"gauges" poems
''
Sand and stones between my bones.
Today the sun never shone.
Look how beautiful I am.
Chop, chop, chopped wood in the fireplace.
Don't get too close if you want to keep your face.
Be careful not to burn yourself.
It gives a certain warmth
And brings a certain want.
I would, yet I can't enjoy it by myself.
Royal blue like the winter hue.
My skin is merely bruised.
Can you still see how many times I've been hurt?
That winter depression.
Makes me want you as my new obsession.
Come in even if it's colder than outside.
Melt, melt me, I'm a letdown.
Having a meltdown.
I am melting under your fiery touch.
Snow flakes the skin.
I am in for a win.
What a special snowflake I am, wouldn't you say?
My heart is surrounded by splinters,
It shouldn't, yet it get's me through the winter.
Between my arms it's chiller, why don't you come hither?
Take a bite of me with your ice chipped teeth.
Swallow me up like a leech.
Red blood gauges from my blue veins.
Guess I'm not that royal anyway.
Hide it before you can complain.
-
Too late.
You already know the taste.
"
Feb 8, 2016
Feb 8, 2016 at 2:23 PM UTC
when you asked me about certainty
and if my mind was a tree
rooted in cement and truth
i was on my unaccustomed knees
blinking into a sunbeam's architecture when
the brilliant wind brought you to me
to cure me with the miracle touch
i was alone by a window dreaming through glass
you bent toward me in a mile wide sky
a butterfly with a skinny voice
or an adorable tomato in a retail uniform
before that i only knew the clouds
as bears wrapped in pastel baby-blankets
before i first kissed you in the street
i knew the sunset as a drop of fire
in a barrel of whiskey and
suddenly your eyes like a deep pool in a forest
seeking out my past with the molecular traces
of your fingers across my abdomen
mandalas blooming out of our palms
only touching at the fingers
as flames from mosquito torches filled
the round coral faces of my gauges
with apricot light
Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 12:16 PM UTC
I have gauges;
That doesn't make me 'emo'
I have some chubby features;
That doesn't make me 'fat'
I have big *****
That doesn't make me a 'slut'
I waste time playing video games;
That doesn't mean I'm a 'geek'
Just cause I'm bi;
Doesn't mean I want every girl I see.
You stereotype people to much,
How you you feel if I picked out little things
on you and used them to make you feel like ****
Mar 22, 2011
Mar 22, 2011 at 4:26 PM UTC
I
I stole my brother’s car and drove to Phoenix in the dark.
The blue-green glow of dashboard gauges, the biting scent
of roadkill and desert marigolds. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Insects slapping the windshield, incipient rain.
Keep driving. Drive until the sun blooms.
II
Some days were more dire than others. CCTV footage confirms
I pawned a shotgun, a Gibson guitar, and my wife’s engagement
ring at the pawnshop next to Fatty’s Tattoo parlor on MLK Boulevard.
The typographically accurate Declaration of Independence
inscribed on my back also confirms this.
III
I ran the tilt-a-whirl at the Ashtabula county fair,
fattening up on fried Oreos and elephant ears,
twisting behind tent ***** with a one-armed
contortionist with strawberry-blonde hair.
IV
I derailed in a dive bar.
V
I disappeared in a city lit by lavender streetlights,
where buildings blotted out the stars and the traffic
signals kept perfect time. I picked through trash bins.
I paid for love with drugstore wine.
VI
I closed my eyes on a mountain road.
The sheriff extracted me from a ****** snowbank.
VII
I holed up for weeks in an oceanfront motel, dazed
by the roar of the breakers. Each morning I drew
back the curtains and lost myself
in the crisscrossing patterns of whitecaps,
the synchronous flight of sanderlings above the dunes.
I dreamed of dead horseshoe ***** rolling in with the tide.
VIII
The moon over my shoulder
tightened into focus like a spotlight.
One night the barking dogs undid me.
I caved in to the candor of a naked mattress.
I grew my beard, an insomniac in a jail cell,
clinging to bars the color of a morning dove.
IX
I coveted the house keys of strangers.
X
I opened and closed many doors.
I sang into the mouths of storm drains.
I stepped out of many rooms only
to find myself in the room I just left.
Despite all my leaving, I remained.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 1:45 PM UTC
A solid center presages
two generous edges
to shoulder the weight
of the curve: the bow
relinquishes tension
to the anchors of the
taut bow-string.
The wayfaring archer
tends to the curve,
notches the arrow,
selects the target,
gauges the wind,
surrenders --
*Riding like an arrow on the wind,
sure to find its mark in Breath,
and the end of Breath it portends.*
A reveler
abiding the flirt
of angle and arc,
finite and eternal,
arbiter of the holy
moment, the dance
linking death with life;
So unbearably
near the horizons,
desire yields its grip
to the coaxing
womb of the curve: tension
sighs into the space
between arrow-head
and its mark.
*And in the transmission of feeling
is the spirit of Life,
clinging - so gently - to free itself
of its own burdens.*
A sudden violence
voids archer and stag:
Continuity rushes forth
to meet the sacrifice.
The heart of the bow
resumes its tension.
And the curve
evaporates,
all but a trick
of Timing.
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 11:33 AM UTC
This is an ode to my own self love
Because tonight I forgot who I ******* was
I was looking at a profile with the guy i was on a date with and he said that the girl in the picture was pretty and I asked what about her is pretty and as we scrolled through the pictures he said *I like the ones where she looks normal*
And when this ************ meant normal
I knew he meant white
He mean blonde haired, blue eyed, perfect skin and white teeth
And I looked at myself I knew I was none of these things
My skin is not white, neither are my teeth, and they are crooked
Like my skin, which is not flawless, no Beyoncé, I did not wake up flawless
My hair is dark brown, almost black, but that's my natural color
I've been bleaching it blonde since I was twelve
What the **** does that tell you
I got my first two tattoos when I was eighteen
And I saw how the girls face had no piercings
And I looked at my 00 gauges and my septum, cartilage, tragus, and second hole piercings
And I wanted to rip them all off
I wanted to scratch my tattoos off
I wanted to take my hair off
I wanted to rip my skin off
I felt inadequate
I felt like I could never be enough
Well I'm tan and unconventional
So that means I can never be ******* loved
So this is an ode to myself:
Dear Ella,
Look at me,
Thick body, with curves that slay like Beyoncé's
Glasses thick so you can see your own beauty
Lipstick dark like the shade of a ruby
And you don't care
You don't care what anyone thinks because you know you rock it
Your blonde and brown hair is unique, no one else can rock it
Your piercings are a part of you, that's why you ******* chose them
The same thing with the tattoos, girl, that's why you own them
They have meaning to you, they're beautiful to you
So what the **** does what this guy thinks phase you
The way you do your makeup is beautiful,
Your style is beautiful
And every scar on your arm is important to you
So don't pretend that what he thinks is more important than what you do
Love yourself, girl, because without you there would be no you
-E (c) 2017
Mar 1, 2017
Mar 1, 2017 at 3:45 AM UTC
The machinesed drones droning ozones
made of homogenised genes by replicants
from clinical doctrines and empirical indulgences
Soulless and efficient, bred for duties destructives
Capitalist fodder, programmed ready for earth's ****
Regulate as required, inputted subs with pigs hearts
Made followers with voracious appetite for blood
mechanised barbarians on leash with one track mix
Human shire horses in designer shods and faulty gauges
Manufactured manufacturers limited and corollated
Factories, dormitories partnered with like, watered
and bedded till tomorrow, audiod to the Sterling whip
Given ample ales, keep blinded and chained
Distract and cater to baser instincts, *** *** ***
Free 'love' free *** valueless values, what values
Enjoy kids must return to work desk seven on the dot
Time is money, clogs and production
waits for no man, do or your pleasures denied
Money, money money, honey for bees, honey for drones
Soulless, dehumanised, pale, aged at thirty, heart attacks next
Vacuous ghost programmed dunces
Malfunctioning entities devoid of humanity
Superficial plasticated robots, destruction default
Industrial pieces with industrial minds
Chemicalized drunks with wired brains
They roam around screaming freedom and power!
Dec 7, 2018
Dec 7, 2018 at 8:28 PM UTC
The ear is an amazing tool. Subtle invitation,
subtle beauty, and the jewelry that decorates it!
I saw your ears before the gauges, and even then
they were small, delicate, and open to me.
If I could be any object, knowing what little purpose
I would serve, I would be the decorations, hanging,
from your earlobe: I would be satisfied being worn
on your body, your bright body, your beautiful face
sparkling from the lights you liked to daydream in,
placed near the delicate halls you’d always embraced me in.
Jun 14, 2015
Jun 14, 2015 at 11:54 AM UTC
Casting shadows of doubt,
tripping over myself.
Molten to the core,
put on the shelf.
Screws in my head,
pressure builds up,
Forty five degrees,
way to much.
Gauges turn red,
point of no return,
open the valve,
release or get burned.
Blinded by the steam
of terminal fates.
Staring alone
into the gates.
Oct 4, 2014
Oct 4, 2014 at 2:20 PM UTC
what I don't understand
about my family is
my body is always
a topic of conversation
my hair is too short
for their liking
they aren't a fan
of my gauges
my sister thinks
i should drop some weight
but I don't care anymore
It's my body, not theirs
I'll express myself the I
deem it necessary
Jul 31, 2014
Jul 31, 2014 at 2:20 AM UTC
the trollometer
is a reliable
apparatus
how well it gauges
the trolling
status
of great accuracy
the needle it
employs
which locates
any untoward
ploys
trolls can pop up
wearing a plethora of
faces
theirs is the playing
of copious
aces
the trollometer
never gets its readings
wrong
the inventor's guarantee
is of a precise
prong
Feb 28, 2018
Feb 28, 2018 at 8:02 PM UTC
Whales were,
above all else,
deliberate
about the pace
with which they
moved through the world,
conscientious,
perhaps to a fault,
about the economy of movement
required to propel
such incredible mass over such
enormous, empty spans
of open ocean.
Here is a humpback whale
resting, face-down
staring into the cerulean
abyss, alone
but singing, perhaps for
enjoyment, perhaps out of
boredom, or perhaps due to
loneliness and longing.
She twists
and turns a single eye up toward
the surface, her iris catching
sunbeams and contracting,
as she gauges
the gargantuan effort she must exert
in order to gain her next breath.
In this case, she concludes that, yes,
the effort will be worth it.
But what you must know about
whales is that
on rare occasion,
they would cast these concerns
of intentionality and efficiency aside,
and choose to
activate the entirety of their being,
from the sinews to the soul,
and propel themselves,
heedlessly and at top speed
toward, through, and past the surface of the ocean,
as though they were attempting to
fully take flight,
to escape, with finality,
the cold confines of their known existence,
the omnipresent, furrowed gaze of the void below.
But invariably,
and in spite of their best efforts,
the whales would be pulled
back downward,
by forces they could not
fully comprehend,
sure as the tides would fall shortly after
the moon passed overhead.
Yes, the physical impact of colliding
with the surface of the ocean
would be painful for the whales,
but what hurt
so much more than that
was having to return
to the stark, lonely calculus
of whether or not
to keep going.
May 22, 2021
May 22, 2021 at 11:55 AM UTC
Does anyone wants to be alone in the dark
Lost without directions just flesh and a heart
We all become stranded from day to day
Hoping that we will find someone compatible with the same faith
But we seem to see the same grey face
scary as hell locking love to someone that doesn't prevail
Getting beat up inside so our mental starts to swell
Our emotions becomes the cell building blocks without a bail.
A common trick lead out by logic sense
The way you've cried tears a underwater metropolis
The wounds are cut, so thick blood are shooting from your veins
You try to hide the pain so you sing hymns but reminisce
About a love you once had back in pages of your life
From the way you met to the grity lust sessions living trife
But nobody made any type of effort to keep you on a path
To righteousness they rather see you struggle living fast
What type of wrath is this it makes me mad and ****** to see a women cursed
with imaginary gauges on there abdomen.
To realize that a man a breed like me to treat there opposite with such grief
No true beauty they just see a simple piece of meat
But you can't blame a man we hunt **** but in the end we are all poisoned
From something we misused
By the way we neglected something so good
But in a way to much of anything can **** you.
Dec 25, 2013
Dec 25, 2013 at 9:24 PM UTC
Hunting dove down on the backroad
way on back only the rancher knows
he doesn’t care so we wait for flight
12 gauges ready to start our plight
Ring necks, white wings, and mourning’s are game
chichi birds make us swing all the same
listening for the whistle and the beat of the wing
one of us today, will win the brass ring
Limiting out is what we’re hoping for
but if not, you couldn’t hope for more
outside with friends and family alike
kids getting bored, gone on a hike
Men at the truck with cold Coors Light
relaxing outdoors, no one’s uptight
suns getting low, they are about to fly
here they come, hear the wings sigh
Draw a bead and a lead and fire away
one bird down, hope there’s more we pray
birds on the tailgate at the end of fight
get em’ all clean before the black of the night.
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 2:17 PM UTC
Ray LaMontagne - Hold You In My Arms
"I could hold you in my arms, I could hold you forever."
In this hidden corner of my world
Anything
could happen
woven Guatemalan Frisbee
with a lonely older man
talking about dank and his ex-wife
sweet vanilla coffee with a shot of something fruity
smoking in the wind
bot support Ashe
I use a trackpad
fingerless mittens and fuzzy knit earmuffs
they double as headphones
metal and country and sappy romantic pop ballads
gauges piercings tattoos flannels beanies band tees and scene girlfriends
gossip about the bar next door
bashing the outer world
this is utter peace
catching the eye of an attractive stranger
in the mirrors behind the bar
My stomach feels tender from too much coffee
my head buzzes with nicotine
caffeine
My purging week of healthy choices ended
with hash browns, french toast
too much ketchup and 6 packets of sugar in my coffee
Denny's
skeleton string lights and chalkboard walls
abstract photography and everyone plugged in
this is my escape
Apr 28, 2014
Apr 28, 2014 at 2:54 AM UTC
I sit on my **** by the fireside chair
and talk the mill talk to the calender man
but he doesn't care
he just watches his gauges and pressures
how precious he is
to the factory owner who allows him to live
on a pittance each week.
And while he clothes the World
in his mind he would seek
a botany bay
where his ancestors lay
and put roots in that ground.
The sound of the press, blocks the sound from the bell
just as well
because that ringing in his ears is not the bite from the future
but the teeth in the fears of his past
and another bolt of cloth has been passed by the foreman
and ticked off the list that he keeps in a book
to read to the crook who works in accounting
and pushed to the double entry
in another book amounting to
daylight robbery
but the snobbery of the age is another page set
in the mill town you get
****** all.
The fine hall's for the Master and all you survey
are the ruins that lie in the ruins of another day.
Get away
to get away and walk through a gateway into a better day
but the Devil you know is the Devil you pay and what would he say
if you jacked in the mill
and worked down the mines
better times indeed?
Jun 17, 2013
Jun 17, 2013 at 4:12 AM UTC
1043
Lest this be Heaven indeed
An Obstacle is given
That always gauges a Degree
Between Ourself and Heaven.
By a Hum.
1.6k
Inside, Your cancer's beating heart
My ******* shakes, dirt dust gone
I swipe the sand away. For every ounce of ****
Laughing out meaty red raw steaks and size zero thighs.
- For everythingsobad. You rattle my dream box with your sweet blue face and your gauges for neither being an idiot or being human. Too cute of you booboo. Captivity claws at you, you big bafoon, intolerant, shuffling your predicates back and forth during your 12am nonsensical ******** So long as it doesn't interfere with your curfew.
Like soggy altered-state popcorn. Your butter catches more flies than knives, the inauthentic gestures spattering over the rhythms and rolls of your fingertips is torture to watch. Kitchen countertop influenza. A tired dictionary of sad words, poor misfortunes, tired eyelids, silty and sandy crusty inside corners of the eyes
.rearing privilege
countertop crawlers. inaudible coos used by muses who can't keep their musings from tangling the long distance dial tone soaring through the ears like an Italian operatic melodrama. A horse, three brides, and a funeral. One woman, a sick child, blindness, blinding caused by toxins of the body stuck inside your gelatinous fishlike eyelids. Where's there an eye bib and a lance when you need one? A nifty electric toothbrush shank with extra reach and plaque protection. You're the kitchen sink they threw in, a budget meeting with a data analysis staph infection. A government where nobody wins. All the kids grow up with thin skin and an aorta with no ventricles in it. It's like the cynical prison system that we had to survive in our 8th grade basement dungeon. Thundering, curmudgeons drugging sluggishly, **** teen thugs. Preteen pornstars sluicing cash through their meaty canals, ******* the ******** and ******* the back bare in a messy afternoon of **** ******* Crusty infectious rumors made worse by brothers and moms, eating handfuls of Norco just to keep the family strong.
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 7:16 PM UTC
In memory of the seven men killed in the after fire room explosion in USS Basilone (DD-824) on 5 February 1973
We live in holes,
Each one named,
Bravo One,
Bravo Two,
Bravo Three,
Bravo Four.
There are others,
But none are MAIN,
The rest are AUX.
We work at pressure,
Six hundred pounds,
Eight hundred plus
Degrees,
That's Fahrenheit,
Folks.
People like
To visit
Our world.
Makes them,
Feel special,
They see a world,
They don't dare
Live in,
And they leave,
Before they
Sweat too much.
Come again,
But not too often,
Have a salt tablet.
We're the only sailors,
Who must
Use our gear,
Twenty-four hours
A day.
Try letting the fires
Go out
In the
Boiler.
See what
Happens.
The girls,
Topside,
Would miss their
Movie.
They'd,
Be agitated.
Did we use that
Word?
Well,
Have a salt tablet.
We say that
Down here is where
The real men live,
That all the rest,
Are *******
It's a lie,
But,
It hides how hard
Life is,
In the
Steam world.
It's six hours
Of watch,
Six hours
Of sleep,
Six hours
Of watch,
Six hours
Of sleep,
Unless,
Something
Needs fixing,
Or
We're refueling,
Or,
We're getting ready,
To enter port,
Or,
Something else
Is happening,
Then there's -
No sleep.
There's no sun
Anyway.
You wanna see
Sun?
Look through
The scope,
At the
Stack gas.
It's a world of
Valves
And,
Burners,
And,
Sight glasses and,
Pumps and,
Pipes and,
Gauges everywhere.
A new guy,
Wonders,
How to learn
Them all.
It's an,
Incomprehensible
Forest.
And then,
You get to
Know it.
Now some other guy,
Is the,
New guy.
It's often a
Rain forest,
120 degrees,
That's Fahrenheit,
Folks.
95 per cent
Humid,
Since you're visiting,
Come help us,
Find
Steam leaks.
But,
Keep your head
Down.
Steam is clear,
You won't
See it,
Before it
Cuts you,
In half.
We'll use brooms,
Instead.
Just wave them overhead,
Along the pipes.
Have a salt tablet.
The steam
Snakes all about
The ship.
They need it
To live.
Not just the
Wake,
But,
Heat,
Light,
Water.
All life,
Comes from
The boiler.
You'd think they'd
Appreciate
Us.
The Navy says,
It's worried about,
Our heat stress,
(It's only 120)
And our hearing,
They want us,
Out of
The heat,
More often,
Nice.
Who will keep
The lights on?
Maybe they'll
Start a new,
“Program.”
Do the paperwork,
And just
Keep us in
The hole.
We've been down here,
So long,
We can't
Hear 'em,
Anyway.
Have another salt tablet,
And go back,
To your regular job,
Topside.
Dec 28, 2011
Dec 28, 2011 at 10:21 AM UTC
Tools of the Patriarchy
Fence pliers, claw hammers, crescent wrenches
Nail sets, c-clamps, wood planes, mitre boxes
Come-alongs, White Mule gloves, ball-peen hammers
Jumper cables, wood planes, mill bstrd files
Plumb bobs, twist bits, cross-cut saws, ripping saws
Tire irons, air compressors, pressure gauges
Brace-and-bits, drawing knives, pneumatic jacks
Cold chisels, clamps, mortar trowels, channel locks
A twelve-hour day plus d*mned low pay, you bet!
And
A work ethic, knowledge, muscles, and sweat
Mar 14, 2017
Mar 14, 2017 at 1:47 PM UTC
what is the measure of sorrow
is there a standard unit
against which we may rule
an overladen mind
and a heart demolished
graphing with infinite precision
each shattered hope
and marking the dimensions
of dreams ground to dust
are tears numbered
or more properly
and accurately accounted
by volume
or weight
shall we assign a value
on a sliding scale
to the mutilation
of a human soul
can we make comparison
among various torments
or attempt to visualize
in a chart of bright colors
splashed on a screen
the lifelessness of one person
to that of another
is despair loss
or hope denied
might it be joy withheld
does suffering
have weight and volume
that we might
determine its mass
is it instead a void
where something which
was present
has been removed
is it possible to create
an image of wretchedness
a ruined and rotting
playground of lost innocence
a charred and crumbled husk
of a home shattered
an arid uninhabitable waste
of aspirations unbirthed
with what pigment
shall we produce such art
which color wheel
will be used
in what earthly perdition
are the gauges found
reading the depth of misery
or the height of anguish
what is the magnitude
of the grief
the touchstone of devastation
against which all other grief
must be measured
Mar 8, 2022
Mar 8, 2022 at 9:45 PM UTC
All hipbones and collarbones,
Size 1 and 0, long flowing hair and gauges,
thigh gap and flat stomach,
you are beautiful.
All dry skin and yellow teeth,
Size 12 and 13, short, plain hair,
touching thighs and rounded stomach,
I am "beautiful" to everyone but myself.
I will be strong.
I will be stronger.
I will exercise more,
I will eat less,
I will be thinner.
Once I've lost 40 pounds,
then I might get the help everyone says
I so desperately need,
diet healthily
and work with somebody.
Until then, I will suffer through...
...because that shows strength,
and eating shows weakness,
weakness in myself.
Calories should be a foreign substance,
not an old friend,
chewing and swallowing sometimes hurts worse
than a **** lemon-juice papercut.
800 calories over my budget every **** day
when my budget is already too high?
That shows no strength.
500 calories under?
THAT shows strength.
Shows willpower.
Shows endurance.
That is what will make me thinner.
I'm setting my budget to 500 instead of 1000,
because hey,
less is more, right?
Dec 11, 2014
Dec 11, 2014 at 1:24 PM UTC
All of the Richmond Hipsters
and time killing smokers are killing me
The hobos with broken thumbs
They just barely catch the bus
Late nights under the eastern stars
The City of almost-angels
beards and gauges and butts
Tatted up art chicks with more skin than clothing
Invite me over your threshold
Make me some supper, the coffee is in the ***
River tides carrying away the used condoms of the confused
Liquor breath, joints and e-cigs
Poets, painters, photographers
The air reeks of art and death
fist meets face meets pavement meets God
The good times are killing you, and I’m showering until the water runs cold
cough up my phlegm, it tastes like love
grinding against a stranger’s *** all night long - like it was all we knew
We couldn’t feel so we tried to touch
we fell short and drank from the puddles with gasoline rainbows
The bricks and cobblestones all have names that I will never know
Does anybody ever actually listen?
Life versus fun versus life versus death versus boring
Stack them up like tetris
The sun is sick with stories, the moon full of lies
And all the graffiti in the world won’t change that
snow sun rain sun blank canvases
hear the thunder of arrhythmic heartbeats
sweat drips and it tastes like ****
Black eyes on Bowe, black eyes on Goshen
Mad houses filled with gifted pianists
Ghetto driven dreams of another shot
Play that same acoustic guitar tune I like so much
I lost my harmonica in a storm drain
I lost my Mind in Richmond
Feb 23, 2014
Feb 23, 2014 at 2:56 PM UTC
My heart shimmies and shivers,
While thinking of you,
Poetry for my eyes,
You stand like a dancing,
Sentence of silver,
And dance like a whirling,
Diction of diamonds,
Your dimple crescendos,
Calling out my own upon my cheek,
The curves of your mustache and beard,
Carve into my heart, and add to holes put there by your gauges,
You don’t care,
And I love that,
You enjoy a good drink,
Laugh in life’s face,
And speak as you wish,
But walk humbly before God,
You sing gently.
A Man you are,
And Man to be.
Oct 11, 2014
Oct 11, 2014 at 3:02 PM UTC