"foodless" poems
Flesh is heretic.
My body is a witch.
I am burning it.
Yes I am torching
ber curves and paps and wiles.
They scorch in my self denials.
How she meshed my head
in the half-truths
of her fevers
till I renounced
milk and honey
and the taste of lunch.
I vomited
her hungers.
Now the ***** is burning.
I am starved and curveless.
I am skin and bone.
She has learned her lesson.
Thin as a rib
I turn in sleep.
My dreams probe
a claustrophobia
a sensuous enclosure.
How warm it was and wide
once by a warm drum,
once by the song of his breath
and in his sleeping side.
Only a little more,
only a few more days
sinless, foodless,
I will slip
back into him again
as if I had never been away.
Caged so
I will grow
angular and holy
past pain,
keeping his heart
such company
as will make me forget
in a small space
the fall
into forked dark,
into python needs
heaving to hips and *******
and lips and heat
and sweat and fat and greed.
17.2k
I
If seasons all were summers,
And leaves would never fall,
And hopping casement-comers
Were foodless not at all,
And fragile folk might be here
That white winds bid depart;
Then one I used to see here
Would warm my wasted heart!
II
One frail, who, bravely tilling
Long hours in gripping gusts,
Was mastered by their chilling,
And now his ploughshare rusts.
So savage winter catches
The breath of limber things,
And what I love he snatches,
And what I love not, brings.
3.4k
The broken leg jackdaw
he lost his greed with his leg
now saintly dumb
it's enough if he gets a crumb
complains not when foodless
knowing by his creator's grace
*he would be given the span
this world needs his breath for
would live to run the length
in his lone leg's strength
felled by no deadly harm
till ends his term*
The broken leg jackdaw
stands on the cornice
in peace
and his jet-black eyes
are deep and wise!
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 12:26 PM UTC
backpacking in the Jefferson wilderness
eating fresh wild blueberries
warmed by a late spring sun
the crystal blue sky captures me
and I stand, transfixed –
How could we have collectively been so blind?
pumping Co2 into the atmosphere
dropping atomic bombs
and an atoll
named after a bikini…
and the plastic island –
A wispy cirrus cloud
floats gracefully overhead
and takes my thoughts
on a journey
distant smokestacks dot the horizon
and drilling platforms stand menacingly
just beyond the shore,
and inside the bellies of sea creatures …
the plastic –
readjusting my pack
and leaning over to re-tie my shoestrings
the slow crawl of an ant packing lunch
sends me reeling
so many hungry children
just in the state I live
hopeless and *****
in run down or condemned houses
waiting, with tear streaked cheeks
for someone to show up with dinner
as the third foodless day
is always the hardest –
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 5:06 PM UTC
just ask any waitress
in the diner
still sane.
ask a businessman
locked behind a desk.
ask a cop in jail for theft
or custer
or van gogh
or a child in harlem
foodless and cold.
ask the grey day
evaporated by the sun
just ask.
we all want to burn,
to dance and sidestep
through are own private hells
to hang
upon
a church bell
high above a cathedral
in notre dame
laughing,
in love with the finality of fire.
the fire
is a man with shotgun
standing in a savings and loan
the fire
is a 16 year old girl
in a
short
short
dress
with oh
so
long legs
the fire cries like snow geese
warm
so warm
into this cold winter's night.
this life we love
is but a hawk on fire
flying
flaming
into the sun of our existence...
we want what we fear.
the fire is the ghost in my bones
and it will not let me go.
the fire is life
all else is waiting.
Mar 1, 2016
Mar 1, 2016 at 2:41 PM UTC
I float and watch helplessly
as I tap the umbilical cord
into motion around my neck;
cutting off my air,
blinding my eyes to reality.
Passive death by my own hand.
I am left to bounce around
my dank surroundings blind and foodless
until someone cuts me out.
It is not until I am saved from myself
that the cord is severed,
the knot untied.
It is not until I am saved from myself,
cut from my dark environment,
the knot unraveled,
that I realize
my small tap has not
my life undone.
Nov 27, 2011
Nov 27, 2011 at 9:36 PM UTC
Too long hangs rain in our valley.
Sky's clouded face cracks to cry drizzle-patterns
over sown ground
and growing seedlings face hazard.
Too long has water earth-wronged.
Makes mud by changing each leaf to sponge
that ***** out green to
leave brown where verdant belongs.
Small lakes rise in the hedgerow-rose.
As tears of lime run down from hilly meadows
sad rinsing brings whispers
of wet killing by un-seasonal cold.
Too long shudder of feathers droop.
While across far horizons a fox runs foodless
as damp cubs look for sun
while prey floods in the hen-coop.
Too long a chill has made harvest weep.
Thatched cottages drip in the village street,
trees bleed moss and weight
burdens the thick-coated sheep.
Swathed in neglect droops each garden.
Knee-deep in unattained tasks the farmyard
sprouts idle days as folk bide
time waiting for signs of drying to start.
To long hangs rain in our valley.
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 3:54 PM UTC
Cracked sienna and burnt umber bark
on trees fuzzy with blue green lichen,
like the stark, leafless, winter clothes,
of Highgate’s denizens.
Hazel branches stripped bare by squirrels
a foodless frosty park,
it’s Victorian bowling green surrounded
by golden paths and benches is
wild, broken, neglected
grass and concrete.
Exposed on the grass
a hungry squirrel gnaws her nut
sees danger and runs up a tree.
A dog barks and tries to climb,
loses interest,
and sniffs the inner city's air.
The park whimpers deprivation.
Dec 9, 2024
Dec 9, 2024 at 3:24 PM UTC