"gangling" poems
Anna who was mad,
I have a knife in my armpit.
When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages.
Am I some sort of infection?
Did I make you go insane?
Did I make the sounds go sour?
Did I tell you to climb out the window?
Forgive. Forgive.
Say not I did.
Say not.
Say.
Speak Mary-words into our pillow.
Take me the gangling twelve-year-old
into your sunken lap.
Whisper like a buttercup.
Eat me. Eat me up like cream pudding.
Take me in.
Take me.
Take.
Give me a report on the condition of my soul.
Give me a complete statement of my actions.
Hand me a jack-in-the-pulpit and let me listen in.
Put me in the stirrups and bring a tour group through.
Number my sins on the grocery list and let me buy.
Did I make you go insane?
Did I turn up your earphone and let a siren drive through?
Did I open the door for the mustached psychiatrist
who dragged you out like a gold cart?
Did I make you go insane?
From the grave write me, Anna!
You are nothing but ashes but nevertheless
pick up the Parker Pen I gave you.
Write me.
Write.
2.9k
Snoring gangling giant,
Slumbering away on a snowy
night.
Spoil of war unprotected,
Opening ways for ingress of
worrisome infiltrated
interlopers.
Remember the lord of Philistine
Samusini,
Who returned not from the
seductive antics of his
mistress,
Perished in the furnace fire of
frustration,
And drowned in the Laguna of
no return
Slumbering hindered the move
of the water.
Howling of devourers enclosed
your shack.
Heterocercal caudal fins of
sharks prevented the sailing
of ships.
Wolfished wailing of tidal waves
consumed the anchorage
ground.
And the apparition of foes
lurked-up in darkness like
the foehn on the Alps.
Awake before the devastating
night owl.
Awake from the abyss of deep
slumber.
Awake before the cockcrow,
When darkness of defeats
Controls the reigns of night.
Snoring gangling giant,
Awake unto light.
Dec 20, 2018
Dec 20, 2018 at 6:40 AM UTC
HERE at right of the entrance this bronze head,
Human, superhuman, a bird's round eye,
Everything else withered and mummy-dead.
What great tomb-haunter sweeps the distant sky
(Something may linger there though all else die;)
And finds there nothing to make its tetror less
Hysterica passio of its own emptiness?
No dark tomb-haunter once; her form all full
As though with magnanimity of light,
Yet a most gentle woman; who can tell
Which of her forms has shown her substance right?
Or maybe substance can be composite,
profound McTaggart thought so, and in a breath
A mouthful held the extreme of life and death.
But even at the starting-post, all sleek and new,
I saw the wildness in her and I thought
A vision of terror that it must live through
Had shattered her soul. Propinquity had brought
Imagiation to that pitch where it casts out
All that is not itself: I had grown wild
And wandered murmuring everywhere, "My child, my
child! '
Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall;
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave,
And wondered what was left for massacre to save.
2k
Gangling ghosts cause trouble inside
this meaty microwave--
I am on these streets and don't know
how I got here.
I'm carrying 2% milk, in my left hand,
and a carton of extra-large eggs in my right--
I drop the jug and it bursts. I joke about how
I still have 2%, but no one laughs because
no one has ever really been around to hear me.
So, I'm scrambling eggs and wishing I had that
milk because who doesn't like voluminous eggs.
I stop whisking and ask who is there.
Why am I afraid of you, Why am I afraid of you
the raw scrambled eggs on the floor, touched by
ceramic seashells.
And it's you.
You are the Lord, a naked lover, that absence
caused by my auto-pilot parents
Forever,
right here.
Feb 12, 2018
Feb 12, 2018 at 12:05 AM UTC
sitting in the sun,
with double-shot latte,
cooling in my hand.
i watch, a gangling youth, barely yet, a man.
fold his heart,
into a paperboat
and set it sail,
on the sea of love.
destined for a young
maiden's land.....
he sails forth,
on the winds of hope
and mooning, soulful looks.
she oblivious,
to his approach.
engrossed, in the book
at hand....
will they meet...
their hearts entwine,
will fates allow...
this sea of love is large...
will they love...
this, i will not, ever know.
...they, are not students of mine..
just two,
of several thousand,
...that sit in the sun and dream...
but that moment,
when he...launched
his ship of hope
and lust...of the wanting,
youthful kind...
....o, my lord... that look....
love caught...in the,
totality, of it's prime.
Jun 19, 2014
Jun 19, 2014 at 9:05 PM UTC
So much depends upon
The strength of that boy
That gangling brown haired boy
Who may be skin and bone
But somehow manages
To carry around the weight of loving me
Every day
And to have my burdens and baggage
On his back
But I'm scared that someday
His strength will fail him
And he'll be crushed
And I'll have been the undoing
Of the one person
I never wanted to see hurt
So much depends upon
The patience of that boy
That boy who is usually go go go
But for some reason slows down
And waits for me to catch up
And can always tell when something's wrong
And always cares
And listens to me complain
But I'm scared that someday
His patience will have run dry
And he'll take off running on his own
Because I held him back
So much depends upon
The blindness of that boy
Who is the smartest person I know
But was stupid enough
To fall in love with me
And I know it's selfish of me
But I wouldn't mind
If his love was unending
But I'm scared that someday
His blindness will dissolve
And he'll realize he deserves better
And the only person holding me together
Will hate me
As much as I hate myself
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 7:42 PM UTC
I wish I were a rose
because you love those barbed thorns
Or perhaps I wish I were a carnation
so you could dye me whichever shade you please
But I'm just the frailest flower
that you've let dry out
and pressed in your catacomb
of beautiful things you've murdered.
I hope you find a docile rose
that understands your gangling roots
Mar 3, 2012
Mar 3, 2012 at 12:17 PM UTC
christ was gangling,PARTICULARLY,of crucifix
drooping silverly reposed upon woodish portals
heavy oaken clasp swung adroitly to harbor
the rough shale and silk. the littlest chaplain
was swearing in there
hewassaying"shit"
Feb 5, 2011
Feb 5, 2011 at 10:41 PM UTC
boys with gangling limbs
and ****** up feelings
boys who whisper dandilion wishes
and then rip out your heart:
one after the another after another
boys who outline the roadmap
of your body with their fingertips
boys who demolish your soul
with their lips
boys who say i love you
and mean it
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 9:51 AM UTC
....and as the mother comes to realize she loves her children despite their ugliness, I have come to, at least, accept the gangling imperfections of my writing as the hallmark of my intellectual progeny. Thank you.
Mar 17, 2010
Mar 17, 2010 at 2:50 AM UTC
this is a secret,
can you keep it--
in your pocket, for a rainy day?
for your eyes only,
my dear, lovely,
i hope that's okay.
it takes courage to write this,
and give it to you.
although my identity is still unknown,
this will give you a bit of a clue.
i lack the courage,
and you could have anyone.
i am lanky and gangling,
but you are great.
i am helplessly awkward,
and you, never cease to amaze.
while i am merely a gust of wind,
you are the tornado.
and when you talk,
my heart skips a beat.
as if an everlasting melody,
has just begun to cease.
and i know, this is clichè,
but i swear, it's nothing but the truth,
okay?
i am not the best at anything,
i promise.
i've been told, i'm awkward and nerdy and weird,
but that only shapes the mold.
i hope you like (bad) poetry,
because i wrote this for no one but you.
you probably didn't like it,
but i hope it gave you a bit of a clue.
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 1:32 PM UTC
you look a little lost drunk toylike demure
stumbling doll pretty i peer you cutting
through gnashing heaped throats i spy
your gangling figure ungainly miniature
legs tottering deftly sensual upon your
hips
you slice stupidly through the tiny
hot music and you look so eatable you
look so nice and pristinely garbled perfect
unkempt ***** pleasant uneasy
i'll catch you by your languorous laxing
limbs i'll ****** you from falling hard
into the smarting wet floor i'll bring your
feverish nonsense Redder mouth
to mine and we'll do something perhaps
hotter
something, perhaps, louder
Feb 24, 2012
Feb 24, 2012 at 4:32 PM UTC
i see, in the black
studio cave of creativity.....
gangling, disinterested youth.
metamorph...
into mecurial, liquid madness...
fluid, upon the stage,
they fly, toward the lights.
moths, to a burning moon.
momentary flashes,
of. god's humour,
in flight across
the mechanical sun's
gelled brightness.
and then the curtain falls.
and they drift back,
into their former selves,
inarticalate, but secretly
smiling.
Jun 29, 2014
Jun 29, 2014 at 7:17 PM UTC
a shivering reminder of the things I’d done before,
the man that had been buried is protruding from the floor.
awakened by the stirring of the sounds that had been made
the man I thought was dead, it seems, may now be here to stay.
his tender wounds beneath the skin are still trying to heal;
but the vessel cannot heave the weight, the blood cannot congeal.
this man the world has made of me is not who I’m to be,
the gangling creature looming in the shadows over me.
not quite a demon, nor a guardian of any sort;
this mimicry of me is now beginning to contort.
a mockery of what once was, I must confess, it’s close.
to the impression i must make, when feeling quite morose
...
but once I can transform my heart to harbor in its plight
the center will unfold and be revealed within the light.
Jul 23, 2013
Jul 23, 2013 at 2:19 AM UTC
the currency of
grieving is in....
casseroles and soups,
left with notes,
on the back doorstep
flowers, bright, beautiful
and fragant,
delivered by gangling, teenage boys.
awkard silences and cups
of lukewarm tea.
mumbled condolences and
too tight hugs
late night rememberances,
after,
far too many drinks
tears, laughter and
in-house jokes...
photos, stories and
space for quiet reflection.
these things are...
the dollars and cents
of grief for a friend
but when all is, said
and done....
i would much prefer
to be penniless,
begging on the street,
with pockets empty
and moths for friends.
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 5:24 AM UTC
violent You are like a biggest sound
cloyingly honeyed on my mound of massed
and singing chords
(you are a rose most thorned and beautiful
i clutch idiosyncratically
strangled scarlet petals bursting
a foal i;ve nursed with tremoring pits of bold
gangling and accurate stench
violent you're a tedium
a lush and decaying growth
so lightly cancering my cell
and I breath your daily blood and i whimper first glowering fist
my hand to take that penitent shape
and i"ll whisper it
to their chins:
they who art most a mortal folly
as to wade in my
quaking presence
andi
'
;ll
sleeep them quickly rushing rushing
oBliviOn)
Dec 9, 2010
Dec 9, 2010 at 11:00 AM UTC
(I this very am a contradiction to itself)
this which is
the very thing i am
is not at all a multitude of singularities
but a single multitude of multiple singulars
i am large
and small
and enormously
a colour daft as starry days
and brightly nights
and with pale meter
my hards are soft
and softs are hard
(and i am like an onion
in petals of purple skin
an acrid flavour imps
my beam of darkly
steeply cooler hotter
breaths that buzz
like wondrous flies
in ample valleys or
cotton pasted flesh
in denim
)your jeans were on my floorIfoundthemthismorning
and i woke up to call you just so i could touch your voice with my ears
and kiss the treble of its throat with my gangling soul waxing profusely
with sparks of verdant poems blossoming in the uncommon pit of the stomach of my gross futile blithe brain because you made them with the
errant tattoo of your slight and tremendous music bustling its enormous
yawn over the roof of (my) rainbow hard heart that would like to comment in Your plunk of navel ringing tiny glittering barely hairs my smooth and
pinkish crumpled crumbs of love and sprinkle you with careless *** sometime maybe SWOON.
Apr 26, 2011
Apr 26, 2011 at 8:20 PM UTC
Haze
"I invited shrimp if that's ok.?";
That's what he calls his little brother,
"sure , if you want too"
He's teaching her how to drive today,
The car windows are down and it's
really warm for May.
She is wearing blue jean frayed shorts,
white cotton pull over, peasant style ,
the kind that straps won't stay up on
sandals reveal new manicure in hot pink.
Her hair is pulled up off her neck with a
claw, tendrils a drift.
She's never met her boyfriend's brother,
she expects young, gangling, annoying.
She starts the engine and honks the horn,
the car smells of octane and dust motes
and heavy aftershave. She likes the smell.
The door opens and poetic attitude plops
into the front seat.
Shrimp is smooth, buff and not at all what she
expected.
He slams the door and she starts to drive.
The young men exchange words,
brother barbs
she is driving as if she had always known how.
Onto the highway, the breeze feels good,
it's lazy and hazy in the car, she leans
forward too short in the seat to see well,
she adjusts the wheel.
A strap falls from her shoulder,
with a matching manicured hand
she slides it back up, no tan line.
Shrimp is feeling the heat,
blowing hard through his teeth,
feels the energy drip in the air,
looking at the girl,
his brother's girl.
She's got great shoulder blades,
long neck, he leans back arms thrown over the
seat, chest puffed out like he owns the world,
watching, watching his brother's girl.
He sees the strap drop, the retrieve , her leaning
up, a little more of her back exposed,
she's hot and glistening in the heat,
lovely shoulders,
great angles.
He pulls out his pen, leans over to her, pulls her
strap down again, the breeze wafts of her perfume
around him, the front seat, she, smells like baby powder
and jasmine.
Hand on the wheel , hand to hold up the front of her blouse
she's helpless and he pulls the elastic down in the back.
stretches it to her waist.
Brother sits in the back watching,
doesn't say a word.
Turns his head to the right and stares
at the landscape through the dusty window.
Time has disappeared in the front seat,
the atmosphere has changed and it's
thick and hard to breathe
he
starts writing on her back with his pen,
and in his mind he reads aloud as he writes
across her baby smooth brown skin.
I heard his voice read as he writes
and in his head it said;
"Haze, rain on my art, pick a color, pull it apart"
Sep 22, 2015
Sep 22, 2015 at 1:10 PM UTC
Today you leave
For your home and family
You tread a star-struck path across northern skies
Yet remember one
Who, in tears, leaves you happily
For he still feels your sanctuary
And you my love
With several splendours shining
Were I to stain the sound of your flesh with my words
Then I would drink deep on those tears
To leave you smiling
In the hot mid-summer’s morning
If words could change
I would turn them into love
To let your body sparkle at this leaving
And I would make this place a bed
With no roof above
But changeless words are not enough
Sometime? Later?
Will we meet on avenues?
Will we once more naked lay inside that peace
As lovers in a gangling heap
When the loving’s through
Will we then say, “we did it too.”(1)
1 We Did It is a poem by Yehuda Amichai and well worth reading
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 2:53 AM UTC
say numbers the little white toothed
sliver of a grin
hair breathlessly tousled
about fingers stairs
(winding)
upwards constantly
tall moments of absolute singleness
into 4 hands
2 fingers inside
lips strictly around
to eat 2 lips
30 minutes of
ultra caressed
hyper scrupulous
tense heaving ;
say numbers
7,205 seconds
until reaches
the startling pinnacle
of über sensuous
gangling drugged
with blonde milk
suddenly supple
between, "my dear,"
count as to count
by more than 20
digits to feverishly
blunder through
hurried wanting
to crush,
( say numbers and speak not numbly
of the nimble bumbling of thy pale
fracas an earth will be born from
within wishing will to will unworried
a fraction cut beneath the navel by
a tremendously incalculable urging
to rush
)
Feb 27, 2015
Feb 27, 2015 at 8:04 PM UTC
I wish I had never tried ************
I wish it was some fresh mystery
Calling my name,
Like Satan seducing a lover, a victim.
I wish I could watch a needle point kiss,
Search under my dress and sink into myself,
Folding over pelvis,
Tell myself I'm ****
But my voice shakes,
My lip sweats-
I never learned how to lie to myself.
Everyone lies
When they say self love is
A fulfilling replacement to foreign flesh,
My palms are no exception.
They twitch,
My limbs are gangling,
Alien-like,
Nothing compared
to the comfort of your fingernails
And tarnished knuckles.
I try to find the time,
I'm too busy. I'm too tired.
I convince myself I'm perfect for dwindling moments,
But my elbows do not
bend to care for myself
Like yours did.
I take baths by candlelight
With Marvin Gaye and The Temptations
But my fingers wrinkle with water and I weep for my ugliness.
Im hungry,
But I eat before and I feel sick,
I starve myself instead and ***** from the sensation of skin on skin-
My skin.
My skin isn't as feather-like as yours was,
And self love will never float as softly
Above me as yours did.
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 8:11 AM UTC
An elevated risk they say ,we make our way ,gangling on about the day
Prepare for your destiny,we think we can see forward ,glimpse that illusion
A fluid thought that passes seemingly unimportant ,dismiss it as trivia
The Verve could never be neutral ,why just wait when you could play
A broad expanse of motions & memories slipping,slept,forgotten,lost
Holding tight ,forcing the feeling ,an unfamiliar blight making it right
The willing host is subject to change ,unaware but unashamed,a necessary cost
A perception is peeking out but remains hidden ,mysterious as to the fright
Others may perceive a deadly day ,breaking the barriers bring on the prayer
Others struggle in tenacious turmoil,never realizing the obvious strain
Do we reveal it all or always partially conceal ,keeping quiet ,take a favor show a layer
An anonymous internal decision becomes the main focus ,a deadly game with the brain
Paying my own penance , have seen others give in say good riddance
Becoming your own model ,your own vision is now the best guide
Not so obvious ,the strength is emotional,draining ,bring it on ,beauty in the brilliance
A maddening plot is subsequently wrought ,then abated, Being aware that the paths are gated.
Abrasive or smooth ,don't debate or negate but simply take in stride . R.C.
May 26, 2016
May 26, 2016 at 3:59 PM UTC
I found a pool, small
Of tepid waters, shallow
Left imprinted by the things
That long since grew big, climbed and,
Sought the ocean
I know the pool, I grew tall in it,
Know it for what it was, once
It seemed deep as the seas, wide as the horizon
Brimmed with life a thousand-led
By all the verdure of many beasts
Each began as tadpoles, swam from their sacs and
Knew magnitude, kept to the shallows
Looked on at the lurching fish with,
Fear. Met a generation in those
Huddled beside them, scared.
Growing, their arms and legs,
Uniform in formlessness, ill-defined but
Excited. Each learned to swim and laughed at
Each other. Spiralling, gangling, twisting games
Were played on shallow borders.
Our bellies touched the silt, our eyes turned out
And we flicked our feet to find the open air, and
It wasn't so scary, terrible not, look at me! Look
At me! I can go see those dark holes, hiding
Nothing, I'm sure. Let's go.
As we lost ourselves in the growing dark, we
Lost sight of the other tadpoles, and
Grew faces, eyes, mouths, antennae, or
Unsure, we grew and each became streamline, in
a thousand different ways, we swam to the centre of the pool.
And met each other, as if for the first time, but
Saw no similarity, saw only our differences, we
Smiled and looked about, and each, in our own way,
Discovered the light. We did not stop growing, did not think to,
Knew no fear, saw no dark corners, scalps touched the open air.
And we went, each found the same certainty at the same time.
We must leave, a fish, a salamander, a boatman, a snake.
Shed the oily waters and explored the fresh air. Some,
Found they could not breathe, some found themselves prey to
Unknown evils. None stayed, none I knew.
I am back now, face weathered by winds I knew not were
Out there, hands pricked by something called thorns, the
Waters so small, tepid, stagnant, shallow from all the
Absence, those things that now walk, or lie, or fly, I
Know not why I came back, or why I look now into the puddle
I see only frogs. I hear only croaks. Old things living in a drying world.
Leathery, cold blooded, oily,
Speaking only of the times when they were tadpoles,
Thinking only of the time when they were new. I
walk away, and shed the thoughts that link my path to them.
I face the wind, I face the thorns. I feel my neck and
Hold closed my gills with thumb and forefinger
Forgetting...
Croak.
Oct 25, 2021
Oct 25, 2021 at 2:17 PM UTC
Torrents like sayings.
Cliffs of abuses raining floods
of wasted wards.
Saliva of uncouth bluffs
unstoppably raining.
Dripping parrotic halitosis of abuses
'....wash your mouth'........
Rustic unwashed mouth spitting
Countless dews of gashing abuses
Lock up the tunnel of wastages
From the unrestrained drains.
Unchained gutter gutted the aroma
of peace,
Like a rushing fire of hell.
Muted silent covering podium of still
And gangling abuses
Rebrushing,
Rearranging,
Resettling,
Renovating,
Relocating
Scaffolds of alignment.
Nov 2, 2019
Nov 2, 2019 at 10:41 PM UTC
Some one should get some chillies up these saps
they need some sense burned into these soggy brain
some steel in foamy bodies
some lead where it matters
it may blow some heat into these drips and wets
so maturity and reality could flare up
and perhaps they may know what adulthood means
Some one should get some chillies up these saps
all these floopsie woopsie materialization and silliness
no realness, no essence, no passion, no steam, no chutzpah
drop the chips and fries, get some chillies and not the milds
eat daily and watch fire light up in you, your brains come alive
all the slimy hogwash cobwebs singed and fired off
women won't have to beg for attention in beds and idle tools will up
take heed and go get some chillies and learn passion and sense
at my age, still like in my prime and a martini
anytime, anywhere, ready to go and not just once and over
brain as sharp as a golden button, have to down the fire that burns
a stallion with fire, a scholar with wit, a sage in tune within and out
Years of fine chillies, no alcohol except rarely, skin aglow like youth
fire and passion simmer in calm grace, the inner strength of love
a men of all seasons cause of the seasoning of pure chillies..
not gangling buffoons, with no heat in hearts bodies and souls
and wilting little sausages they compensate for, in bullying stupidity.
Sep 3, 2019
Sep 3, 2019 at 7:09 PM UTC