"exhalation" poems
it wasn’t chaotic.
it was calm and serene,
like the ocean.
the soft pitter patter
of the rain on the roof,
and the cool air it brought.
it was a sip
of freshly brewed coffee,
natural with no additives,
whatsoever.
the gut feeling
of knowing where home was.
and that is how
you came into my life.
the star that shines the brightest
amongst the pitch black sky.
it’s the white cloud that outshines
all the gray and gloomy ones.
the perfect fit of the last piece
to the unfinished puzzle.
it's the warm, fuzzy feeling
of getting into bed
early on a Friday night.
and that is how it was
when I started loving you.
it’s like a deeply cut wound,
one that’s inundating
with crimson colored blood,
having a tinge of maroon.
it induces pain
with every inbreathe
and exhalation.
it manages to have
the appearance of a scar,
yet it still feels so fresh
like a bruise.
and that is how it felt
when you left.
it was filled with haze
and suffocation.
the uncontrollable fast paced beat
of your heart.
Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile,
one that is hardly understood
by majority of the world.
a bite of dark chocolate,
bitter and sweet.
and this is my survival.
Jun 6, 2017
Jun 6, 2017 at 5:56 PM UTC
i breathe
one breath at a time
each inhalation linked to the exhalation before it
yet every breath stands alone
there's something tenuous about it
this soft machine is on thin ice
devoured by time in innocent increments
like a moth nibbles away wool
my heart
little gorilla
wearing itself out
rubber glove with a hole in it
weird luck
my eyes are bright
solar blue ball lanterns
if you saw me
you would say
good bones
river of envy
yet all hinges
on a muscular rhythmic pulsating machine
like a determined jaw chewing
jumpy mouth
yet on the verge of betrayal
a glitch
karmic indecision
in destinies wheel house
a red fist locus banging
ones immense sense of self
a vainglorious elaboration
built over a small pulsating muscle
innocuous
dumb blood flesh knot drumming
scarlet tribe
throne of my very soul
great sovereign
old man in a crib
splitting open of its own accord
a sudden rip from life
to a dead sea eternity
the final frontier
starless night
May 5, 2017
May 5, 2017 at 1:54 PM UTC
ken not the
vive la différence!
entre les deux,
these two bed and head chambers,
for all poets are seducers,
regardless of *** race, creed or color
when first we employ our working, yeoman vocabulary,
we plain start,
to relate but not to regale,
the whom we are,
hoping our moments unique,
will breach the boundaries
of our collective commonality connectivity,
and find human receptivity
thus, the seduction of self commences
though every possible combination of words has somewhere been inscribed and committed, we ****** ourselves
(the seduction of poetry)
with potions of notions that we are and always be our
first, and now soon forever,
yours as well
of course, we are, it's true,
our very own first admirer & lover,
having conquered the hillock of self,
see the universe expanding and the
****** need to conceive
and prowess to please
beyond the beyond with
the poetry of seduction
do not want your body, heart or soul,
commitment, allegiance, vows,
sacred or profane,
all such in vain
crave your everything,
not even a legal nine-tenths satisfactory
dare not call me arrogant or presumptive,
gaze upon the mirror that cannot lie,
rereading thy words assemblage,
and deny to lie to yourself
want you, you want me,
my adoration,
we want to be in
a poem together,
lovers at the molecular level
where words dissected into letters, then again,
into guttural sounds where a simple outcry is an elegy,
a love poem, a wound, a denouement, a preface, a tear,
a welling, a heaving, a sigh, an exhalation, all,
an entrance to where the need for words
is long since past
the sin and crown of seduction completed,
unanimously
now breathe out
and then,
breathe in
Jul 3, 2017
Jul 3, 2017 at 3:54 PM UTC
kisses on your warm sweet mouth
tender lips caressed
exploring your ******* and raised ******* ..
belly and thighs enveloped
those eager dark delicious places that i covet so
your musk erogenous
the path to your hungry soul
eater of the poison apple
your eyes widen bright with delight
a strange synesthesia you say
your smile a hypnotic alter
you prone
back arched
belly willing
as i drag a curved blade slowly across your winsome flesh
worshiping you
breathing your warm breath into my mouth and nostrils
come now
you coo
i am sheildless
then little strangles that excite
to see how you do
will you love it
adorations twisted mind
she demon
a wizened dizzy Venus
please yes
her **** drenches the bed
a warm viscosity
legs widen
feet piqued
*****
exotic delicatessen
Heralded
i enter with long sweet butter strokes
the sabbath of desire
I swear
i wont let you suffer...
never !
why you say?
because i love you
lovely scythe you call
as if lulled to sleep
whispering dreadful incantations .
i ache to close the curtain
to lifes scalding chatter
wrap me
in a raggy shawl
impale the throat
like ive alway dreamed
a last exhalation
flood gates pour forth
as deaths dark fold
dissolves all
i rock you drugged
absinthe and wormwood
a last ***** of candles flame
white gauze cinched
lips on a lost mouth
eyes a static pyre
i linger
wishing you still plush
an animated glow
so that i could feel your arms,
now milky white relics
only to take you all over again and again and again
dreamer of the abyss
yet you stand
aberrations, smoke ghost
sacrificially swaying your hips
calling from Hades
dancer of ritual copulation
i melt like wax in the sun
wither
and die myself
marriage Italian style
dead bells in love
blotted out by the Sirens of Mara
Apr 19, 2017
Apr 19, 2017 at 4:45 PM UTC
The taste of bitter toxicity
The feel of obsidian
The sound of inhalation
The excitement of exhalation
Heart racing and it begins
Butterflies start to dance
Rushing flow of ecstasy
giddiness embracing
Flying higher and higher
Freedom and happiness
awareness with every touch
bliss
Heart compressing
Stampede of hysteria
Slow crawl into desolation
Loosing grip
Falling faster and faster
servitude and disorientation
Restlessness with every thought
desperation
The taste of bitter toxicity
The feel of obsidian
The sound of inhalation
The excitement of exhalation
Feb 26, 2018
Feb 26, 2018 at 12:08 AM UTC
when does the poem end?
creation is never ending,
the earth is endlessly morphing
but you lean back and say
enough
not because the poem
is finished,
for it is never finished,
because an exhalation feels
satisfying, releasing
but the poem never ends,
nor does the need to
exhale
not with the final .
the next poem is
but a
continuation
of the previous poem;
a continuation
of you~poem,
inhaling
and
exhaling
& morphing.
Sat Jan 7
7:57am
Jan 7, 2023
Jan 7, 2023 at 8:50 AM UTC
there are many on record
the caves
the tunnels
the blinding light..
a hesitation
on the line
between life and death..
so many forms of death
each with corresponding life
these deaths
a passing of day into night
a passing storm
dark passages
each exhalation..
in each of these
a transition is reached
life and death not distinguished
the tunnel becomes
is the light..
so we read the reports
awakening
to life's primary
signal...
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 12:46 PM UTC
My mother is dying.
It is a process. Days pass,
She neither eats or drinks,
Yet she lives on.
I watch each labored exhalation,
A subtraction, a countdown.
It is as if she was returning each singular day,
Every prayer uttered, answered and unanswered,
Every word e're spoke, every dream dreamt,
She ever possessed to the atmosphere,
For sharing, for recalling, for retelling,
One breath at a time.
~~~~~~~~~
Lipstadt-Roth, Miriam née Peiman, 1915~2013,
passed peacefully Sat. July 20th.
Critic, speaker, writer,
her fiercest feat,
her leading role, creator.
A near century of memories
her legacy, memories that
linger not, for incised,
chiseled in the granite of the
books, papers, and poetry
and the very being
of her descendants.
Her faith in Almighty,
unflagging, for he did not
forsake her in the time of
her old age, when
her strength failed.
Jul 20, 2013
Jul 20, 2013 at 12:53 PM UTC
i'm not looking for pinpointed lights
in the sky or my veins like
emission spectra of petals you leave
around my aorta
with daisy chain bracelets
whilst holding my heart like a
baby hedgehog or a shard
of glass left from broke-into car
windows our getaway driver, misery,
scattered across the pavement of your
gaze i met for five exact seconds
i remember, clean as new linen,
the geometry of your living room
seventy-six centimetres from your
glasses or the symmetry of the
bridge of your nose or the sound
of your soft exhalation.
to three decimal places i
was in love with you, then.
the rain need not spell it out in
morse for me to know that. the
sun need not rise to devour sleep;
through the ten factorial seconds of
each six-week fraction of my
life,
i dream of you.
Sep 9, 2013
Sep 9, 2013 at 12:23 AM UTC
I am shylock,
In the attic barely used,
Barren exuberant floorboards creak in exhalation,
Of your footsteps.
There you find me,
In the dust;
A wooden trunk with brass fixings,
Didn't I tell you I held a million treasures?
You breathe in the sunlight,
From the round attic window,
Preening itself in your vision basked in gold.
I am shylock,
You moved a gilded hand,
Guided by a unknown force of union with the lock,
The air is silent around you,
The room is intrepid in its wanton stranger,
Who dares to enter this chamber of dust.
I am shylock,
You take my fingertips from the cup of a hand I had placed gently on your cheek,
The night before I had told you,
Of this room,
You gently take my fingers and place it on the lock.
I am shylock,
There is a gentle click,
That soon awashes the abated room,
That sways into a tsunami of grandeur,
Of history, emotion, silence and tears,
And it consumes the dust,
The acrid air and essence of my fears settle on your eyes and the homely mouth.
I am shylock,
You know how I came about,
Now,
You know how this room became accustomed to the dust,
And the floorboards, the dust,
And the window, the dark,
You are breathing me,
The trunk is open and waiting,
And at the bottom,
A ragdoll awaits your palm,
Your strength, your gentleness and patience,
This is my shy,
This is my lock,
And you entered the room and consumed me.
Burst through the door, cut down the labyrinth,
and found me.
Picking me up,
You,
Became me, attended me, held me,
with grace sensitive to my touch,
with the intention of a protector to my defence,
And the brazen warrior to my battle.
Now I am entered and countered.
Protected and put together,
Unbound and in your arms;
Now I am open and free.
My ragdoll, your love, and me.
Together, unlocked,
together I and you become, we.
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 6:51 PM UTC
steamy
beads of sweat
between her dusky *******
little rivers of pleasure
that collect in her navel
and threaten to spill with
each exhalation
distract me long enough
to avoid the
little death
that look in her eye
seen only when
riding me
or on the back of
my motorcycle
reignites my
passion and
all too soon
I die
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 12:13 AM UTC
Which Is Greater?
I break a vow.
A serious vow.
In a place, in this site,
Where the fluid pain
Is the water of the world,
The element that is crux,
The amniotic liquor of creative flux,
The morning juice,
The afternoon caffe,
The first beer of the day,
The liquid that we rinse and spit out our every day,
I will write about pain,
Arrogantly, as if there is any unused combination of
Letters, vowels and consonants left unspoken, *****
Having sworn not to, for pain is cumulative.
Asking myself,
Which is greater?
The pain of creation, inception, origination and birth,
The pain of wreck and ruin, destruction and death.
Homework Self-Assignment: Compare and Contrast
Suddenly, I am expert.
Creating a poem a day is very painful.
A poem that is the sum of
Reflection, research, and purging.
Once I wrote:
*The poem is the afterbirth,
A conflicts resolution, an outcome,
Battlefield debris, the residue of
An exacting vision, a sentiment surging,
And your army of words, inadequate to the task,
Fighting to capture that insight flashed,
Each word a soldier, disheveled,
Crying, let me live, let me be saved,
Let me make a poem,
Let it be inscribed upon my victorious flag.
The poem is the sweat left upon the brow,
Having exercised the five senses,
The salt of struggle and debate,
It's completion, each word,
Both a victory and a defeat.*
Suddenly, I am expert.
My mother is dying.
It is a process. Days pass,
She neither eats or drinks,
Yet she lives on.
I watch each labored exhalation,
A subtraction, a countdown,
It is as if she was returning each singular day,
Every word e're spoke, every dream dreamt,
she ever possessed to the atmosphere,
One breath at a time.
Is that painful?
It is for me.
Now you complain. They're different, not to be compared, et cetera.
Pain is pain,
Whether it is in the service of creation, or
Creative destruction.
Once I wrote:
*With each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poem's birth diminishes me.*
So, one and the same?
Nope. Yes. But. Cannot one be the greater?
Yes, one is greater.
When I lay on my deathbed,
I will exhale the answer
Into the atmosphere
For your retrieval.
Jul 19, 2013
Jul 19, 2013 at 7:06 PM UTC
.
*… and the look of fear
co-existing with pain
on a contorted face
that knows
it is in mortal difficulty,
as ragged fingers
clutch,
clutch,
at a fire they cannot reach,
ripping agonies react,
to an enforced cardiac episode,
as blackness closes in
gravity heaves its hardest,
but the fall is fake,
a red herring in the event,
and the weight of the world
presses down, searching,
retracts
waiting,
presses down, searching,
retracts
waiting,
as breath is given freedom
in exhalation to the light,
that slowly rolls back
the pitch hue of the void,
returning back images,
feeling,
a new belief,
and the fire inside quietens,
and the fire inside quietens,
to the intense glow
of a burnt aching heart.*
© Pagan Paul (2018)
Jun 14, 2019
Jun 14, 2019 at 5:45 AM UTC
I exhale.
One exhalation added
To the collective sigh of the sad
A sort of meditation
A sign of letting go
A surrender to the feeling
To the moment
I contemplate.
Repeated contemplation
Of every unturned stone
The groove in the record deepens
And the needle traps itself
The invitation of
Darkness is irresistible
Mar 18, 2017
Mar 18, 2017 at 3:02 PM UTC
It’s difficult to comprehend that
this is the same skin that, a few years ago
frolicked around in bars, carelessly giving out kisses.
No fear.
Every scar carries more
ignorance,
my flesh, less young explains
the former stupidity I carried
Accompanied by confidence.
I was but a child, lost in the woods
unaware what dangerous animals lurk.
Even then, surprised by my own’s existence
Me still being here and
continuously breathing.
I was brave, but not brave enough.
The quick breaths during the
first attack.
I did not know they hit like a hammer, I
a hot blade
They were hardening fear.
Enormous, monstrous fear.
I was powerful and strong, every year
my height lowering, so that my
once clear voice turns into a
trembling
whisper.
An exhalation, kept alive by the ones
close enough to put their ear next to my
tickling lips.
What anger I contain.
How mutely I express it.
It was once powerful.
Erupted from my chest like
living fire,
burning the monsters far, far away from me.
Now it barely sparks when I’m reminded of
the long gone evil men
Mean, mean men who did mean things.
It’s not that I wasn’t fashioned to arrive at this point.
I was.
But the feet pressing onto my clay body did not help.
Now I’m dried and crooked.
My voice quiet, body
exhausted.
As I exhale smoke once more, I get inside
embrace my love and think:
**** it."
Sep 14, 2018
Sep 14, 2018 at 12:13 PM UTC
**the ****** heart
(if ownership of a poem makes you proud, considered it to be...trending)**
~~~
~for PoetryJournal~
~~~
*the afterglow of the aftermath,
the chest pounding demanding,
tolerating-no-delay apprehension
of the transcription
of what is
the ****** heart soaring,
the lean-back exhalation,
wet eyes that only you
have secret knowledge thereof
this is why we write,
why we beings believe,
because we ask,
why
by the asking,
we grade ourselves,
both by
our words and deeds
step back and
accept the notion
that feels not wholly right,
for inherently tinged,
streaked with human pride,
that all possess,
and possessive of
our all
you are value,
by the words you have chosen,
by the only human
that can give truth to its essential
value
***you poet,
are trending**
Nov 28, 2015
Nov 28, 2015 at 7:14 AM UTC
Visual delusions:
*Scrutinizing the acuity of
what is visualized.
But sight is only validated
by the morality glazed over.
Until narratives are edited
to mimic a reality of self delusion.*
Oral formalization
*Dictation versed within syllable
delusions, never sounding
the reflection of thought to breath.
But sour exhalation collects on
vacant windows, spelling other
than what is breathed outwards.*
Auditory silence
*Auditions drummed within,
echoing on shallow walls,
nothing wrote within
A tirade of failures woven with
three perceptions. Collective ignorance*.
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 4:34 PM UTC
Stretched across me.
Tight against my chest and settled at my lap.
I t t a k e s m e a w a y.
Surrounds me, over my shoulders,
Pushing me back,
against your chest.
I take a d-e-e-p breath........
1,2,3,
Hold me tight,
Help me feel free.
Compressing my heart, it beats, against, yours.
And i want to collapse,
crash hard,
so i can feel you pull me to safety,
I want bruises to remind me I am yours.
Arms across my chest, and around my lap,
You can't see my tears, as they fall in exhalation,
Of feeling your skin, against mine.
Tightly we bond, meshed together,
I push harder, you hold me closer,
I push faster, you hold me tighter,
I stop hard, you encompass me.
And,
If i should have ever, ever, ever,
crash and burn,
I know that you would be, there.
My safety net.
My synchronised heartbeat.
My safety belt.
My seatbelt.
My, You.
Hold me closer, never let me go.
Hold me tighter, and i will feel free.
Hold me, just hold me,
and never let me,
go.
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 6:23 PM UTC
forgiveness for self is a thunderstorm ferocious,
cracking sounds so god awful fearful
that one questions his-her sanity,
an overage so unnatural that
only nature could create it
it is a moment momentousness
when the exhalation of exhaustion,
the winner and loser, both you,
surrender ne’er knowing
which you is which,
life’s son of ***** or just a plain jane mothering version,
either way you say to yourself got to
get past that lousy stinking
love affair
win the race to clean slate,
where the end is insight where everything replaced
in its used to be placed
goaded into melted nothingness,
goaded into believing that’s a real thing,
that when you finally get there,
enough is enough,
get out of jail ticket will work,
but it ain’t never free,
even if you paid for it in
what you call
throwing bad after good,
monopoly money,
nope, ain’t never free
no idea what to put in the second empty closet,
who needs an attached to-the-wall-tile
toothbrush holder with one extra emptying space,
where to hide picture albums in a space
outta sight, outta mind, you still can find
why you didn’t care enough to
daily mat-wipe street shoes before
riveted in place
before entering your own! apartment and no,
you are consciously unconscious immobilized by
the missing calling out of her “don’t forget”
in the car’s ashtray,
a red kissed blotted red lipstick
tissue that needs discard-action,
but you incapable of either,
those collected records and cd’s,
her teasing your old fashion ways,
reluctance to let go
so you read
“that to forgive one self doesn’t forgive forgetting”
and it hits home, home run, score to the core,
since you wrote those words on a sun rain afternoon,
a punctuating thunderstorm day
refusing to decide
which
haunts worse
<>
Jun 30, 2019
Jun 30, 2019 at 5:04 PM UTC
Lost in limitless embrace,
Of sensual tight hugging lace.
Hands moving with passionate pace,
Until pleasure spreads across a beautiful face.
The Rhythmic motion,
Of a goddesses emotion.
Evident through the entwined feet,
That lock and spin beneath the crumpled sheet .
Pull me closer and love me harder!
She shouts out as the song gets faster.
Till what with one exhalation,
She looks at him with admiration.
Then sleep soundly in their consummation.
Jul 20, 2010
Jul 20, 2010 at 4:49 PM UTC
The cork eases out of the twisted green glass.
Bubbles erupt from the neck,
A million tiny perfect diamonds tumble over one another, kissing the air.
With a breath of Midas, it turns my crystal chalice a deep, frothing gold.
It is liquid movement indefinite and the golden
Ocean whirls and spins a delicate storm in my glass -
I blink for just too long and the fizz climbs in my ears,
Like a sweetly growling throat,
It slowly opens to an ecstatic ebbing exhalation.
Now to my parting mouth.
The chalice gently draws the heat from my swollen red lips
and it is crisp and cool as the cut glass it curls in.
Where does
my chalice
end and this
pool of weightless
gold begin?
Temptation changes its name to thirst.
Another and another and another down my throat.
And the storm in my chalice surges over the rim,
And the edge begins to sing to
where light and dark become
the same thing!
And now empty –
The glass is damp and cold.
One bead of vapour left,
To slide down my chalice’s neck.
And I take my glass
Back to the sink.
Aug 12, 2012
Aug 12, 2012 at 9:15 PM UTC
a serpentine plume
of saharan dust
unveiled by radar
an ocean spanning
exhalation
of opaque
talcum haze
seeping into and onto
cracks metal glass
amid caustic
simmering
and listless
longing
for cicada drill
and aircondtioned din
to mute
Tom Spencer © 2018
Jul 17, 2018
Jul 17, 2018 at 10:13 PM UTC
Maturity is knowing what your limitations are…(my daily chore)
<>
“Maturity is knowing what your limitations are. Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.”
Kurt Vonnegut
<>
maturity comes when you cannot,
even try, to fool oneself,
indeed, you preposterousness,
make you laugh hardest
at your very, fully owned, selfhood
preening mirror disguise
Is this a poem, a lamentation, a pithy regurgitation
of Vonnegut, and you say: “Don’t care, it’s words
that gotta come out, be released to empty the heart”
a daily excess removal of that daily overflow of the
days first words when new day light and nighttime’s REM
sleep overlap, and the music starts of a life time of favorites,
and like a pleasant thorn direct into your temples brain,
the leaking, then the spilling spirals unstoppable onto the pages, and the first true relieving exhalation comes with
the excited exorcism of the stones of your life, come outside
your body and there is a freshly born stripe upon your face,
not yet a scar for it is yet to ripen by healing, but it is your
creature for loving…and it is good company with so many
prior guests who have checked in, stayed for a moment’s
observation, departed after getting an extended checkout
time, joining the many who came and went, disappearing
in to the internet’s ether, where we one will join them eventually,
though you smile at that thought, cause you’re mature
enough, baby, an all growled up dude, to know that when
you reached that stage, you will be, non-stop laughing
at *** serious you imagined you were, and wondering out loud
why it took so long to recognize that mirrored visage as
one big ole fool with a smile upon his face…
p.s so much for that promise to take a break from beating
yourself up, but you know what, it is pleasing, in that way
when upon the grand occasion of waking up to another
unexpected day of living deserves a deep, but rueful,
laugh out loud and others’ look at your self and argue to
only mischievously agree,
you are indeed,
still crazy after all these years…
Jul 8, 2023
Jul 8, 2023 at 8:24 AM UTC
Petty theft of pretty poetry so
taut like my buttocks when I was twenty
and did not appreciate the ripeness of my
flesh.
Or this – about an orange peel –
the white is bitter the spits of oil
not iridescent as oil might be
lazed
in a parking lot puddle.
Try for size the heavy fur of
winter cottages, blah except for
holiday wreaths and the silent exhalation of
smokes snaking from their
top.
Translate this grapefruit that is both
sour and sweet
and fulminates
loss.
Mar 9, 2018
Mar 9, 2018 at 8:11 AM UTC
Thoughts escape through cracks and crevices of the swelling gray matter. Each breath forcefully exhaled through thinly parted lips pushes the unfinished coliseum constructed of heavy stones, weighted with unsure purpose, out into the previously unoccupied space before me. Each exhalation creates small beings composed of struggle that march mechanically into the arena. Ready to throw their lives on the line to fight for recognition. As these thoughts battle one another, one falls after the next. Once the battles between these thoughts has finished, and the coliseum is filled with dreams and ideas that will never find themselves fully recognized, only one stands victorious. Though battered and broken from the ****** battles it has fought, selflessness has conquered any that would seek to oppose it. It inhales the dire wounds caused to the others, and they stand before the crumpled mass that saved everything they fought so hard to achieve through personal sacrifice. Not knowing the events that occurred, they cannibalized selflessness to sate their primitive greed. Now a small portion of him exists within every ideal that escapes through pursed lips from the fields of grey matter where they were conceived. Through this process the idea of love was given life, and it will forever seek that selflessness that gave birth to it.
Oct 14, 2012
Oct 14, 2012 at 12:49 AM UTC