"flume" poems
Let's dance to the boogie in the room.
Hearts pound, energy abound, the hips sway.
Cyclical time baby caught in the flume.
Fall into me sweetheart, your soul's astray.
Arm spread eagles escape into the sound.
Could we maybe find peace in this madness?
Further gone, blue, red, green, and white abound.
EVERYBODY! This love we must address.
One more hit, swig, swag, tab, maybe a dab
and we're off on the moon again singin.
Lay all your innocent out on the slab
cuz darlin o girl their love'll be ringin.
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 2:16 PM UTC
It’s time to take down all the decorations,
They look tatty with no celebrations
to give them purpose,
Bauble’s shine turns to rust,
The tinsel starts wilting
Like flowers left in a vase.
Fragments of sellotape cling to the wrapping paper,
And grab at the walls and window ledges it passes on its way to the fire
Trying to escape death.
At least a kind of death.
Floating up out of the flume to be part of a white Christmas for next year.
A flake of ash that ice molecules wrap themselves around to become a snowflake,
And to think you used to be wrapping paper.
So much tasted of last year,
How much is recyclable?
How much to care about complacence of wastage?
How much should I shed a tear?
How much should I care for carbon footprints and ******* tips?
I don’t want to care at all
It’s too much baggage.
All I want is to fly this year,
I’ll make a kite from the bones of the Christmas tree,
The baubles and tinsel and snow spray stripped,
Now bare of all personality.
Maybe it will fly…
If it doesn’t,
There will always be next year,
Until there isn’t…
…And even when I die someday,
Maybe I will get to be a snowflake.
And I’ll get to fly that way.
Jan 4, 2014
Jan 4, 2014 at 6:42 AM UTC
Perched in front of a fireplace
One could be thinking of anything,
Distant castles and battles to be fought-
Dragons and demons and lovers lost
But as I curl up on the brick and place myself only inches from the flames
I think about how I wish the fireplace were real
And that it was in a much smaller house
So the warmth could chase away the cold and darkness from the farthest corners of the room.
Suddenly I remember my aunt and her fireplace
Situated in a house even bigger than this
As I watch she sits down on the cold marble hearth and reaches for a pack of cigarettes hidden in plain sight, puts one to her lips, and lights it
Exhaling the smoke into the flume
In my imagination I see myself taking one from her
Lighting it
And I inhale
And I exhale
Finding myself once again alone in front of the fireplace that isn't real,
the house still cold and dark as ever.
Jan 1, 2014
Jan 1, 2014 at 4:04 PM UTC
Settle into darkness, naturally, and take your cue from unoiled gears jolting forward only to lure you into false stability and lose velocity, stop suddenly, merge the definitions of stopping and falling by balancing the cart on the back of the tongue as sherbet dip dab’s your gums in 3…2…swallow down it drops FLASH past the oesophagus there’s your photo op show us some teeth show us some skin darlin’ begin to dissolve in stomach acid bile’s vile hold it down we will use force if necessary like handcuffs to a headboard excuse me sir may I see your ticket? Right you can’t sit here, you’re 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphphetamine, that’s upstairs you need to swing a left then straight up to the top floor not a bad view, you can’t miss it it’s got a hundred golden bulbs flashing hypothalamus, no we’re not really bothered about our environment take the lift elevate heart rate
C-C-C-CRANK IT UP
to the cerebral cortex’s House of Mirrors home of distortion. What can we do for you sir? We like to pride ourselves in our ability to mess around with the wiring and stimulate receptors, all part of the Deluxe Mega Deal complete with moving walls, disco ball skin and a talking butterfly the size of a car crash for a limited time only whilst serotonin stocks last they fall as fast as the lubricated log flume SPLASH. Please remain seated until the end of the ride. Thrown out into the gift shop. £30 for a 12 hour come down. Come again soon.
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 9:12 AM UTC
Flipped through my comic
And there I eyed
Free ride on the batman slide
Got so pumped I nearly cried
Got so pumped I nearly cried
Took my ticket
Drove to the fair
Let the wind breeze through my hair
Kind of cold but I don't care
Kind of cold but I don't care
There it was
Past flume log
Was it worth this sudden slog?
Chomping on my chili dog
Chomping on my chili dog
Gave the ticket
Crawled on in
Beaming with a goofy grin
Taking this ride for a spin
Taking this ride for a spin
I slid down
Then I barfed!
Losing all my debonair
Chili splattered everywhere
Chili splattered everywhere
Off to ride
Carousel
Handyman would come with broom
Walking past the scary flume
Walking past the scary flume
Jan 24, 2016
Jan 24, 2016 at 1:01 PM UTC
foam floral caps, work of wet hydrangea,
or pulse of caucasian lilacs in a sky-relieved frieze.
cambric pennons swag reconsidering
margins of wimpling burn,
wherein the stars…twiring stars,
the declining stars, moon and planets
turned--
purchase light with morning-hands:
green-bedizened;
amber trammeling bud.
absolve qualm suffusing tyre,
violet’s violent leniency--
and feel, o’bask! in velvet
flume of veins,
as beams of conspiracy raise
to post and lintel,
crutching a young god’s legs--
and feel, o’supplicate! bathe in
day’s anatomies,
til greave deposit in lacunary sleeves,
and a genuflecting sun bow eternally--
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 6:38 PM UTC
We all know when we are not wanted as it seems that many do,
A jolly up in the town, everyone there but you
Your work mates are friendly but only for the day
Theyve spoke of their home lives and that they think the dog is gay
A bit of what is known as banter wouldn't go a miss
Your mates of old all married now, your still searching for that bliss
Facebook and Twitter can be the final hurrah with pictures of their lives
2 kids and a dog to boot, only way to get them out is a free drink as a bribe
Your best friend and their new found buds, all arms up on that log flume up north
We had days like that at Chessington, 18 and ****** before your kids were spawned
We pretend we live alternative lives, who needs that wholesome charade of a perfection
A City flier, on all the apps, a wit you could not section
You tell the world your happy as, a life now ruled by Tinder
But tell the truth, your home in bed, fish finger sandwich probably from Findus
But it pulls at the heart, those pictures of happiness and a life that you thought was right
I'll get there someday, just ignoring the now, I'll say it again,
Thanks For The Invite
JJB
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 11:32 AM UTC
An almost stillness came about as she strode into my door,
like breath itself refused to move,
fearful of touching her mysterious beauty
But her obsidian eyes betrayed her.
Sharp and gleaming,
with a silver sheen
she looked at me,
and I knew…
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Molten lava spilled forth from her mouth, melting our clocks—
eighteen hundred nightmares compressed in two hours.
Long hand moving forward, as the short hand moved backward
How can memories persist in such an acrid life?
She spoke of a beast in the guise of a man,
one who ravaged innocence with the flick of a click
A coward that collected milk teeth for hardened bones
of other ***** beasts with no spine
That throaty tenderness when she spoke,
sprinkled crystal seeds of frustration in me
She says she loathed him, denied she loved him,
but her obsidian eyes betrayed her
There she was, a bud he plucked from the nuns’ garden
He grafted then he pruned her,
spreading her pollen, wafting her scent
yet folding her petals to himself
Caterpillars feeding upon her leaves,
she lets them devour her,
yet once they are wrapped in their cocoons to sleep,
she stabs them with her thorns.
Tears then slid down from her midnight lace eyes
and it was all I could do to catch them
She said she was weary of curtailing butterflies,
of tearing their wings before they can even fly
I had to ask, how many… how many winged gems?
She lifted her sleeves, and showed me her scars
One ugly mark for each innocent child plunged deep,
my heart getting slashed at least three hundred a beat.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A certain stillness came about as I strode into her door,
like fear itself refused to move,
letting breath touch her mysterious beauty for the last time....
Her obsidian eyes had betrayed her.
Sharp and gleaming,
with a silver sheen
I looked at the knife beside her.
Maroon-mapped sheets, a stunted womb.
Strains of Bon Iver’s “Flume”
flit past the sighing air like a butterfly,
and I knew…
Feb 16, 2015
Feb 16, 2015 at 6:11 AM UTC
We were all there
The anime girl and the flower child
Surf boy and the Queen of the Pixies
The lads with the tattoos and ***** in pink coolers
And many others with us
And many many more around us
Holding beer cans and buckets of Hot Chip(s)
Stuffed into The Flaming Lips
We sat on the hill where the sun sat next to us
Smoked grass in the grass
By our Beach House
People sliding up and down the hill like a Flume
With a Boy & Bear for company
And a First Aid Kit
And the Village Brass Band
From Pleasureland
We had to hand it to them
They knew how to use those horns in the wee hours
As we marauded around the hillside
The valley and the Enchanted Forest
With its lemmings and white tigers, kookaburras and pixies
All vying for the title of the Best Sense of Humour
Where the sun came up between the trees
And everything went pink
You couldn't tell the canopy from the clouds
In the alien sky
With the moon in dark night at one end
And the ****** first light at the other
Until the light wins and day Falls
Jan 1, 2013
Jan 1, 2013 at 5:29 AM UTC
there was light--
rupture, rapture, flare and flume in the sky--
your hair was the milky way, bellissima, mellissima,
prima donna of the Scorpio sky
gold and white in the night,
stars or diamonds dance and flow
and your hair cascades, ripples, gleaming gold:
He said light, and there was light.
Oct 25, 2012
Oct 25, 2012 at 5:05 PM UTC
All the worst things in life
Start with a:
A-social
A-theist
A-sexual.
A-bominations to be corrected, but,
And although, in the hands of a body
The blame must go
Tight-gripped and freely clasped
A smile hangs like a necklace.
For, they ask, what grows,
On what shore that glance a thirsting road
Where no artisan of wells
Lets run his craft
Burst with life?
What vines may couple, transect dead veins
Still in a bed of salt
But dead and grey shades of the true?
None,
It would seem, can carry the sweet
Of fertile seeds along the water’s edge
It is but passing as its plumpness
Withers and drops
Apart, epistle, a dogma.
This vampiric little heart takes no form
In Narcissus’ pool it does not
Glisten in the waters calm
Despite the furious mouth
And, gone, lost of all that made it whole.
I go back to the source of the
Grey valley flume
Unknown to impetus,
Cannot find its way in the endless roads
And paths in the sun-baked skin,
The wind may blow salt in my eyes though
The music of its basin fills my ears:
Waves breaking and pressing
On soft earthen lines, scrap-book memories
Faded at the edges like Polaroids
Unfold from the waves of purity
In the sand of an empty shore.
I peer idly into the glimmering stream
No red heart beating,
But a grey heart; one simply searching, pining
For a grey love to begin
And the world that I know
They belong in.
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 8:27 AM UTC
This summer day
is terrible,
My body is
inoperable.
The temperature
is 78.
Sandals or shoes?
choices I hate.
The sky is too
bright a blue,
The suns cruel rays
burn right through.
And those few clouds
take no shape-
My imagination they
do ****
Oh the flowers
bright with bloom
All the colors
a painful flume.
Bees buzzing
a hellish tone
Within my kingdom?
so near my throne?
I loathe the children
and their cheer,
The slightest thought
so hard to hear.
Yet to be *******
by the sound-
of people running,
No solace found!
For no one cares
no, not for me
Bound to chair
while you are free.
My body is
inoperable,
This summer day
is terrible.
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 10:22 PM UTC
I lived inside a hope that was birthed inside a promise
that was meant to last beyond when time had forgotten us
In security I breathe the same breath you used to cherish
while hoping in my arms was where you would perish
Now here we are alas and the whole is back to halves
creating a devastating fork splitting our two paths
Only left to wonder where without me you roam
my feet began to wander to a place we called home
Wander to the home I still envision your standing silhouette
staring below at my cold shadow immersed in the tears that I wept.
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 9:59 PM UTC
It is a night where I must craft my words
or try to weave lines on a broken loom.
To think a poem will spring forth is absurd.
Stillborn inspiration can't be stirred,
emotions drained away. I must assume
it is a night where I must craft my words.
My prayers to Muse fell back to earth, unheard.
All artistry has booked a separate room.
To think a poem will spring forth is absurd.
Striving merely churns my brain to curds,
its thin gray whey runs down some gutter's flume.
It is a night where I must craft my words.
A cadenced resolution's been deferred,
the last two lines will surely be my doom.
To think a poem will spring forth is absurd.
A peaceful flow of writing is deterred
until my buried spirit is exhumed.
It is a night where I must craft my words,
to think a poem will spring forth is absurd.
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 4:15 PM UTC
The Clouded Sea
The sea lies flat setting just off shore a billowy cloud tenderly rests this sky voyager floats on the waves a misty guest
The two always complement each other one widely flows the other bestows willowy snow like scenes to enchant
The air stands between the swells and the moist over hanging shell set among azure blue once flight was the quest
The painter’s mind it does spark illuminations submerged in soulful wells truths transferred on canvas holds you in its spell
Who writes in the wind to the closest friends he sends these weighty thoughts stirred he will enclose them then disclose all
Yes the sea will tell of richness the boundless waves in their glorious spray will touch with magnificence this tribunal voice
Speaks every language has and knows the most dramatic utterances that blend with silence the soothing on the soul it falls
Text books widest roads it runs them all to their ends it investigates with tender’s breeze or with a squall it may favor a call
You sit among the cool frothing suds the sands grow no buds but oh what sights sea grasses grow amidst the dunes flume like
The gulls sail on the wind and delight with their aerial antics Pelicans fly in squadron formation seal and otter amuse and delight
The chill spreads inland, sweaters appear couples huddle close generating warmth cherished feelings rise ever as high as a kite
Smiles spread no Nordic blast can take away pleasure that is seated in oceanic sprawl the emotions deepen with the tide
The final pleasure you can’t ignore this chance to inter a cloud bank puffs of crystal standing two stories high float into the mist
Reach out swirl your hand in a circle make portholes turn slowly you are now engulfed in chiffon elegance a cumulus ball awaits
Step by step walk on moist softness feel the lightness as it springs then leaves delightful delicate prints only the unicorn will visit
The untraceable path through earthbound cloud at the sea shore for you it came to be just a puff of magic fluff for your embrace
Jan 1, 2012
Jan 1, 2012 at 8:48 PM UTC
The Clouded Sea
The sea lies flat setting just off shore a billowy cloud tenderly rests this sky voyager floats on the waves a misty guest
The two always complement each other one widely flows the other bestows willowy snow like scenes to enchant
The air stands between the swells and the moist over hanging shell set among azure blue once flight was the quest
The painter’s mind it does spark illuminations submerged in soulful wells truths transferred on canvas holds you in its spell
Who writes in the wind to the closest friends he sends these weighty thoughts stirred he will enclose them then disclose all
Yes the sea will tell of richness the boundless waves in their glorious spray will touch with magnificence this tribunal voice
Speaks every language has and knows the most dramatic utterances that blend with silence the soothing on the soul it falls
Text books widest roads it runs them all to their ends it investigates with tender’s breeze or with a squall it may favor a call
You sit among the cool frothing suds the sands grow no buds but oh what sights sea grasses grow amidst the dunes flume like
The gulls sail on the wind and delight with their aerial antics Pelicans fly in squadron formation seal and otter amuse and delight
The chill spreads inland, sweaters appear couples huddle close generating warmth cherished feelings rise ever as high as a kite
Smiles spread no Nordic blast can take away pleasure that is seated in oceanic sprawl the emotions deepen with the tide
The final pleasure you can’t ignore this chance to inter a cloud bank puffs of crystal standing two stories high float into the mist
Reach out swirl your hand in a circle make portholes turn slowly you are now engulfed in chiffon elegance a cumulus ball awaits
Step by step walk on moist softness feel the lightness as it springs then leaves delightful delicate prints only the unicorn will visit
The untraceable path through earthbound cloud at the sea shore for you it came to be just a puff of magic fluff for your embrace
Nov 25, 2011
Nov 25, 2011 at 12:00 AM UTC
L'heure verte
The mountains. The heaps of their bountiful gravels, and earth, and soil, large oversized masses of half-frozen water teetering on the precipice of subzero masculine ******* Francophilic cleavage jetting out of this deserted white pastoral dressing. The inaugural bawl, wanton fixations of putting the imperialist foot on every spot of tree, each and every shrub, until the limbs' cast reaches each dimple that foliage braves, where that blue eagle of patriotism dredges its claws to form every river, rill, estuary, creek, channel, flume, littoral, and waterway where the iron-rich gullies once brimmed in the interamnian basins, rich crimsony waters riffling through fruitful and extravagant aquifers. Beyond that, where an inexplicably feral wind rips vines from their dendritic housings, where barely an eye can see, this place of exsanguination and abysmal phytocide.
At the end of this lamentable torture, only a desert of human interest remains. There is no reason to laugh, or smile, or cheer, or put a leg up, to call on a friend, or to have ice cream. There will be no more ice cream. There is only the loathsome incredulousness and avarice in the semblances and familiarity of those with whom we thought we once knew. Little can ever be known, for there is much to gain in the absence of knowledge, and even greater that can be acquired in the alms of wisdom through patient examination and thorough silence. Here on the buttes and cornices, the thwacking gavels of evil power deities throw down their lust for more and soon become adjoined to these grand discrepancies greed mistakenly loses to a lack of awareness and to self-aggrandizement.
Power is the weapon of inexperienced wielders. Passion is the immortal frequency that is worn by artisans and artists, poets and painters, it is the business of quietness to learnedly evolve to protect our tomorrows from personal needs, but to instead preserve the integral parts of society. The words of languages, artifacts, and cultures, rather than the skeletons of ****** and the deeds of possession. Each who sleeps knows their bedfellows to equally be at peace. For no wealth can exceed that of comfortable pillows, soft quilts, and sheets. We are all the same while we sleep.
Jan 9, 2017
Jan 9, 2017 at 6:52 AM UTC
“And only the azure painted sky to shake the rain from its sound,” so the plain falls, opening its mouth through a bed of headstones dotted with the hollowed trunks of magnolias and cedar at afternoon and that cameo of calamansi velour interwoven with the softest glaucous velvet. Inside that whirlpool of sacrosanct textiles a blur, that shocking shrill of coolness catches the skin- this hole-covered schmata oozing cesious acronychal threads pull tight across the hooves, branches, and stream. Only the thin repelling flume of winter’s height eschews this ianthine material over the sinews and map-lined bones. A corpse shortening its gaze, eyes stone-free, empty of nictitation. Nothing stings more than autumn’s filemot sins scraping sideways down a tiled balcony, and the dove’s beg like circus rats, shaped by the finite breaths of decade’s old poetry edging its moods like a bold inflammatory conflagration of the de-evolution. While the fulvous trammeled dirt abounds.
Nov 29, 2017
Nov 29, 2017 at 4:40 PM UTC
I can feel you laughing down my neck just like it was yesterday
I can feel those beige walls pressing in
Slow dancing on an open grave
Twisting the knife into my skin
This isn't self harm this is processing
This isn't nostalgia this is letting go.
Winter air wrapped in red so many layers I almost couldn't hear what you said
All draped in ice and grace
The world isn't as small and snug as it used to be
The world is too near and is not gentle with me
I remember
The way it felt when you crossed the room
And I remember
How it felt to leave too soon
I am not my brothers keeper
And you are not the boy I thought I knew
But winter rises ominous and waking before me
and my hands are already turning blue
I'll hold you if I want to.
Jul 7, 2016
Jul 7, 2016 at 3:12 AM UTC
That little trumpet has lost sound
Go ahead and ask around
Picked up in a house I found
Nesting on the burial ground.
Contorted notes filled the room
After a dusting with the broom
False promise joined in soon.
Perched upon a dim lit flume
The night slipped by, no refrain
It blasted on through the pouring rain
Howled on in the excruciating pain
Of having sheltered existence through a life in vain
When daylight came, it was still the same
Brass with no name, playing for a dame
Really quite the shame, an ever-growing flame
Held within a picture frame, was a revitalized search for fame
As darkness came, I grew tired
Felt like it was about time I retired
Set down the trumpet I acquired
And left the shack feeling quite expired
There that little trumpet lost sound
Now there’s no need to ask around
Left it in the house I found
Somewhat near the burial ground.
Nov 22, 2013
Nov 22, 2013 at 3:45 PM UTC
I'd give up used bookstores, libraries,
old love, and free chai tea lattes
to be alone with you.
All of the things I once believe caused feeling—
Just moments and memories
in a great spectrum of
*"I forgot—just being happy. being happy.
So I prioritize
and keep going,
close my eyes.
close your eyes."*
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 2:48 AM UTC
Shaking hands to match my insides
Where a meaty heart quickens neath a milky bone cage
Uneven lungs twitching
Half filled with soot slithering up throat
Twining to ebony flume
Shaking head to match my hands; asphyxiations byproduct
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 8:32 PM UTC
All the silly banter
Combines with familiar cadence an echoing canter
Reveal to me the meaning of moon in Cancer
And erase that preordained connotation
I'm desperate in attempts for a proclamation
Evoke a melody on reminiscence and born anew
I shall not remiss for i walk in different shoes
While jiving along to the same melody of rhythm and blues
Reveling in the rowdy rock concert
Take a step with me and we can glide
Relocate the harrowing and relinquish my pride
I feel soap bubbles cleansing slowly
Rising inside
When i speak your true name
It can't be called upon only inspired by you
Inspiration is powerful from any perspective view
So let's rejoice in our wondering and wandering
And step through the flume
Patience is a virtue
Hold my hand because in truth
I only wish to walk with you
Dec 7, 2014
Dec 7, 2014 at 10:13 PM UTC
The world is a rogue wave in an otherwise tranquil cacophony.
Like porridge in a squeaky door hinge too sleepy to be orange.
The jawbone of an *** at rest on a window sill. next to a Pi.
The world, a smoldering flume of genius, unbridled, by and by.
a continuous ravine of asymmetrical adoration.
as we inhabit the foreign,
native to Fate.
We sing the body eclectic in a percolating rue of an infinite gumbo.
Like Venice, with Florence in its teeth. our pompadours-
shameless for sport.
The heart of a battle trout in a river of Trojan lures are We!
dangling from a current as swift as any eventuality.
An upstream vagabond of illustrious toil in the wee hours. Common
as weevils in a Gin. sweetening the palate of an unctuous ablution.
sleeping through the good parts
our eyes on spikes
in the dark.
Sep 10, 2019
Sep 10, 2019 at 11:00 PM UTC
I am a master of Half-Truths
An artisan of rhetoric
So skilled in the craft that
I have lost the ability to
Differentiate between fact and fable
My thoughts are a flume of paint
Colouring ***** water
But the fish do know
What is swimmable and substantial and timeless
And they kiss at the river beds
Tickle the hollows of my ear drum
Eliciting a perpetual popping sound, bubbles I presume
Reality fuzing as O2 with a shield impermeable to the waves
But it draws on my heart
wholehearted admirer of beauty that I am
To be constantly checked
With a map set to fluoresce
An blinders on
I paint my trails
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 12:01 AM UTC