"filleted" poems
I drew the second third line
A first fourth one is on deck
Knew I inked them finely fine
Still, I go check and recheck
Marvelously filleted corners
Cleave an unsettling sound
Put compass back on paper
Just to make sure it's round
Anxiety was bound to happen
To the fifth first line I go back
Again, I sharpen and sharpen
But I give up, made it all black
Perfection is not my liberty
But a numb skin I wish to flay
Half of my mind seeks symmetry
Yet the other half
is in
disarray
Dec 5, 2018
Dec 5, 2018 at 8:46 PM UTC
I remember that Day when we sat
(side by side)
On those Stairs
(Waiting for our Train)
And you bought us Miso Soup
(It tasted like Tears)
The Sun hit my legs
(With all the force of sepia toned Nostalgia)
Covering them, bathing them. glorifying.
The traffic was the push and pull
(To and fro, magnetising, Synchronising)
Of waves.
Harsh, solid, mechanical waves
(Full of the force of Human Atrocity)
Japanese Culture was "in" and everything was "kawaii" and sweet
(With the underlying disturbance of Sexualisation - *** takes pride of place in our Civilisation)
I thought I was eating the sea.
(I could see the tiny fish Nibbling us that time we went snorkelling. We saw a Sting Ray that reminded us of Steve Irwin: Danger; Barbed Wire)
The Snow-flakes
(Fish-flakes)
Swirling in the snow globe of my Polystyrene Cup
(A new kind of Fish Bowl, A new Exposure)
And they swam around and around, Hiding
(Cyclical, controlled by Lunar Activity. Natural?)
If I stared hard enough I would, no, could see myself
(Floating, Filleted)
Amongst those Ribbons of Sea ****
With each Salty slurp
(That tasted of you, of the bitter Crust that Crowns your body in Heat)
I expected saltier Bladders to Burst in my Mouth
(Drowning me in Poison; Poisson)
I imagined the Japanese fisherman Catching Sun-Warmed Sea
(In a Polystyrene Cup)
The thousands of fish, tiny eyes that Blink, tiny gills that Palpitate - Suffocating in Air
(Aboard his boat, that Famed boat: "Daigo Fukuryu Maru")
Harvesting Silken Strands of Sea **** that Clung to its Crate
(In the same way that his Wife's Freshly washed Hair Twines about her Body. Static, Electric, Alive)
We didn't finish the Miso Soup;
It tasted too much of the Tears that I Cried.
Jul 6, 2014
Jul 6, 2014 at 9:52 AM UTC
VI. TO APHRODITE (21 lines)
(ll. 1-18) I will sing of stately Aphrodite, gold-crowned and
beautiful, whose dominion is the walled cities of all sea-set
Cyprus. There the moist breath of the western wind wafted her
over the waves of the loud-moaning sea in soft foam, and there
the gold-filleted Hours welcomed her joyously. They clothed her
with heavenly garments: on her head they put a fine, well-wrought
crown of gold, and in her pierced ears they hung ornaments of
orichalc and precious gold, and adorned her with golden necklaces
over her soft neck and snow-white ******* jewels which the gold-
filleted Hours wear themselves whenever they go to their father's
house to join the lovely dances of the gods. And when they had
fully decked her, they brought her to the gods, who welcomed her
when they saw her, giving her their hands. Each one of them
prayed that he might lead her home to be his wedded wife, so
greatly were they amazed at the beauty of violet-crowned
Cytherea.
(ll. 19-21) Hail, sweetly-winning, coy-eyed goddess! Grant that
I may gain the victory in this contest, and order you my song.
And now I will remember you and another song also.
2.3k
I have gained a paternal responsibility
But I feel a different response filling me
Constantly itching from a million flees
Begging to get me out of this please
So in my mind unseen
Resides a murderous dream
To subtract from my team
I fall into a landslide
Of infanticide
A lioness eats her cubs
As a baby drowns in a tub
Before they reach the age
They acquire our rage
We devour our babies
Before they contract rabies
We're brought together by proximity and origin
By who we were forming in
This connection of chance
Determines circumstance
Guiding our circle dance
With random music
We take whatever we can
Until we lose it
A possum's mother dies
It has no time to cry
It must continue to eat
So it feeds
Like its mother in heat
Had to breed
In order to not lose
The child chews
In a world of me or you
The child chews
Instead of feeling blue
The child chews
Its mother's fur stuck in its teeth
It stays there to provide heat
The parent provisions from beyond the grave
Will get the possum through this ugly day
From possum to person
I can't tell which is the worse end
For there is flesh stuck between my teeth
Like a Christmas wreath
Where what lies beneath
In a readily equipped sheath
Is patricide or matricide
I can't decide
But must abide
To survive
The purgatory
I see surging toward me
So to move forwardly
I must live forlornly
After feeding on family
Company becomes fantasy
Learning no one can handle me
They're just meals I'll eat handily
I eat my relatives
In this hell I live
Where what I give
Is the gnashing of my jaw
To follow a universal law
That says scratch and claw
Until I meet God
Expecting my parricide ways
Will garner divine praise
But for everybody I slayed
My soul was filleted
Now I only see grey
So everyone looks like my father
And I say welcome back Kotter
As I yearn for my teeth to be hotter
May 29, 2018
May 29, 2018 at 12:14 PM UTC
She keeps a bar in the window
Of the room she sleeps in every night
It's there to keep the rapists at bay
She doesn't bother with the other windows
Because her boyfriend will stop them
If they come in that way
These rapists aren't a figment of her imagination
Or a ghost from her past
They are a delusion of her present
Yes she was *****
But any lingering feelings she had about that
She ****** away a long time ago
I know they say **** lasts forever
But the bars in the windows are new
He sleeps with the covers off
It's a lot hotter at night now
Since they stopped opening the windows
He wakes up a lot for his midnight snack
Bagel and cream cheese spread with a spoon
He doesn't want to bother getting out his keys for a knife
He says, “I know she has issues,
But we all have issues, I have issues
That frankly I'm glad she sees past”
He's right that we all have issues
But his issues won't end up killing him
Hers will
I know they say love is forever
But the midnight snacks are new
She wakes up every morning with a smile on her face
Goes to bed every night with tears on her cheeks
The world never lets her have a happy day
She takes a shower and goes to work
Wonders if she'll get to see him before she hates him
Or is it her love the world wants to take away
She worries he'll give up on her
That he'll leave like all the others did
I mean they have *** all the time what else do boys want
If you were going to leave why didn't you go earlier
You know I'll just **** my self when you do
So just go now so we can get it over with
I know they say **** is forever
But forever is just so **** long
The suicide threats aren't new
He may have left a year ago but he can't now
Not now that she means it
He lingers longer before locking the knife drawer
Every filleted fish is a potential slit wrist
Not that he wants to die it's that he wants to help
She's louder every time she yells
He wishes they were fighting that would be the only normal part of their relationship
I mean he loves her so **** much even that's not normal
Tonight will be the fourth candle lit dinner this week
He read somewhere the dim lighting should soothe her
She thinks he's just trying to be sweet
But it'll end the same they'll make passionate love
She'll take a shower that lasts just a little too long
And he'll spend that time plotting her cure
They say love lasts forever
He hopes his suicide will too
Jan 4, 2010
Jan 4, 2010 at 9:56 AM UTC
filleted dreams, drip drip dripping into endless streams,
a falcon, a fisherman, a lonely seaboat with a blue stripe on white,
never ceasing, never dying, constant revelation, constant redemption,
dark nights, the tap tap tapping of raindrops on ceilings,
one leg cold and one leg warm, always reaching, never grasping,
a wine-drunken beam, a pill of golden light,
a breath, a whimper of sleep,
a drumming, a drumming, a drumming
of ever-closer watchmen on the rooftops of tenement houses,
weeping and watching and oh so silently
sewing closed their mouths with threads.
something in the darkness, something in the watchmen,
something in the drips of the tap and of the rain
and of the filleted dreams of endless streams,
cry technicolor, cry chromatic,
weep visions of paradise like water from Eden,
no, yes, my cautious child,
darling mother, sleeping father,
drunk drunk drunk on stolen nectar,
rot, rot, rot into the sour deep,
buried under rubble,
smothered, squeezed, dissected,
infinite life, finite spirit,
cry, cry, cry,
cry stolen and pale into the screams of your indigo dreams.
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 10:06 AM UTC
You are perfect.
Beyond any comparable specimen
photo shopped and filleted under the surgeons knife
splattered puffy lipped across every magazine
in the dime and nickel drugstore isles.
Like some olden goddess drunken ancients
sent prayer and virgins to.
Like a pop culture piece painting
portraying perfection multicolored
and gleaming.
Like the way the sun breaks into every color of the spectrum
when it hits the clouds just above the shore line
amazing even the coldest of hearts.
Like a piece of water frozen and glimmering
with all the brilliance of the sun itself
turning fields into fiery displays with the morning dew.
Like the first message sent across the nation via telegraph
amazing everyone
and bringing wonder and mystery into the world again
as if darkness and desperation never existed
in the first place.
Like all of these things.
You are perfect,
and I don't know you.
I don't know anything about you.
The sick
the chauvinistic
the sexist
the slum dog
and cannibal
and primitive
the ****** and unforgivable
the pure drive
and urge
in me,
wants to walk up brazenly
chest puffed out to you
to say only three things.
You are perfect.
What is your name?
Will you lay with me?
But I cannot do these things
you know your perfect.
I can tell by the way you walk
the way you brush away looks like dust.
Full of pride brought on by good genes
and disdain for others.
I am a gentleman
and I could never say such things
to a person as self satisfied
and perfect in physicality
as you.
Jan 16, 2013
Jan 16, 2013 at 4:10 PM UTC
we were not born of blessed stars
we did not rise amidst
feathers scorched
from the burning bush
our mother planted carelessly
inseminated with a yearning
for tiny pretty things
she forgot to keep us whole
and instead dismantled our nucleus
cell by nervous cell
until everything grew into nothing
the skin of our young hearts
filleted as embellishment
for her fine collection
of unhappiness
year after lonely year
our mother became obsessed
with our expected failures
creating dusty bouquets
of abandoned feathers
as a reminder of her sacrifice
a reminder of her love
we were never meant to fly
we were born of sadness
and heavy with regret
we entered this life
choking on her tears
Jul 13, 2014
Jul 13, 2014 at 7:06 PM UTC
I'll show you all the cracks,
in your feeble facade.
Just shortly before I see it erased,
with psychological grenades.
Don't you know?
I've got x-ray eyes,
They see into your heart
and find the skeletons you hide.
I don't require knives to see you filleted,
I'll verbally split your middle,
expose your doubts and your shames.
I'll flush out every fallacy,
stop the production.
My words and my mind will see your destruction.
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 10:09 PM UTC
Caffeine in the form
Of delicious Starbucks
Grande Carmel Frapp
Farewell my love!
Sushi and tuna so moist
Wrapped in seaweed
Filleted with crab
I leave you for now!
Hot tubs and Saunas
My bubbling friend
Of flavorful, steamy warmth
Oh how I shall miss you!
Don't, the doctor states
Can't, the internet reads
Want, my brain pleads
But I refrain, all for baby
Jan 31, 2018
Jan 31, 2018 at 10:04 PM UTC
You can’t feel pain
They said to the fish
They served him filleted
On a nice silver dish
You’re not a real person
They said to the slave
They whipped him and beat him
All the way to his grave
You don’t work hard
They said to the poor
They let them all starve
When they asked for more
When the slaves and the fish
And the poor were all gone
They looked at each other
And a war was on
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 1:14 PM UTC
The most heart wrenching
Soul shaking
Mind clenching
Fear...
You were born to be Artemis,
Brave, free,
Your heart broke your spirit,
Your hormones and adrenaline fighting for your body and your brain racing for a restart.
You?
You wish you were a computer, you wish to be free of a filleted heart and a poisoned mind.
But your chains will never break, and you know it.
You strive instead for chemical imbalance,
For your body's need and you're mind's release,
Homing for a delay, a way around your love.
You bite and nip and ride and kiss and claw and scream AND NOTHING IS LEFT.
You are, you have become need.
But under every need? Lies a parallel, a turning point, a breaking zone.
You have a void inside yourself, an abyss if fears, all of them.
And your fears,
Your human human fears?
They'll eat you alive,
You could never escape.
So face them!
Fight!
Untill every nerve is gone and the blood has left and the bones are broken!
Fight!
Fight yourself..
Fight to be human.
Fight and turn to water,
Rejuvenate yourself,
Let your voice be nothing but reverb...
But then be nothing but sound itself!
Be free little Artemis.
Be free with Persephone.
Jan 2, 2013
Jan 2, 2013 at 10:08 PM UTC
My grandma is a fish
I saw the gaping mouth
The hook was just a wish
To pull her back down south
The gurgling and gasping
Were more than I could bear
Gnashing and convulsing
I felt a tiny tear
Ed just wouldn’t wake
From his sleeping chair
The paramedics’ take
Sank Mert into despair
Then not much later on
It happened just this way
She had a small procedure
The surgeon’s knife filleted
And when the job was done
Within a god ****** day
I got a call at work
And what you had to say…
She’s not long for this world
We’re going to unplug
Come down and say your peace before
we salt her like a slug
She doesn’t want to be
Kept alive with a machine
To go against her wishes
Would be a trifle mean
The big brains all are saying
She’s just a little old
And though she’d probably make it
If she did what she was told…
She doesn’t want to live alone
So let her keep her pride
Here is an exception
To that rule on suicide.
I just wanted to run, I just wanted to hide…
I just hated your faces; it just felt like you lied...
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 5:31 PM UTC
tired liar, uninspired
wire-rider
biting fire
un-learned burn-out
doubting the clout, pouting
routing trout
without
nets
regrets beset
vetted pets
wet with fret
filleted
displaying range
grange hall dancers manage
manic prancing horses
trotting in the allotted plot
sought, bought
caught in the cot
as the hot won’t stop
relentlessly attacking my inspiration
leaving me only with **** like
this
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 1:07 PM UTC
Cars were parked all over the yard, with rusted parts, and chipped paint, that gave way to faint brown sprays on jagged window frames.
And where the oil puddles turned the tall grass grey, a trail was made that lead the way, to the house where the bodies laid.
Stripped of clothes, and filleted in droves, they were posed in ways i couldn't explain.
He used a hammer to remove the teeth, and neatly sawed them into pieces at the creases, as he dumps the clumps into a drum of something acidic, before pouring it down the sink, where he swiped the fodder, and runs the water until clean.
He then places the teeth on sheets of torn cloth that he bundles up, and stashes up in the loft, before heading off for the street, to repeat his play, to the piece, so his dreams can seep into your day.
He was a hitch hiker, having his way.
Feb 11, 2013
Feb 11, 2013 at 12:28 PM UTC
This food was bad. The grease dripped off the polystyrene into the bowl as if life itself was disgusting.
He sat in his flat, unable to write. How ironic that a writer with so much experience couldn’t write his own story. He was so good at observing everyone else.
Then the haze of dubstep pounded through his apartment walls and he imagined a ****** scene in which the cops would find his neighbours filleted on the floor and all over their filthy couches.
The blood spatter, the details in which their ears had been molested as he felt his were... what happened to real music?
He felt raw.
He felt injustice.
He felt motion in his fingertips and began to type.
Ferocious typing.
Typing to the beat, angrily aiding and abetting this criminal assault on his senses.
He stopped to take the last sip of his last warm beer. He smiled…
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 2:16 PM UTC
Casting chicken liver off the levee
tap and pull, rod starts bouncing
set the hook, and reel it in
all its fins and tail a'flouncing.
Costa sunglasses cut the glare
of the green rippled lake light,
three baited lines in the water,
patience, ready for another bite.
Waiting, waiting in the sun
as mosquitos buzz around me,
a slight breeze blowing from the west
they say its when the fish bite best.
Water snakes, colored orange and black
float upon cattail rafts, soaking heat,
ignore the splashing of my cast,
one of my lines goes suddenly slack.
**** the rod, the fight is on!
Catfish tugging toward the bottom,
he so enjoyed my ****** bait,
my fillet knife, though is his fate.
Channel, blue or flathead
whatever fish will try;
will be swiftly cleaned
and served deep fried.
Filleted and battered thick with beer
the oil is bubbling and smoking hot,
hear the sizzle as they fry up crisp,
fill my plate straight from the ***
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 9:52 AM UTC
Once the night spills its stories three shots down
the wives are always *******
and 'he' the prefect one. How come?
Little did he know his drinks
were earned on the backstreets of ******
and the greasy twenty was to keep his mouth
shut the **** up. But no, he blathered and blathered
of his own inadequacy, on the home front,
and the two children he never knew
ignored his weakness
to sell crack on the doorstep of doom.
The day he went to investigate
this moral uprising in his mind
they found him filleted like a big fish
in the factory backyard where the
slabs of ice kept him frozen for a whole month.
He was shipped on a container to nowhere
frozen with the tuna.
Author Notes
Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a day ago
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 4:18 PM UTC
I survived things I thought were worth fighting for.
I survived worse things, so now I'm fighting forward.
I survived cursed things, that frightened more.
I survived things I fought but been slighted for.
I survived having to make ends meet.
I survived splashing cause the pool was more than 10 ft.
I survived a thrashing & jabbing the ****** concrete.
I survived the teeth gnashing cause we ain't have nothing to eat.
I survived about at least 4 foreclosures.
I survived ignoring doubt, just for closure.
I survived things that ended in my own exposure.
I survived enduring drought just for full disclosure.
I survived being back-stabbed and betrayed by my beloved.
I survived being flayed, filleted and flummoxed.
I survived being led to the lake by the lazy lummox.
I survived both blades and flames in my stomach.
I survived dreams where I was falling.
I survived falling forward on the path of my calling.
I survived calling it quits on the plans of my offing.
I survived apples with poisoned pits , that were offered.
I survived having to spare shekels and hide.
I survived my very own version of Jekyll and Hyde.
I survived diluted deities, Ms. Dee Dee and diabetes.
I survived debbie downers and debutantes.
I survived double doubters and deadly taunts.
I survived some double crossings - dealing haunts,
I survived tempted tantrums and tethered thoughts.
I survived the boondocks and the tricks of the babadook.
I survived bad trips and the trips that papa took.
I survived self destruction of the 3rd degree.
I survived self construction with less debris....
Jul 2, 2024
Jul 2, 2024 at 6:23 PM UTC
During my high school days
I was a fat kid afraid
of making any ****** advances
I never went to any school dances
because I knew this fool's chances
were lower than evergreen branches.
My definition of try
was hair that was dyed
and apparel fly
I bought some **** clothes but they were 4XL
now I only spread sheets that far for Excel
because it reminds me of my ex hell
when my enthusiasm for *** fell
because of how weight impacted my mobility
and society negated my nobility
just for the food filling me
which was admittedly killing me
with cholesterol and restaurants billing me
because I was addicted to eating willingly.
Then I started counting calories
for purely cosmetic purposes
which gave me more of my salary
canceling extraneous purchases
but it mainly stopped my self hating
I started meeting people and dating
which feels like competing for ratings
which can be quite grating
but my chances for love are fading
so my life can no longer be about delaying
finding someone who's interested in staying.
Now my docket
shows **** licks
and crossfit
no longer frost bit
by locked lips
I got this
advantage to not being lonely
but now I gain no new homies
when no one wants to know me
just blow me
showing
I'm not really growing
just getting laid
but that's a decent trade
for the life I had made
getting food filleted
to a lower grade.
Feb 11, 2022
Feb 11, 2022 at 4:34 PM UTC
Ive never rushed to death,
Under a cylinder scope
A peek into the surreal:
A dance of shadows
Filleted by burnt light,
Across the portico
Under the middays thought
A girl under my eyes
Holds the glare of our only
Star;
The nocturne and his ways
Mysterious like a woman's
Touch of lips,
Kiss the sky under
The constellated passions
And in the moment....
A girl!
A man sees the destiny's
Plow through fields
Of the grained aches past gone,
A girl subdues the terminable,
Just a breath before the
Dust settles,
A sigh of life.
Jun 15, 2017
Jun 15, 2017 at 2:49 AM UTC
Far away, across the emptiness
and unbrokeness of the desert
a thousand
pebbles are strewn,
each one begging to be picked up.
In some eastern city,
a girl and her friends
wander, and laugh, and joke,
and jump, drunk. She looks
so good tonight. Her hair
wavy and long, her eyes
a thousand different wavelengths
of blue, green, amber.
In a room,
there's a bed,
a desk,
a dresser,
a bedside table.
The girl and her friends,
wandering darkening streets,
drunk, looking for the next ****
next bottle to **** dry.
Outside his window,
the setting sun reaches out
for it's last burning grasp
of skin. Scorching all day,
now it relents, but it always leaves a mark.
There's a guy in the club,
all up on her,
and she isn't trying to push him away,
even as his lips brush her neck.
In the room, in the dark,
he goes subterranean,
spending hours staring at her feed,
at her notifications,
where she's been,
and who she's with.
The brushed lips are the first warm thing
in forever,
it seems.
Going even more subterannean,
he runs through and through
all the scenarios.
He goes back and forth
in his room,
looking for something,
looking for nothing at all.
Up.
Down.
Sit.
Stand.
Calm.
Explode.
Reassure.
Anger.
And tonight the most harrowing thing,
is those lips and the strength
of pain and sorrow.
He saw,
He saw the snapchats.
Emptied him whole,
right there,
filleted his stomach
and dropped some rocks
for his way down to the bottom.
All the rights he has now:
the right to the joy of betrayal.
the joy of being right,
and its incumbent wrongs all at the same time,
the comfort of madness.
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 3:25 PM UTC
A soul purge so deep
That no one could be there to hold me in it.
A fire so englufing,
that if anyone had tried they'd have just been burned.
I lose control and only love the ones I have hurt.
How does that work?
The surrounding sounds muffle out as my chest caves in.
The kind of silence you endure as your surroundings completely disappear.
All you can feel is your chest pain burning like a thousand suns about to incinerate you alive.
You fight the urge to become a rage-induced animal
Because the pain is unbearable and no one gives a ****
and even if they do they CAN'T do anything about it.
I have to swallow it all and digest it.
I have to fight to not be overcome by it all.
But what do you do when you feel like your soul
is being filleted alive, soul stripped in all directions,
Bare, and ******* raw now..
The shedded lining burnt to a crisp in tatters across the floor around me and the pieces charred flying through the air.
Another phoenix stage of rising through the ashes
But where the **** does the sky take me?
I have been here before.
There is no where to go.
I give up.
I cut off my new wings.
May 27, 2021
May 27, 2021 at 1:59 PM UTC