"filaments" poems
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it----
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a **** lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?----
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
26k
The artichoke
of delicate heart
*****
in its battle-dress, builds
its minimal cupola;
keeps
stark
in its scallop of
scales.
Around it,
demoniac vegetables
bristle their thicknesses,
devise
tendrils and belfries,
the bulb's agitations;
while under the subsoil
the carrot
sleeps sound in its
rusty mustaches.
Runner and filaments
bleach in the vineyards,
whereon rise the vines.
The sedulous cabbage
arranges its petticoats;
oregano
sweetens a world;
and the artichoke
dulcetly there in a gardenplot,
armed for a skirmish,
goes proud
in its pomegranate
burnishes.
Till, on a day,
each by the other,
the artichoke moves
to its dream
of a market place
in the big willow
hoppers:
a battle formation.
Most warlike
of defilades-
with men
in the market stalls,
white shirts
in the soup-greens,
artichoke field marshals,
close-order conclaves,
commands, detonations,
and voices,
a crashing of crate staves.
And
Maria
come
down
with her hamper
to
make trial
of an artichoke:
she reflects, she examines,
she candles them up to the light like an egg,
never flinching;
she bargains,
she tumbles her prize
in a market bag
among shoes and a
cabbage head,
a bottle
of vinegar; is back
in her kitchen.
The artichoke drowns in a ***
So you have it:
a vegetable, armed,
a profession
(call it an artichoke)
whose end
is millennial.
We taste of that
sweetness,
dismembering scale after scale.
We eat of a halcyon paste:
it is green at the artichoke heart.
16.7k
The light is like a spider.
It crawls over the water.
It crawls over the edges of the snow.
It crawls under your eyelids
And spreads its webs there--
Its two webs.
The webs of your eyes
Are fastened
To the flesh and bones of you
As to rafters or grass.
There are filaments of your eyes
On the surface of the water
And in the edges of the snow.
9.3k
Filaments fixed on your eyes all night
and the possibility of a chance, of an opportunity,
that I’ll be able to talk to you,
because the club lights are blue
stretched like animal hide across your own hide:
complexion clear cheeks still rouged
though tidal club glow is still blue.
It’s pathetic, worse than any diabetic
with their HumaPen Memoir insulin
length of pen, recording the time
and date
and precise amount of pain
they inject from the last 16 doses.
My pen is my keyboard and records
miserable times
and forgotten dates in cafes
and precise amounts of pain,
though this diabetic is a pathetic poet
and he knows it.
Aug 19, 2013
Aug 19, 2013 at 2:49 PM UTC
Fought
One, Twenty-two skidoo.
Cantankerous mad filamous
She,
That of her,
Me.
Piñata, stretched balloon
Over my big fleshy
******
Tea and cakes,
Painted my nails
Painted my lips
Like candy.
Gold trinkets,
Pour like mercury out of my ear.
Ouch! I cried
My feet in hot sandy
Dreams.
Flying peacocks tickle
My *****
Oranges roll on chalk board tables
Over stale rye bread.
***** dribbles out like mucus
And a runny nose.
Toilet paper and rusty water.
********** on you.
Stocking lover.
Fetish cover.
Woman pusher.
Mellifluous ****
Look at my skin.
Pink, beige, peach, red
Porous, greasy, bacteria ridden hide.
**** me like seppuku,
Smother, suffocate me with
Red jelly jam.
Lubricate your finger with black
Cancerous ash.
Stick it in my naval,
Unravel my umbilical cord
Like so many filaments of my heart.
Tear your flesh
You auto *********
Rip your liver
And force feed it
Corn and maize
Hay and grass
Emory my nails against
Red barn walls
Until bare skin fundamentals
Kisses with salty lips
Inflame my ravishing
Pig stomach.
Kick my shin you
Everything,
Wake up you stupid
*****
Void can be blue skies,
Oceans call for suicide.
Kiss me with delight,
Raspberries tattooed
In my *****
Strawberry cream
Vanilla, milk,
Ponderous infinity,
Cotton, dough
Honey and sage.
Caustic gastric
You and not me.
Feel my legs,
Touch my thighs,
Lick my lips,
Give me anything
Not direct.
Tie me up in complexities.
**** my head up.
Put me in a dream,
Make me happy.
Blair Butterfield 2004
Jan 11, 2010
Jan 11, 2010 at 7:09 AM UTC
for Ruth Fainlight
I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root;
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.
Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness?
Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.
All night I shall gallup thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.
Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is rain now, the big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin white, like arsenic.
I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand,a hand of wires.
Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.
The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.
I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.
I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it ***** out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.
Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?
I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches? ----
Its snaky acids kiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That **** that **** that ****
4.2k
liminality;
barely there
ask if it matters
care if you dare
believe in impossibility
mind framing liminal spaces
places of liminal mind-frames
filaments between contexts
capturing subtleties as moths
liminally reaching inwards
map of a shady threshold
twilight netherworld border
between now & everywhen
cusp of crisp discovery
intangible as of late
liminal during daylight;
stars, fireflies, lanterns
night itself being liminal
colors need brightness
shadow for textures
whispering worlds
peripheral vision
vibes and feltsense
inner underworlds
embracing hell
reversing it
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 6:19 PM UTC
It is snowing and death bugs me
as stubborn as insomnia.
The fierce bubbles of chalk,
the little white lesions
settle on the street outside.
It is snowing and the ninety
year old woman who was combing
out her long white wraith hair
is gone, embalmed even now,
even tonight her arms are smooth
muskets at her side and nothing
issues from her but her last word - "Oh." Surprised by death.
It is snowing. Paper spots
are falling from the punch.
Hello? Mrs. Death is here!
She suffers according to the digits
of my hate. I hear the filaments
of alabaster. I would lie down
with them and lift my madness
off like a wig. I would lie
outside in a room of wool
and let the snow cover me.
Paris white or flake white
or argentine, all in the washbasin
of my mouth, calling, "Oh."
I am empty. I am witless.
Death is here. There is no
other settlement. Snow!
See the mark, the pock, the pock!
Meanwhile you pour tea
with your handsome gentle hands.
Then you deliberately take your
forefinger and point it at my temple,
saying, "You suicide *****
I'd like to take a corkscrew
and ***** out all your brains
and you'd never be back ever."
And I close my eyes over the steaming
tea and see God opening His teeth.
"Oh." He says.
I see the child in me writing, "Oh."
Oh, my dear, not why.
3.9k
Take me to the windmill
that revolves around the sun
let me feel the air move
as the music carries on
hold me as we turn and turn
and never let me go
take me to the windmill that you know.
Fastened to the gentle breeze with
filaments of fun
laughing 'til we cry as
we revolve around the sun
music playing moodily that just
goes on and on
turn and turn and
never let me go.
Take me to the windmill
let us spin in our desire
winding through the universe
we set our world on fire
hold me one more time and turn
the music lower still
take me to the windmill that you know.
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 5:47 AM UTC
balking, then walking into the suburban night,
I have escaped the TV, the PC, the clutter of memories
and the last two hanging, breasty incandescent bulbs in the galaxy,
soon to have their filaments burn out amid the indifference
of florescent pigtails and their infinite, incessant hum
I have escaped into this night
marching on, marching on
the sullied, sacred sidewalk squares
past the dentist’s house, past the woman whose husband was murdered
by his best friend over a case of beer, and had her eternal fifteen minutes on Dr. Phil
past the retired educator, past the woman who…hell I don’t know what she does--she drives a gold Avalon
and never retrieves her Sunday paper before noon
marching on, marching on
I count cadence, move as if I am headed
to another battle, and I am, but I won’t see my enemy tonight
he is yet on the black horizon, waiting for me, and you
marching on
when I pass the widow’s house a second time, a third (?) time
I smell her cigarettes and see the orange glow in her garage, like
a lonely firefly moving to and fro, in the universe she creates for it
before flicking it to her oil stained concrete graveyard, stomping it out
never to let it fly again, though by my next circle she will have birthed a new one
and given it a foul fickle journey of its own
marching on
a truck passes me on my final lap
its fumes mixing with the cool moonlight
I hold my breath, wanting neither lunar light
nor carbon monoxide for my evening repast
when I breathe again,
the scent of tacos soothes my olfactory,
I do not know its greasy origin in this dark place
nor do I care, but I inhale again more deeply
daring the odor to tease me again
and help me forget what
I escaped to find
marching on
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 9:33 PM UTC
I'll ask you not to turn off the lights,
I want them to blind me
with their brilliant filaments
until the bulbs break
like a vase on a tiled floor,
the walls, the door go back
to being charcoal black
as they have been so many times before.
I have started to abhor
the roads that define me,
the words that describe me
and my traits,
the way I must walk in wintery air
to a migraine inducing wilderness
to be squashed into old moulds,
will this be adequate for you now and when?
What is this fall,
does it affect you, your actions,
your jumbled jigsaw piece thoughts?
These bruises are purple,
this brain is strained,
inject me with zest
until my wrist pains
so much it must combust.
Out of the glass is nothing,
a candyfloss cloud, a tree, a lawn,
it bores me,
an artist is needed,
paint a new canvas
swathed in colour
and things from my weekend dreams
lucid and intense.
I am a ******* up ball
of paper, unfold me, still legible?
Fold it again, an airplane
chucked into an angry breeze
or please,
if the lamps are tough enough,
watch my words illuminate,
drool across the table.
Oct 25, 2012
Oct 25, 2012 at 3:59 PM UTC
I.
Still thriving beyond immaculate walls.
Tincturing the water that solemnly streams in the river,
I await the corner of grassy marshes, and
Gather your secret spells.
In days when the land is prey to rhythmic beats;
The water dances with disturbance.
I run through the meadow barefoot, and
Cast the sun-dried bricks beyond me.
The red Moon drowns in woeful bliss, while
Its jealous relative illuminates the dew on Morning petals.
I glare through my destruction;
And see your silhouette.
Torn bridges of yesterdays misfortune send
Violent waves forth, undying they proceed.
Bravely-- they despondently conquer me;
No longer a trace of you I see.
II.
Unable to grasp reality, bitter
Tears of a Bright knowledge no longer in possession.
Red yonder, cognizant of former tribulations
Appear among the contour of wilted trees
Desperately searching for extraneous disposal,
Only melted clay reflects the ruins of an icy marsh.
Spring is obscure; but inevitable.
Soon harvest shall return to the field,
And barren no more will the land be.
No longer riddles, or secret spells;
Greet the stream of lost memories.
Impairment heals itself; it weaves
Filaments of seconds- to create a
Labyrinth of Time.
Oct 8, 2012
Oct 8, 2012 at 2:35 AM UTC
Captive of the city.
A walk between the drawing and the camera, a drawing and a camera.
Blindness is about understanding gesture.
Stereoscope Sound Scenes Systems
Blue lines form the links between
the black cats suggesting, what we know is that we do not.
Forget me the sweet song
rising from her ashtray
be gone hearts frayed afraid.
Coma Cluster
Coma Cluster
Coma CLUSTER
COMO cluster
CLuster cOma ClUsTeR CoMa
Soma simply trying to muster
Domino Christos no longer allow my suffer
ECCE ****
IN The GARDEN of ever EARTHLY delights
Strings
Filaments
Voids
Soap
bubbles filling a sink
slide through
Pop. Pop.
I float above stronger than a rock
my blue black burning body
love
emirates
emanating
Red-Shifted
For You
though dust clouds interfere
Feb 11, 2015
Feb 11, 2015 at 3:11 PM UTC
When you do stand
so close, so bare
fingers weaving through
my filaments of hair.
When you do inhale
the extras and the
uncensored imperfections
When you do break
thus incandescent sweat
that shivers from yours to mine
I do hope you may see
The love and trust
and compassion felt
that you could find in me.
Jan 19, 2016
Jan 19, 2016 at 8:26 PM UTC
on this rumbling
stretch of tundra
no trees reach up
to soothe the sky
there is a pulling down
of wind tunnel vortex
like conifers in reverse
an icy howl
in the bonechill
of time
Translucent holes,
perfectly round, are dug
in glacial archeology
and in the sea below
gelid creatures lurk,
half-frozen
in the history of my
soul
Only moss and lichens
grow on the rock,
somehow softening the
rugged textures
of the wild landscapes
that seethe
just beneath my skin
and there, just
shy of the surface
is a quickening
a subtle pulse of veins
that pumps life
between the gales of
my heart's steppes
flushing out
the pain
somewhere
deep
within the private lotus
of my being
folioles unfurl
leafy shapes around
my organs
wrapping them like gifts
as they undulate in whorls
opening my petals
in renewed consciousness
and deliberation
as a new kind of
stamen
rises
dusty pollen
powdery
budding ripeness
bursting up
and out
of my deepest
centered
whirlpool pistil
nectar dripping
in viscous webs,
to be caught upon
the tongue of
a new dawning
My silky outer
wings of vegetation,
slender stalks of
filaments and anther
have been turned
into hot steel
They protect
the tender vulnerable
when burned
as poison words held up to my
watchful eyes,
are properly discerned
I give myself over
to this new power,
my back arched to fully embrace
what is to come,
a universe calling thunder,
the old patterns undone
I am ready
to reveal my all
as the goddess deep within
comes to release my gold
suffusing light through skin
conjured from me
a relentless strength,
ever-growing,
now tenfold
rising way past
soft-lit stratospheres
and orbiting
to
bold
Nov 5, 2017
Nov 5, 2017 at 6:05 PM UTC
if only emotional abuse scarred my skin the way physical abuse did, because maybe then you'd see that your words and your demeanor are the reason why you say i have issues with channeling my anger
maybe if your screams bludgeoned my skin the way a punch would destroy the filaments under my tender flesh, you'd notice how much you're hurting me
and it scares me that you can't even see what you're doing
it scares me that one day i'll be one scream away from erratically fainting to my demise, falling effortlessly to the floor, heart still beating in my chest and brain activity picking up faster than ever before
it scares me that you're not scared
your words are like knives carving my organs with cynical words
"worthless" is inscribed through the hemispheres of my brain
"damaged" is engraved into my lungs
i can't breathe
and im beginning
to not feel anything
anymore
Jul 30, 2016
Jul 30, 2016 at 1:30 PM UTC
liquid light
oozing over
solid sound,
gasping gas.
static singing
focal filaments,
breaking brains.
lightning licks the
devilish dervish,
knighted king, the
anointed anarchist antichrist,
now nowhere.
Aug 27, 2014
Aug 27, 2014 at 1:18 AM UTC
Antsy aardvarks all
accept ants accordingly
as an addiction
Bamboo bayonets
bought by barbaric, beastly
barons bite beatniks
Cloistered cobblers can
color candy-cane conches
concealing crooners
Daffodils doodle
daydreams down, debauchery
demons deafening
Every eon each
electric elephant eats
eleven elk eggs
For fun fantasies
file films filosophic'ly
filling filaments
Go get greens
Get grass grayer gal
goonie ghoul
Hello high hammock
how hooligans heave haddocks
heathenly hecklers
Igloos ixist in
icy islands interning
internationally
Jello jam jizzy
Jacks jostling jewels juney
jump jump joop jail
Dec 27, 2009
Dec 27, 2009 at 9:11 PM UTC
Violets fell
from your mouth, smoke
in purple filaments
Your laughter spills from
frozen tongues
you are
you are
you are
a thousand words
in a silent room
echoing from
my naked mouth,
the folds layering
in my mind:
red and blossomed nectar
filling the hollows
of my ears.
Aug 14, 2012
Aug 14, 2012 at 12:46 AM UTC
This poem is going to be a lie
He tells himself
Writhing in tantalizing filaments
The bright asphyxiation drawing him closer and closer
To this
An ideal
Of the perfect truth
Told out in unwritten song
Painfully typed words
A clever shower of meteors
Belittling the dangerous craters on the surface
The danger of tripping and dying
Not withstanding what we know to be
A falicy
My multilingual interpretation of her feelings
Old testimonies heard in the court
Of the already guilty
This poem is a complete distortion of facts
My trivial response to empowered individuals
Standing on my Adam's Apple
And beating on my lungs like drums
Rhythm meaning honor
And the attention of the onlookers meaning
The inviting glow
Of the fireplace.
She sat down next to
That night
That town
That unfamiliar castigating of a child not belonging to
You
Or her
Or the abyss
"Unbelonging"
"Inbelonging"
Not. Yours.
The wordsmith falters
Checking his math
Calculation, equation, kiss on the cheek
For luck for death
For the noose to slip, lovingly
And gently to the ground as the trap door swings open
A great, open toothed smile
Laughing at silence
BARBARIC to interrupt such delicacy
Straining to look into my eyes
She whispers low
I want to find a home...
And i tell her, with my heaviest conviction
"No home is."
Which could mean anything.
This poem is a verisimilitude
A lie about a truth
Which, again...
Could mean anything...
Jan 9, 2012
Jan 9, 2012 at 12:33 PM UTC
After the sunset I hide
Nothing can hurt me there
No tears to be shed
No flesh to be torn
The castle shields me from the war
Prevents me from hurting
Even if just for a little while
The castle is what I love most
Kissing the dark of the sky
Dancing in the moonlight
Even if just for a little while
Making me look up from my scars
Getting me to dwell on the little piece of life left in me
In the castle, I am alive, I am home
Even if just for a little while
When the sun goes up
I have to return
To the hell I was born in
Getting beaten to filaments
All the hate flows back in me
Insulating me
Dragging me down deeper and deeper
Burning me to ash
In the dark heat I long
To the cherry nights under the stars
And in the dark paradise I prance
Under the bright glazing sun
Jan 26, 2019
Jan 26, 2019 at 11:30 AM UTC
Today I walked to the park and back
And saw suburbia rearranged into dizzying distortions
All the trees had a purplish tint
And on the grass, I saw multicoloured light reflecting off the dew
When I got home
I attacked all the imagery with a dagger to reshape reality
And a blank mirror to recreate the world in my head.
The world that was quiet is humming again
I hear choirs of crickets and choral basslines
Cacophonous and ecstatic in the constant confusion
The dull concrete is shot open with marquee moonlight
Indulgence pouring out, free-flowing like communion
And painted onto canvases like rain on a car window
Daydreams and delusions are ice cream melting, sticky and sap-like on your chin
Clouds pixelate with diamond edges
Voices ring out in a flurry
And there isn't a soul in sight.
So I breathe in the air
And let all the sounds and smells and limitations of reality colour my imagination once again
Daydreamed delusions and nightmarish reality are one
Filaments in the vibrant violence
Until the summer fades away again.
Aug 18, 2023
Aug 18, 2023 at 7:25 AM UTC
An anarchist atom
Assaults the atmosphere
With anger and aerial arson
Bringing, begetting
Brutal and ****** battles
In my brain
Initiating chaos
With charges
Of chemicals.
A disection, distortion
Diversion of dedication
And direction
Causing eruptions
Emissions
Of erratic, electric elements
Of ego.
Ferocious fires form
In filaments, firmaments
Feeding the fantastic
Forces
Which grow and gain
In greatness in gravity
Grave, gory, gorgeous
Gloom.
Henceforth hidden horrors
Harrowed in a hollow heart
Instantly interact with
Intimate ideas
Initiating irregular, irrational
Irreversible
Irrelevant
Intimacy
Jealousy
Jumbling of jinxes
And laws of the jungle
For kicks
Leading to lies
Leaving love for loneliness
Loss.
A massive moral meltdown
In my mind
Negating, neutralising
normality
Orchestrates an open
Onslaught of order
And ordinary
People's principles
To pursue passion
And perfection
In a poetic periphery
Quite queer to some
And quaint to those
Not acquainted with
Rushes of ramblings
Received and reciprocated
Or radical ridicule
Of rascals.
Synapses send,
Signal every sinew
Simulating similar signs
But transmitting treacherous
Tingles
Teasing, trapping thoughts
In terror, temptations
To commit treason
Unforgivable, unforgettable
Us
Vivid and vibrant
But also very
Woeful
Wishing we were wild
And willing to walk
Our wishes make wonderful
Wells of
Youth
And creative zest.
Feb 24, 2013
Feb 24, 2013 at 11:09 AM UTC
With tenacious tread I seek the dawn
Like urban trees drink deep
Of lake water and clear skies, I plant my feet
Only to stumble through
The arid wasteland of my wound.
I walk off the pain
Though each step draws the flames higher
Each breath becomes an act of will
My own heel my pyre.
I set my eye, with rigid strides
Press toward the gold horizon line.
Maybe a fool: I am my own fuel
As forward motion consumes, I'm vaporized
And my sparks skyward fly.
Ashes
To ashes, dust
To dust.
Each searing step I take alone
Then in the coals see marks
Of other feet, upward look and meet
Eyes ember bright, fearless
Fingers tracing filaments against the night.
Fire walkers give off the light
By which we find a way
A note or rhyme, a guiding flame
As forward motion consumes, refines
And our sparks skyward fly.
Ashes
To ashes, dust
To dust
To gold.
Feb 16, 2019
Feb 16, 2019 at 12:23 PM UTC