bat swoops out of the decay as the deadly and frozen blade raised in anticipation;
Plunged into the sternum as she screams at the sight of the cold, lifeless body of her lover!
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 8:35 AM UTC
A Cafe is breathing heavily; attended
By elven baristas, fully illustrated.
Tamping espresso.
Baguettes soften canary yellow berets -
Worn at a rakish angle, like a fascinator
At The Preakness.
Ethiopian fumes barricade the open door
Against the effluvium of the morning -
Commute… like tying a kite
To a black truffle. With a blade -
of grass.
My hands fold space into a sweat lodge
Like the scaffolding of a forgotten prayer.
My chin planted at the zenith
Admiring the anatomy
Of an abandoned
Fist.
On the outskirts of a mocha.
She is ineffable. With gamine eyes -
Churning sunlight into green coins shimmering
In tandem. Like koi in a pond.
Her summer dress, a diaphanous affair.
Accentuating the curvature of her
Natural mischief. Clinging to peaks and valleys
As they sway in obedience
To hidden music… poised.
In a state of perpetual
Goddess.
She glides… as I covet. Preaching to the choir
In my ribcage. My eyes caressing the parentheses
Of her stride. She is ineffable.
Words fail as they are want to do
In the presence of effortless elan’. She is cloaked
By her own reality. Like an undertow
Stuck to the heel
Of her shoe.
With nothing to prove.
Jun 3, 2018
Jun 3, 2018 at 7:52 PM UTC
My heart yearned to be fixed...
ached to be rebuilt with the tender hands of
an everlasting forever.
My Sprit, long broken and shattered,
lifted with an optimistic hope
at your entrance.
My Soul...if only for an evanescent moment
returned from its self-induced isolation.
But your touch was dangerous,
Your lips were toxic, and your words hollow.
I was lost in our temporary lust,
lost in the cold fire beckoning behind your hazel eyes.
Shackled was I, in the flames of a fiery passion.
(We so often forget that it is the inferno's we nurture and create ourselves
that consume us whole. In entirety.)
You were my all consuming,
Devouring what was left of me...
Shameful was I,
For enjoying my own destruction.
I felt bliss instead of pain,
I inhaled ecstasy and breathed in fantasy,
All the while choking on the effluvium of your lies.
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 3:54 PM UTC
at finding my insides a conical waste,
unfettered and zealous, I strolled deep into flames
in jungles of obesity and anticlimactic falls
the auras of her spells instantly dissolve
and all of the noises his bloated coffin gave
removed what remained, inside
velvet smoke culled like a viper
exhuming its prey
now hobbled crutches sway at the prow
(ship of gold holding more blue than the sea)
inhaling drops of silicon through the heated chemical rain,
melting
praying for this specter to absolve
even as it was forgiven in Eden,
now blue and useless
buried in clouds
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 3:20 AM UTC
onyx fondles the yellow hem of a skirt of sunlight
without tarnishing its reputation for unbridled darkness.
scattered amid a herd of tumbleweeds
as iron as the sky… and the odd tortoise, rehearsing
a ballad, for to soothe the odd savage jackal.
as mad things call.
a storm approaches maximum sloth, as the sun beats the clock.
as the sun beats the arid scape with sour hammers, teaching vultures
the gospel of desolation and the effluvium of dead still.
the heat rising to meet the impending rain
is a vengeance and a frenzied vole.
and the hour of our thirst is unconquered
in the shadow of a Black Mesa,
with a Red Name.
Nov 4, 2018
Nov 4, 2018 at 3:13 AM UTC
money bags, smokestacks, white powder and heights
on bent boulevards with brutal windows
reclusive silhouette stalkers hidden just behind
red mourners on charcoal ice
window shades plume, dust and ash diffuse into
twin horned rebels with sawed off exhaust pipes
ashtray dance/\clouds hover in the dark
as she tightropes straight down into the devils heart
the mirrors that surround
are as a shroud passed down
from the heavens to alter truth
all the cracks between the blue
are here resembled
love, dearly distorted
in the absence of breath or youth
Jul 18, 2015
Jul 18, 2015 at 1:12 PM UTC
Within me Lies
Someone full of hate, pain and rage. I
See through her eyes.
Inhale her breath.
Consume her foolish men.
I hear her, I feel her.
She speaks in words that burn
Her touch sears the flesh,
Turns life to ash.
She traps me within,
In skin made of silk
Her voice made of Jazz.
Helpless is me (who had lost herself
To the beast once trapped within).
I feel her pain. I feel her hurt,
In pulsating waves
Felt within hollow chambers
Of the heart.
She is not shackled by this pain,
This hurt.
She is Fire.
All consuming, all powerful.
Callously and Casually she entraps.
She ensnares she takes (Inside her rests an unyielding furnace,
Filled with the ash and bone of her victims.
Am I too one?).
She corrupts flesh, she corrupts minds
she burns brightly, boldly, dangerously.
Her flesh slick with
The effluvium of
Lust.
I live within her,
I reside inside.
Shadow of my former self
Fragment of my former life.
She continues to live, she continues to consume
As fire can only take
Fire can only
Burn.
It tempts, it ensnares, enraptures
It does not feel, it does not care
It does not love.
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 9:14 PM UTC
He smells like his life:
weary smells of
whiskey and leather,
the dead stink of
too many cigarettes,
the mingled perfumes
of many lovely women,
the dark, sticky
whiff of lust and ***
the acrid stench of
cordite and ******
the copper reek of blood,
the honest sweat of work,
with just a hint of ink
and **** thrown in.
This effluvium may not
be sweetly attractive
or call to butterflies
and hummingbirds,
but it is the aroma
of a life lived alive.
~mce
Sep 4, 2015
Sep 4, 2015 at 5:22 PM UTC
Violently torn from a rare blissful dream
By the sound of my name swathed by a stentorian scream
Shivering against a sudden chill; room now dense with a effluvium stench
An immense fear now rendering my body into a painful clench
Skeletal face set in a sepulchral mask draws eerily near
Momentarily muted as I taste the bitterness of a lone salted tear
Dead lidless eyeballs boring deep into my soul bones rotting and bent
Motionless mouth oozing ferocious whispers through an ancient accent
Your time here is at it's end, I've blessed you with a long, painful death!
Announced the hideous eidolon words pushed forth by a decaying breath
Extending out a ***** finger it touched my skin which scorched
An instant infestation; A serge of agonizing pain blistering and torched
Now marks the beginning of your end....
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 4:55 AM UTC
Nothing is the same
It slowly stretched out of bed
The moonlight lit the floor of her room
At her side, the love attached to the room
Deep sleep and affable eyes
It smelled the scent of that night.
There was an effluvium through the wind
It closed the window without eyes to the stars.
It lay again next to the impostor
She returned to his insipid reality
But she took advantage of the glittering moment
All the details of that wich one day
Loved her intensely.
Nov 29, 2017
Nov 29, 2017 at 9:20 PM UTC
bell rhymes with hell
from where Gay Chaps
return
and every time a bell
chimes another back
ground Daemon gets her
wings
how do I reduce
the dimensionality
of our Minds, the
minor Mirror of our Gods?
as wax melt
round a burning Blackhole,
effluvium seeds up
while we observe
only Brownian
specks ejected orthogonally
back down our Spacetime
curve
May 20, 2020
May 20, 2020 at 7:17 PM UTC
The air was painted.
Inside the chain link fences
were clouds;
brushstrokes
that could’ve been
proffered by
Van Gogh
or
*******
as they dissipated
into the early, cold
morning air,
pausing only for a
few moments to allow
some of the particulates
to freeze;
the hydrogen, the oxygen,
the lye,
&
detergents that
make up whatever
is used in
a prison laundry.
The effluvium is rich,
the odor of a passable
cleanliness in what is largely
a rather fetid domain.
The scent of bleach,
harsh, chlorinated,
removal of that which
stains.
Yet,
something stays,
an acrid, sour smell;
an unpleasantness
which seems to have chosen
to remain
unwashed.
It is concluded,
that this emanation,
is the opposite of
emancipation,
it is a olfactive reminder
that
Building # 7
serves up
freshly washed sorrows,
rages, or regrets
as well as
whiter whites,
releasing
stains from grays
more often than the wearers
of
these wardrobes are released
themselves.
With this in mind,
swirling, shifting,
moving, motivating
marching upward,
toward
Building # 1,
It is breathed in,
and out, and in
again,
renewal,
like clean laundry
washed in industrial
soaps, rinsed in disinfectants,
delousers, deodorants
unknowable.
Starting over.
Today.
Tomorrow.
Overmorrow,
And,
Everafter.
Amen.
***
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021
Feb 28, 2021
Feb 28, 2021 at 9:52 PM UTC
A single pixel point of light
In warm and dank, rich dark
I tread with disposition mild
And countenance so stark
Enveloped in effluvium
The senses grow too dull
Emotions try but do in vain
This darkness always culls
So be this place; so be its pow'rs
Its pangs touch me not much
Be it friend or be it foe
So am I in its clutch
Dec 6, 2020
Dec 6, 2020 at 3:07 PM UTC
Yup, you red correctly,
this noggin must go
perhaps donated
to the Salvation Army, or Good Will
cuz, said atrophied cranial
horridly styled comfortably numb skull,
the source of immeasurable
beg hot ten woe, from dawn to dusk
nothing boot eve ville
hollow cavity mainly comprised
of wooly webbed weaving waste,
uber sawdust, sans Schuylkill
River effluvium and runoff rotten rill
hence, e'en a think tank
designated as Abby Normal
formerly atop a body named Phil
lip, or Wright winged Orville
one half brotherly duo,
the other sibling Wilbur,
whom both made a mill
yen legends getting airborne their lil
mechanical contraption
atop Kitty Hawk,
North Carolina with bi sic ****
mechanical aptitude,
when born aloft **** Devil Hill
synonymous making fin hushed
blue prints emulating
flying fish, whose grill
like cartilage backbone
precursor to Evil
Knievel, who soared
on his motorcycle a devil
lush daring stuntman,
whose helmeted crown
full pursestrings muted cavil
ling critics with legitimate enterprise
earning gobs of legal tender,
whence aye aver
his mugshot ought to appear
on common denomination bill
and/or honoring throughout
the entire month of April.
Jun 7, 2018
Jun 7, 2018 at 2:50 AM UTC
Im sorry
I should've but pride got in the way
A deep dark valley of when will you come back to me just standing there,
I couldn't see past it.
I'm sorry
I could've but selfishness got in the way
A mountain of you took me for granted kept growing,
i couldn't feel past it.
I'm sorry.
I would've but fear got in the way.
An effluvium of i deserve more blew,
i couldn't smell past it
I'm sorry
I must've but the crispy icicles of slander slithering out of your mouth severed my palate,
i couldn't taste past it.
I'm sorry
I wanted to,
i want to but the reticence of silence between us was deafening
but
I heard past it.
The nugatory inconsequential words you used to erode my life,
i heard them all.
I've been patient but the allegorical depiction of your interpretation of promise fazes me
I still love you but tell me this
Are all these obstacles worth it?
Mar 29, 2018
Mar 29, 2018 at 6:13 AM UTC
But what's the point?
Phospholipids, sucrose, phosphates
Biology feels like memorizing vocabulary.
Absquatulate, etymological, effluvium
English wants me to be a human glossary.
Axiom, cartesian, diophantine
Math is repeating the same problems in different ways.
Feudalism, hegemony, cartellino
History is staring at facts about dead people.
Humdrum, repetitiousness, homogeneity
Every second of monotony bores me.
Was it always like this?
Oct 2, 2018
Oct 2, 2018 at 11:02 PM UTC