"fume" poems
he is not heaven. he is not a deep breath of fresh air after being
trapped inside for so long he is suffocation. when his saturated fingers
touch me I am filled with a never ending fire that keeps me
awake until two a.m. and makes me question everything I've
ever believed. he likes to swear up and down on the metal cross
around his neck and pretend he is God when he looks at me.
his kisses are never filled with love they are filled with narcotics
and taste like a bittersweet kind of hatred. he smokes quietly and
slowly inhaling every toxic fume and making clouds
big enough to convince you that they are skies. everything about him
screams shades of cool he is blue he is black his smile is gold
his eyes are grey and he is the color spectrum at its darkest.
he speaks quietly and laughs loudly and cries silently when
he thinks nobody can hear him. I wake up every morning to the
sound of tiny bullets of water scorching his back but he
likes the burn so I do not say a thing. he loves the way I sing
and teases me endlessly and whispers ****** things when
our friends are around because he is an exhibitionist.
I do not know what this is. I do not know who he is.
but at the same time I do not know who I am either,
we are cataclysmic together and wreak havoc wherever we go
but there is something so beautiful about what a disaster
we are together that i do not want to say goodbye.
he is the lover I never have to worry about loving back
and that if nothing else matters
(h.l.)
11.25.15
Nov 28, 2015
Nov 28, 2015 at 9:21 PM UTC
Breathe in some gasoline
As I fly down to greet
Trade my butterfly wings
For a touch of machine
Take my evergreen
Get some new gleam
Your noxious fume spoil
Find some Asfalt sheen
My freedom I trade
For rusted shackles you see
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 9:09 AM UTC
I knew it'd happen.
A dead Ladybug over our heads.
But we drank.
Beer,
Champagne,
Sun.
We painted our nails
Black, red, ladybug's dead
Out we went,
In our finest.
One drink down,
New town.
Sticky floors, sticky web, the Ladybug hung dead.
I say something,
to you.
I know it's going to happen.
You fume.
Tick, tick, tick...
You start to shout.
Cigarette.
Here we go.
I'm not backing down on this,
I'm trying to help!
Help me, help me, set me free, let me live, ladybugs free!
*****
I bite my lip
SNOTTY
I breathe
LIAR
I blow
Tears spill on your face,
My truth comes out,
You pushed me!
Poke, Poke, Push!
Poke, Poke, Push!
We hurt each other.
Over nothing.
Over something you don't like?
What is it?
I give up.
Taxi for one,
Taxi for two.
My head is heavy,
Eyes weak.
I'll be the bad guy.
You'll cry to them,
and lie, lie, lie!
Fly, fly, fly far away. Ladybugs aren't here to stay.
Oct 15, 2012
Oct 15, 2012 at 4:57 PM UTC
I think tonight is a
Drink wine, discuss life
And smoke-cigarettes-while-I-fume
Kind of night,
Pun intended.
Apr 10, 2014
Apr 10, 2014 at 12:23 AM UTC
*
The fume
A thick dark fumy cloud
Dormant it lies, but often loud
Precariously overhead, it flowed
The sunshine of the life, it swallowed
It rained, challenged by the mighty peak
In the heart, It pained, to see it weak
The cloud was small but heavy
However dusty and floaty.
The doom and gloom
Embracing in its shadow
In desert, plains and meadow
Eclipsing the days, sunny bright
Dreadful, with the darkening night
With me, always hanging around
When noticed, nearby it's found
Haunting me with a sadness
Flaunting its darkness
A lot in the cloud explored
Then consciously, It was ignored
But dancing at the back of the mind
Past hurts and pains, it put to rewind
The boom and bloom
And then, letting it flow across, I got immersed,
In fine tiny droplets, the cloud
dispersed,
Now each droplet addressed
separately
Was dried in the shiny sun
completely
All of the cloud, dripped to
evaporate
Condensed eventually, as
distillate
My pains, by that elixir,
cured,
Alchemised me
into
24 carat gold
*
Jul 19, 2017
Jul 19, 2017 at 9:24 PM UTC
those **** trolls fish for gloom
baiting your roses and bloom
behind their mask and costume
a guise filled with malice loom
there spans from the beasts womb
a monster preying your doom
they take your light to dark displume
like fishes facing the jaws of gloom
eliot watches schools get entomb
like a stepping stone to their fume
it takes no rocket scientist's broom
to sweep the trolls from the classroom
nears the hour of our death, trolls resume
Logan Robertson
8/21/2018
Aug 21, 2018
Aug 21, 2018 at 9:00 PM UTC
(1)
The day she visited the dissecting room
They had four men laid out, black as burnt turkey,
Already half unstrung. A vinegary fume
Of the death vats clung to them;
The white-smocked boys started working.
The head of his cadaver had caved in,
And she could scarcely make out anything
In that rubble of skull plates and old leather.
A sallow piece of string held it together.
In their jars the snail-nosed babies moon and glow.
He hands her the cut-out heart like a cracked heirloom.
(2)
In Brueghel's panorama of smoke and slaughter
Two people only are blind to the carrion army:
He, afloat in the sea of her blue satin
Skirts, sings in the direction
Of her bare shoulder, while she bends,
Finger a leaflet of music, over him,
Both of them deaf to the fiddle in the hands
Of the death's-head shadowing their song.
These Flemish lovers flourish;not for long.
Yet desolation, stalled in paint, spares the little country
Foolish, delicate, in the lower right hand corner.
6.7k
(from a song)
Perhaps I was born kneeling,
born coughing on the long winter,
born expecting the kiss of mercy,
born with a passion for quickness
and yet, as things progressed,
I learned early about the stockade
or taken out, the fume of the enema.
By two or three I learned not to kneel,
not to expect, to plant my fires underground
where none but the dolls, perfect and awful,
could be whispered to or laid down to die.
Now that I have written many words,
and let out so many loves, for so many,
and been altogether what I always was?
a woman of excess, of zeal and greed,
I find the effort useless.
Do I not look in the mirror,
these days,
and see a drunken rat avert her eyes?
Do I not feel the hunger so acutely
that I would rather die than look
into its face?
I kneel once more,
in case mercy should come
in the nick of time.
4.8k
The Warden announces; as the Diseased children cower in fear,
The mother stands beside the Warden.
"Evy'body remain calm, The Plague doc'or is 'ere!"
May God forbid; That you ever see that Mask,
Those cloaks, those masks,
those herbs and flasks...
It creeps towards the children; Looming in the silence.
equipped with little mind for medicine, a cane for violence.
Those soulless eyes,
the Putridly herbal aroma close, they despise,
but this masked creature ignores their cries.
The warden feeding mother Lies.
Dimly lit the cold room,
the pungent fume,
''I'll leave 'im to it"
The warden leaves.
but the Doctor stays and silently breathes.
Question on the matter if this Doctor's even Sane,
As it stares upon the child then whips him with the cane.
No Law defies,
the Mother Cries.
Pulling out it's Vials of vial Herbs, this Freak,
Staring coldly around the silent room, pointing everywhere, it's beak.
It passes the two Children pouches of leaves; Mother grieving,
everybody remain Calm, The Plague Doctor is leaving!
Dec 20, 2017
Dec 20, 2017 at 7:06 AM UTC
hummingbird boy
seeking
hummingbird girl
(seeking only a long summertime of hum
sipping dark red flowers and then some)
summer hummingbird
hummingbird hummingbird
hummingbird unfurls
hummingbird whirs
hummingbird twirls
twirling hummingbird
twirl twirl hummingbird
hummingbird whirls
whirling hummingbird
whirl whirl hummingbird
hummingbird pearls
pearls of hummingbird
pearl hummingbird pearl
humming hummingbird
hum hum hummingbird
hummingbird hummingbird
humming hummingbird
hummingbird bird hums
hum hummingbird hum
fuming hummingbird
fume fume hummingbird
hummingbird fumes
watching... waiting
for any hummingbird girl
humming hummingbird
hummingbird summer
Heard hummingbird’s whir
Within a bright summer day
A whir... now... heart beats
© 2019 Jim Davis
Aug 23, 2019
Aug 23, 2019 at 11:14 AM UTC
Behind the building,
a one hundred percent green certified building
an amazing feat of engineering-science-forward thinking
fabulously energy efficient cutting edge building
sit solar panels in the sweltering heat,
extra heat from the toxic clouds in the sky
which now envelop the Earth
There, under the panels sit a small band of sheep, who represent the
last little bit of progressive wonderfulness
visionary design and research based and proven
and the future because they eat the grass
and there is no need to use toxic fume producing
loud unnatural unsustainable lawn mower
But the grass is long dead.
It is just white and yellow and there are lambs
baby sheep who sit and pant underneath the
sustainable solar panels without a decent meal
in sight. Only stalks and yellow deadness
I suggest vitamins or supplements
after all there is no grass, only grass out
that is watered sustainably and is carefully fenced off
from the living sheep underneath the dead panels
behind the dead building.
Outrage from the forward thinking cutting edge
Wi-Fi custodians of the cement and metal building and panels,
panels that emit a high pitched hum
from a hot metal box and regulate the CO2 in each room automatically
The sheep are there to eat the grass
if you feed them, even to make them healthier
so that they may get up out of their hot suffering
and eat some stalks in addition to a little bit of supplemental feed
they will not eat the dead grass, and they are there to eat the grass
they are not there to be comfortable or healthy they are just sheep
But sheep are only living non human feeling beings
and not part of the forward thinking cutting edge metal and cement
technology that is worth a lot of money and was written up
in the paper and got the custodians attention and recognition.
And they are just suffering, hot, miserable animals
and despite all of our technology, Mars landing
solar panels to electricity advance thinking technological wonders
our compassion and empathy remain tight and selfish
and the dead things, not the living ones, are what we value
Aug 9, 2012
Aug 9, 2012 at 9:43 PM UTC
The stillness of the heart
The stillness of the silent heart.
When it doesnt beat and it doesnt speak.
Oh the stillness of the heart when its quiet.
When it doesnt move, its still.
When its grown contempt with its surroundings or come to terms with its turmoil.
The heart, when its lost its heat and its fire.
Oh the stillness of the heart when its silent.
When it doesnt make a sound.
When its grown too weak to weep.
When its grown tired of trying.
When there is nothing left to hear.
Oh the stillness of the heart when it doesnt speak.
When there is no words to form a rhythm or a beat.
When it doesnt move or quiver.
When it doesnt lash out or scream.
When it doesnt click of clammer.
Oh the stillness of the heart when its quiet.
When it doesnt mumble or moan.
When it doesnt wince or whisper.
when it doesnt murmur or mutter.
When it doenst have tenants or tones.
Oh the stillness of the heart when its still.
When its calm as night.
When its knots are un-tied.
When its movemnet has died.
When its lids are dark.
Oh the stillness of the heart when its grown contempt and come to terms.
When it doesnt complain or compare.
When it doesnt fume or fight.
When it doesnt stretch or strive.
When it doesnt define or despair.
Oh the stillness of the heart when its lost its flame and its fire.
When its grown cold.
When its hard as rock.
When its ache and hurt is gone.
When it doesnt hurt or long.
Oh its still.
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 7:17 AM UTC
The city skyline
so far removed from home
chimney pots and aerials replaced by
redbrick buildings amidst fume stained concrete towers
rooftops infested with rusting air condensers
clematis and virginia creeper replaced by
conduit and cables, the ivy of the city clings to every facade
country life contrast
urban decay cannot last
function over form
May 20, 2010
May 20, 2010 at 7:04 PM UTC
Spilling the juice all over the floor,
Missing you each day more and more.
Listening to music- new and old
My decisions getting a bit more bold.
Shutting the door louder than usual,
My mind is starting to get delusional.
Loving you without a doubt,
Hate seeing you with other girls out and about.
Scrutinizing every mistake I write,
Only to view every poem I spite.
Luring the unknown into my room,
Chimney blows wind in with a bad fume.
Securing my own locks on doors so fragile,
My body always wanting to move so agile.
Leaving your life and entering his,
Wisdom hit but so did his fist.
Sobbing on the cold ground,
I wish I still had you around.
Listening on what to do - my friend’s advice,
Maybe I have to start trying more than twice.
Sending mixed signals and causing trouble,
Will only ever lead to a burst in the bubble.
Lacking thought or too many to count,
So many problems I have to dismount.
Serving my old yet new figure,
My body tired, and oh-so-bitter.
Latching on somebody to stay,
Words cannot explain my feelings at play.
Shouting loud but not loud enough,
My brain's gone into a severe slough.
Crying for extreme help,
I cannot do this by myself.
May 2, 2018
May 2, 2018 at 10:57 PM UTC
it was like waking up to all white fume
or a long washline — masturbatory, feeling something stiff like a hand gliding
over a monsoon of emotions, the affect
jazz and the crunch of fragrance
forever like sandalwood;
on my way to Dumandan, i conjure an inward miasma of thrill, unfurled yesterday, today, or was it before when our eyes were fixated on the passing of things in myriad ways without any relevance to what has died, say wilted,
like a flower going away in closing seasons,
children in hurtling speeds at twilight,
gates welcoming a resounding sound of
rusting hinges,
slow rise of night, its vertical climb,
shadows collapsing on the Hibiscus
and the Poinsettia from the Cordillera,
dreary men taking out ******* throwing
them into metalloid beasts, verdigris
painted, grisly caravan of steel and
worthless scraps —
past neighborhoods thinking about
the simmer of onion and the hustle of
the feral over rooftops, clinking wine bottles undulating full to empty — both
unaware of acumen and only dizzying
ourselves mirroring each other eye
to eye and bridging this unclose-enough
a gap in between,
because you need it,
and i want it, or simply in reverse,
a sidewinding thought through dunes
of afterthought.
because you have to walk my side
of the Earth and I have to meet you
somewhere halfway where we can both
lounge at each other's steady presence
while the flyblown dry air ravishes
the piquant morning, all-telling what
this distance meant from its
peak up to the very last
traceable steps where i found you
and you found me, trilling in the neighborhood like how void
stills itself into all the mood of the Earth:
all moony and
fretting in the disquiet.
Nov 15, 2015
Nov 15, 2015 at 2:38 PM UTC
I feel this coming over like a storm again,
kicking, clawing, lashing out for reign,
endure to ensure the leisure's of pain,
through the wheat your voice so distant of grain,
over the heart and through the veins,
discover the righteousness of the truly insane.
What worked that got me in is something I cannot fathom to begin,
the spill from the canvas of your body,
the crunch of the morrow through to sought thee!
Leave me in this field of disbelief,
Leave me be!
Darling, sweet darling throw me out to the sea!
I don't want to be, you see?
The arrows from the heart have now shot me,
they've begin to dig deep down to distraught me,
My mind fought me,
the dealers bought me with a sweet gasly fume,
month after month cascading down in doom,
leave me to whither down in a bitter craving crazed loon.
Society has me tangled in this web,
what's right from wrong,
what should be said,
across the seas who's blood we shed,
but, sooner or later we'll all be dead.
-Tammy Cusick
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 1:27 PM UTC
Covered feet on black clicking the time of walking stride
The fume of frozen gas sticking to my throat
The late winter leaves having stuck to guttered sidelines
Their huddled swaddled backs burdened with the soft shell of academia
I missed this place
As much as it is a sign of failure it also holds triumph
Where I found my mind when I thought the world
Was defined by a god long dead
That I was lost in a sea of faces
Who prayed, believed and spread faith
Like a soothing blanket
Their thoughts where not troubled
They didn't not question
They had hope
As false as I believed it to be
Even now as I watch them
Flocking to bus stop shelter
How they hold a happiness beneath their chilled skin
Glowing with some assurance I feel I'll never have
But I'm pushing for that feeling
That place to belong
Somewhere between down to earth and too consumed with my study
But not quite there enough to fall into that group
That speaks academics but knows when to let go
But I can't let go
When it is a matter to the existence of even having a soul
Why do others not feel this need to know what constitutes their own being
Why do I scream out silently to persons whom I had not hoped to know
For we all know that faces on the web are less real than those we see
Everyday
Every moment waiting for that moment they would reach out and cure the ache of loss
They slow the footfall pavement
When passing the stop
Hearing the lively chatter
The silly matters that don't haunt an old soul not looking trouble
As if their frequency vibrates on a different level
Fm to my Am
Where the genuine character of my self turns back on itself
And I become the shy
Confused not knowing how to approach them
So instead of humiliate I walk by
Singing my oldies and rhyming my rhyme
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 12:29 PM UTC
Across the river a humble beauty grows.
The once still stream vigorously flows.
Pink carnation reaches its bloom.
United meadow rebels against fume.
A top familiar soil roots blanketed by earth
Tall brown oak with branches to hearth.
From cold winter winds to warmth of spring lights.
Peace of morning velvet to restless summer nights.
Along its golden shore the tree sits in wait.
It’s seen all from times of marry to tears of hate.
Yet unyielding thankful for everything it owes.
Experiencing it all is what makes the tree grow.
Small bird of blue crossed many miles.
Never alone he had help through his trials.
Mistook his own love for thoughts turned colder.
Truth reveals now it was a heart grown older.
Ambition climbs into an endless sky.
This once broken bird can now finally
Fly.
Sep 19, 2018
Sep 19, 2018 at 3:05 PM UTC
The yellowed dome cracks upon the surface
Of the moistened soil that stretches to make
Their way, emphatically filling most base
Space between dried stubs of flesh - never fake
Fruitless fingers - cracking, brushing, but now
Healing by comforting the path I pursue
With the wake of the rooster.
Home left warming behind, I gallantly
Saunter toward more humid, fume-fed airs
While leaving the thoughts that so quaintly
Filled my head, forgot to ingrain, and failed,
Allowing growth to myself.
Sun hung, high-noon, the dew fades all too soon
Creating a creaky concoction kept
Together (of sounds) by bare breaking-bones
Feet against gravel, dusty, rocky steps.
Sky set so wearisome and pink, I fall
To my knees in the midst of high terrain
Marked by thin grasses and rolling hill plains;
As I beg for mercy, not from this all-
Endowed sight, but from God(s) who seem only
To make this life right - I'll collapse further,
My hands move mountainous dirt and holy
Diadems of twig, while I decide - worth
When shall I dig?
Oct 24, 2012
Oct 24, 2012 at 10:09 AM UTC
-
Why can’t I see past the buildings,
skylines obstructing my view,
collecting on the curb
with doorways and steps
inviting to someone else I suppose
Still I push past,
hugging the shoulder
of a rush hour highway
Staring into windows
as they pass, staring back
Exits signs point at me
but I can’t listen
Their warnings make no difference
in cloverleaf grumblings
and exhaust fume skywriting
One foot in front of the other,
worn converse high tops
gray, the greens are lost
with the sunset that breathes down my neck
reaching for one more moon rise
No rest, still creeping alongside
sleeping 18 wheelers purring
on their asphalt mattresses,
straddling yellow lines
leading to the bathrooms…not a chance
27 miles the sign reads
in reflective lettering calling out to me
It seems like nothing,
compared to what is behind me now…
My life or what it was
But that is no longer my concern,
my future is now 22 miles away
Where your arms are waiting,
holding my future…open, warm
and I begin running faster
Another 10 to go, down main streets
with coffee shops and beauty parlours,
one traffic light and a train station
a kid on a bike delivering newspapers offers me a ride
No need, it’s just around this corner…
On the lawn is a flamingo,
plastic and pink behind a white picket fence
with a gate that creaks and a porch light comes on…
illuminating my dream…as I see you,
it has finally come true
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 11:12 AM UTC
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cell.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,---
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
2.4k
At my Age, to gaze at this Crumbling Glass
Must content me to say when to let-go
Of my Battles, that of Mum's Great Compass
Swore her Tears to what I already know
I guess that Vision, mirage as it is
And bake the Dough whose Bread I un-consume
With your Dust - suave - charm the Summer Belles since
Fan Frosted Wings faster than I could fume
What happens now? In this doomed, ****** Script
Must force me to tear-off my Snowy Mask
Painful my pores feel; My Heart goes to crypt
Then deny the Tender I so Long ask.
When Right is Wrong and Wrong seems all but Right,
Throw punches to a Face I could not fight.
Mar 13, 2013
Mar 13, 2013 at 3:32 AM UTC
divorce isn't a breakup
it's a death in the family
two hearts too hurt to make up
and it never ends amicably
it makes every word said, every phrase, every promise ever spoken
sting like lies and sting your pride that you believed and they were broken
it takes from you the ability to believe in the beauty of someone special
when you feel like you gave all you had to give and it ended so regretful
it robs you of all your feelings of safety and comfort and home
it takes from you your confidence, your positivity and leaves you positively alone
it creates a deep hate that takes over and makes you fume anger
it causes the caustic sorrow that darkens every tomorrow and makes everyone a stranger
it makes you question your own value, your actual self worth
it makes you feel that you're not good enough to be loved anywhere on this earth
knowing that the person who knows the true you the very best
took a look inside you and chose to pursue one of the rest
the thought holds you down and carves your heart right out of your chest
and it takes back, steals back, rapes away all that made you feel blessed
like you invested all of your time, the very best of yourself and no less
and still failed the test
so you try to stand on two broken legs to walk again on your own
and you stumble into the arms of new friends and try to make a new home
and you search frantically for affection to replace what you've known
but at the end of each night regardless of who's next to you, you are alone
bar after bar, club after party, drink drink drink and take them to bed
trying to drown the remorse and the anger and the longing that fire shots in your head
you will literally try physically to **** your way into someone new's heart
you will become an artist making selfishness and need and self promotion an art
but they don't really know you so how could they really care
true love doesn't become tangible from moans floating through thin air
a love you reap comes from time spent in wonder and in promises you keep
true love comes from the person you're meant to be with seeing that you're deep
and wanting to dive in
to only you
to never surface again
from within you
to breath for the last time on their own
without your heart making theirs beat
to go to war for you alone
with no possibility of retreat
and that hope, that chance of what could come for my life's course
is the only thing I got to keep in my divorce
Aug 4, 2012
Aug 4, 2012 at 3:25 PM UTC
I can still recall
The oddest things
About our embraces
The warmth of her blotchy cheeks;
Swollen like water balloons
Beneath my fingers
The scent of tears and perfume
A salty fume of womanhood
Swirling in my nostrils
The clogged up tone of her congested sniffles
Vaguely feminine snorts
Bouncing around my ears
I can still recall
The oddest things
About our embraces
They were all
So
Sad
Jul 11, 2012
Jul 11, 2012 at 11:43 PM UTC