"gnaw" poems
I thought and thought
I hoped and believed
I cried and mourned
I screamed and laughed
Then I realised it was passion.
My gorgeous
Every moment with you
Crazy for you
The fluff of your paw
Touches my soul
You gnaw at my heart
Endless days
Shortened nights
Awaken to the mystery of life
Picasso book
"Art Can Only be ******
Chewed
My babe forgiven all
You daze into my eyes
Lips so soft
I am insane for you
Our affection entwined
You lay on my chest
I feel every breath
And I realise it's Passion
Forever crazy for you
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 10:22 AM UTC
To choose to listen to the voices in my head or the whisper in my heart.
Blinded by my own hand most of the time.
The roller coaster turned into a merry-go-round.
I knew where I had ended up, but I didn't see the start.
My thoughts are off and running again...
Round and round,
I feel this creeping monster run down my spine and gnaw at my center.
I am terrified of it.
I let it go on forever.
...I finally looked inside and asked,
"What the hell do you want from me?"
"I just want you to know that it's me, which is you.
Just trying to tell you that you need love, that's the truth."
I need to stop crucifying myself to feel alive.
It's selfish.
Apr 3, 2013
Apr 3, 2013 at 8:43 PM UTC
we are monsters
from the boutique to the
embroidered throw pillows the
pen dashed around the neck
stage 5 bone cut
sawing ossification to the
hollow core
we are monsters
hooting in tunnels lined
with bats coming out to feast
creation
to scrape the streets
shimmy the walls
bust the coffin and
succckk
we are monsters
who can't enter under the
doorframe
fearful of being burned by
the sun silver stake
rat poison holy water sickle
and windmill ash
we are monsters
sewed stapled dead meat
skin hair plugs ceramic
teeth tested and tasted by
rats
we are monsters
jumping high over white
fences frenzied explosion
running through corn
angrily bled in a field shot and
hunted like embarrassing
waterfowl in the jaws of
mammalia
we are monsters
of flaming brilliance flashing
in your inbox
read us and gnaw
braised
roasted
grilled limbs
watch
as we watch you
be scared and
stab
I promise we don't die.
Oct 1, 2015
Oct 1, 2015 at 2:32 PM UTC
Mary had a little lamb,
two lobsters and a Christmas ham,
a three-pound tub of chicken wings,
seven bratwurst tied with strings,
thirteen loaves of garlic bread,
a schnitzel bigger than her head,
four rare steaks, a dozen eggs,
caviar and turkey's legs,
strips of bacon, mushroom stew,
chunks of bread and cheese fondue,
and two whole jars of sauerkraut,
(to clean all of her insides out).
Finishing the pasta salad,
Mary soon looked drawn and pallid.
"I don't feel well," poor Mary said.
"I think I need to rest my head."
Then from her stomach came a moan,
a straining, churning, twisted groan.
Mary gasped; her eyes grew wide.
She'd only seconds to decide.
What could she do? Where could she go?
Her stomach was about to blow!
So, reaching for the nearest bucket,
she retched, and then began to chuck it.
All the courses that she'd swallowed,
and the apertifs they'd followed,
all the steaks and all the fish,
each and every single dish
came flying back from in her belly,
filling up the bucket smelly
with a foul and toxic brew,
and no one knew quite what to do,
so this went on for ten whole minutes
till Mary had expelled her innards.
When she was done, her eyes were red,
and sweat was pouring from her head.
"Are you alright, sweet Mary dear?"
her mother asked. She didn't hear.
For Mary was already off -
the waiters saw her try to scoff
the whole entire pudding bar.
Now, this had pushed her mum too far.
"Alright!" her mother cried, "I'm through!
I've done the best that I can do.
I'm sick and tired of all you eat.
I will not pay for all this meat.
I'm going home. Go get some help —"
Then Mary's mum let out a yelp!
She glanced down at her legs and saw
sweet Mary there begin to gnaw!
She struck the lass, but with great haste,
alas, the girl had reached her waist.
As Mary's ma was there devoured
by her offspring, overpowered,
she cried one thing ere final slaughter:
"It smells like lamb in here, my daughter."
Mary licked her lips and grinned.
She belched out loud and then broke wind.
She felt her tummy start to rumble -
and calmly ordered apple crumble.
Dec 18, 2017
Dec 18, 2017 at 4:52 AM UTC
at the track today,
Father's Day,
each paid admission was
entitled to a wallet
and each contained a
little surprise.
most of the men seemed
between 30 and 55,
going to fat,
many of them in walking
shorts,
they had gone stale in
life,
flattened out....
in fact, **** it, they
aren't even worth writing
about!
why am I doing
this?
these don't even
deserve a death bed,
these little walking
whales,
only there are so
many of
them,
in the urinals,
in the food lines,
they have managed to
survive
in a most limited
sense
but when you see
so many of them
like that,
there and not there,
breathing, farting,
commenting,
waiting for a thunder
that will not arrive,
waiting for the charging
white horse of
Glory,
waiting for the lovely
female that is not
there,
waiting to WIN,
waiting for the great
dream to
engulf them
but they do nothing,
they clomp in their
sandals,
gnaw at hot dogs
dog style,
gulping at the
meat,
they complain about
losing,
blame the jocks,
drink green
beer,
the parking lot is
jammed with their
unpaid for
cars,
the jocks mount
again for another
race,
the men press
toward the betting
windows
mesmerized,
fathers and non-fathers
Monday is waiting
for them,
this is the last
big lark.
and the horses are
totally
beautiful.
it is shocking how
beautiful they
are
at that time,
at that place,
their life shines
through;
miracles happen,
even in
hell.
I decide to stay for
one more
race.
from Transit magazine, 1994
6.9k
A queen she is called
Rich with light hair
Bright like the sun
It shines.
And in her eyes
The deepest sea's
Savage waves
Are calmed with the batting of long, dark lashes
Her lips,
Like pomegranate
Together or apart
Keep a perfectly hidden kiss
The skin she occupies:
Immaculate
Like the body
She wears with grace
Yet within this ruler
The flawlessness
Of her exterior
Has vanished.
Inside her brain,
Dark brooding
Thoughts
Roam around.
Senseless ideas
Nestle in her heart
Looking for the passage
To the outside world.
Her locked mind
Has time
To wander
Behind shut lips.
To infest with
Musings of better places,
Of welcome speech,
And worlds beyond this.
Yet,
She cannot
Get through this life
With such thoughts
Soon enough
They begin
To gnaw
Her
Breaking her down
Piece by pretty piece.
The beauty of her face
Will soon be absent,
An ugly exterior
To match
What had been
Flooding her insides.
Jan 11, 2012
Jan 11, 2012 at 12:15 AM UTC
title: not god, but his clock, will gnaw at us: that we are mortal, and agitated by a libido to continue, as to why the immortals find us so cosmic, for the worth of not exacting a better joke prescribed to other genus archetypes... whether the atheists believe in a blind-watchmaker is beside the point... the actual conjuring of the ultimate engineered thing will undo us... only the gods could have engineered time... space? they can't fathom space, the gods could only engineer time, but they couldn't engineer space: the cliche, think outside the box? even the gods know nought concerning this; and if there is only one god... he has been lodged into a letter: θ - a 1 inside a 0; the being already confined... even gods have limits beyond the stressor of supposed immortality... they can't engineer space... all they can engineer, is a transcendence of time... only mortals, men, can engineer the concept of space... hence nations, hence borders, hence differences, hence the concept of magnetism and repulsion... if gods engineered time, then men engineered space... as now, and forever, will remain so, the quest for a cosmic joke / clue.
it won't be the blind-watchmaker
who eats us up,
the the clock itself -
it will devour us,
it will gnaw our flesh toward
the bone,
and then with out bones
play an instrument
to glorify its procession down
the aisles of our endeavours
to express civility...
was there any to begin with?
our temporal anxiety, being mortals,
equates itself
with the spatial anxiety of the immortals
(gods).
Jul 3, 2017
Jul 3, 2017 at 9:30 PM UTC
pulling back the covers
dimming the lights
an owl calls
from the holly tree
just outside
of my window
the garden below
has grown beyond my control
weeds sprout vines tangle
in the summer squirrels gnaw
on the green holly berries
littering the courtyard
with half-eaten haws
in the spring mockingbirds
gorge on the bright red fruit
their florid songs
celebrating
light sky life sun leaf air
closing my eyes
I think back through the decades
to when I planted the tree
it was a time of hope
a time when we dared dream
of a world without
mortal enemies
when you could imagine
shaded islands of calm
hidden coves immune to rancor
now look at us
heads down lost hurtling
stumbling
under a trance
we have turned on one other
distracted by those
who grab wealth and power
under the cover of night
confused by the constant
trumpeting and alarms
blind to what we share
we retreat
into the darkness
of our fears
Tom Spencer © 2018
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 7:50 AM UTC
I love you
dow
w
n
to your jagged,
dark edges
culling smoke
and twisting tides
your steaming heart
that pulses, in my hands
as you give it-
and the pungent tears
when they fall
from your eyes
I lick up your pain
to soothe it smooth
its rawness catching
velvet ripples of skin
I pull a blanket
of mahogany wine
over your soul
lacerations
that seep out
from the layers within
and in that tender of
nightfall's darkest foliage
I long to calm
your monsters' clawing
as they gnaw at you from
the inside out
I crave to fill
the hollowed-out longing
my own hungers writhing
in obscene
devout
For I am all that is sacred and wild
the spark has been lit
from my innermost rooms
I dance to the drums of
the woman as child
her mystical ways chanting
rhythms in runes
Demons might dance
as you gaze in reflection
in the mirror of time,
of unfiltered space
but I adore all your sides,
your imperfections
discern the divine
in the planes of your face
You are my galaxy
of dark matter
bringing out my
own looking glass
of vantablack
in a feral crown of obsidian
and onyx
as you reach me deep,
there's no going back
For when you love me like that,
plant your tameless,
hot seed
it blossoms within me
a tightly-wrapped tourniquet
for when I bleed
and if my guts
should spill upon
the floor
you will remind me,
in glowing of pores
of who I am
and how I am whole
a lovelight lit in the
storm of my soul
I will push down deeper
until I feel those roots
that connect me to
my center
to my
succulent fruit
So slice me open.
Pull me apart.
Let the juice run down
to heal
your
jagged-edged
heart
Sep 22, 2017
Sep 22, 2017 at 5:59 PM UTC
Your teeth gnaw on my bones
The sound of grinding is the only thing that fills my ears
But it fills them from the inside out
Like a white noise
I am disconnected
I am impervious
Yet not immune to the sun
My skin bakes and cracks
And it gets filled with oil and grease and dirt and honey
from the bees that I crushed with my feet because their wings made too much wind
and it almost blew me off my feet
but I stayed grounded
I am the bark on the oak tree that the insects burrow into
They gnaw from the inside out and they make their homes and bear their children
I’ve raised a whole family inside of me
They’ve hollowed me into an empty vessel
The kind you leave under the kitchen sink that you pour grease and fat into but when you want to use me as a vase for your roses
The soap cannot remove the oils and I slowly fill your flowers
I **** them from the inside out
That is my revenge
Mar 2, 2012
Mar 2, 2012 at 4:15 AM UTC
What if the voices I hear are from God?
Then I am Satan, and we’ll stay at war.
I’ll strike him so with my ruby rod.
And impale him down into the earth’s core.
What if the voices I hear are from space?
I’m an alien with horns and a spot.
No one believes these voices are my race.
They do comment and understand my thoughts.
What if the voices I hear are man-made?
I shall sail the seas like Columbus–
through the stormy nights where I greet afraid.
I’ll find the land this man encompasses.
And I’ll ask him why he made me this way.
Does this mean I’m special– brought to a curse?
These voices persecute me every day.
They have become the air that I breathe.
My mind is louder than New York City.
I tell it to shut up, and it’ll yell back.
I tell my story. Some say I’m gritty.
How can I be brave? I let them do this.
My mind dominates until I have none.
Some of them complain more than my grandma.
Voices play games with me till it’s no fun.
They nibble parts of my brain, and they gnaw.
Oh, voices, voices, why do you taunt me?
It is amusing. I don’t let others bully.
I let my mind become the enemy.
**** these voices! You have already won, you, see?
I watched “A Beautiful Mind” by John Nash.
How can this mind be beautiful when it’s all gone?
I do draw what I see throughout the day.
I realized these figures took my mind away.
Aug 24, 2022
Aug 24, 2022 at 1:25 PM UTC
it will tear away
your skin
gnaw on
your bones
and set your
soul aflame
this hatred
inside of you
will spread
until you are
consumed
in a fiery rage
that should've been
extinguished
at its first spark
who will
come along
and save you?
who will
smother
your soul?
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 5:14 PM UTC
I'm eating kale to slim my waist
Lord knows it's not because of taste
It took some while to appreciate
The leafy green I love to hate
The fibrous queen of super foods
Can satisfy nutrition prudes,
And comes in leafy shapes galore:
Curly, Tuscan, dinosaur
For variation I can gnaw
This crucifer sautéed or raw,
Just as is, or baked as chips,
A smoothie blend to please my lips
But having said all that, I'll add
Too much of anything is bad,
And I've been craving, as of late,
A change of greens to grace my plate
I now peruse the produce aisle
To find the foods that make me smile
It's time to choose my next big thing
Like watercress or collards green
I'll greet my new nutrition trend
And say goodbye to you, old friend
Kale, we've had a lovely run,
But now my time with you is done.
Jul 19, 2020
Jul 19, 2020 at 4:16 PM UTC
Sure the fatigue would come...
Infiltrating the sanctity of our skin,
gripping our muscles
and chafes us within.
Right down to the bone.
No doubt the fear of future days
would eat at us raw.
It would gnaw at our minds...
Debilitating thoughts that would *******
no one else but our own.
Of course the seeds we've planted,
mightn't see past the layer of soil
in which they're embedded.
Seeds hidden in the ground for future reaping...
They mightn't flourish to meet the harvest
and greet the hand which would
welcome them full grown.
Most likely the days before us
only show of dark clouds...
That constantly scare us.
But today...
Has time and space for us to exist.
Today has a crisp sweetness wafting through the air.
Firm, unwavering ground beneath our feet.
So let's claim today because today is ours to keep.
Today we share the returns...
Of the sweat and the tears that in the past
we've sown.
Dec 24, 2015
Dec 24, 2015 at 11:40 AM UTC
We shift
Shuffling deadbeats
Wind south
Wind north
Biting to be
Filter the lungs
Breathe in the smoke
Fill in the guts
Consume me, consume me
Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw
Salivate static
Want, want, want
It’s no wonder we’ve grown endless teeth
Beneath our loveless grins
Can we even
Part the crowd
Anymore?
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 8:20 PM UTC
The door is on the ground,
behind the ants gnaw on meat left on bone.
The maggots dance on rotting carcasses.
your eyes are clear of the decay
Apr 17, 2015
Apr 17, 2015 at 4:05 AM UTC
i tried to stop your calcium intake so that you would never grow
i wanted you to shrink so that i could keep you in my pocket
and you could gnaw through the fabric and plunge onto my toes.
i would walk you everywhere that i go. you would see all that i see
eventually, you would be so small, you would crawl into my ear
and scratch through my skull.
you could infiltrate my thoughts and penetrate my nervous system.
and then maybe you could feel all that i feel and realise that’s it's you
Jun 20, 2010
Jun 20, 2010 at 5:21 PM UTC
Thoughts are eating me alive
I feel sharp bites as they gnaw
Bleeding out pints of sense and reason
From conclusions I draw
I am glad to drift to sleep every night
Even with precious time flying by
Happy to experience any relief
No problems behind closed eyes
Conversations filling free dreams floating within
Attempting to be understood
Have no interest in indulging opinions
Hanging silent in my head, engraved in 'would'
In efforts to turn around my thinking
I stuff my mind with different distractions
Put hands to use with various tasks
Only substances bring satisfaction
I need to unearth the causes
Responsible for lack of peace
Little by little learn to be happy
Sorrows burning my brain will cease
Dec 20, 2018
Dec 20, 2018 at 6:06 PM UTC
Zombies are waddling toward their door.
Witches are cackling, black cats are scratching,
And the ghouls want brains and more.
But Brig and Ophelia aren’t scared yet,
They’re waiting inside,
Gobbling strange snacks while they hide.
It’s bugs they like to chew and gnaw;
And they love to eat their spiders raw,
Not fried with onions, like Granda;
Or served with broccoli, like Nana.
Not boiled with worms and creepy crawlers.
Ciaran eats those,
Not these crazed daughters.
Ophelia and Brig
Eat them raw,
Alive, not dead,
With wiggly legs and sharp jaws;
And wrapped up with mosquito heads
In white sticky spider webs.
They eat Black Widows soaked in goblin blood
And wicked witch’s poo;
Made from bats and rats and unschooled fools,
That witches eat to soften stools.
They eat fat spiders
Floating in soup,
That slide and wiggle
Down their throat.
They eat them with their mouldy cheese,
Melted over wasps and bees.
The girls fork down spider stew,
They love the taste “Tres beaucoup.”
The gravy’s made from a mummy’s spit,
And sweat that drips from a ghoul’s armpit.
They like their spiders spread on bread,
A feast to feed the risen dead.
When their snack is finally done,
They’ll pick their teeth and scrape their tongues
For Daddy Long Legs they didn’t eat.
The long legs caught between their teeth.
They'll use those legs to weave a wreath,
To trick flies and bugs and lonely spiders
Into their hungry House of Horrors.
Oct 30, 2023
Oct 30, 2023 at 11:06 AM UTC
A plastic bottle
Sits discarded at
The foot of a
Recycling bin.
A city bird,
Mistaking it for
Some kind of
Strange fruit, or
Perhaps a meal
Fit for a king
Descends, grasps it
With pincer'd claws,
Then carries it to
Her nest, and sits
For five minutes,
Watching, confused,
As her hatchlings
Gnaw at the label.
In bright red letters:
'Taste The Feeling.'
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 1:25 PM UTC
Stark in freezing winter air
Deeply orange, clustered there,
Rich shades in a cameo
Of black and white in frozen snow.
ROSE HIPS IN THE MORNING LIGHT
Shining warmly, softly bright.
Wicked thorns, the stems, adorn
***** frost, on the buds, is borne
Atop the ancient root in soil
Where beetle gnaw and earthworm roil.
Marshalg
Exhaling in the frozen air
24 June 2011
Inspired by Patrick Wakefeild's delightful "When I have been a Rose"
Jun 23, 2011
Jun 23, 2011 at 1:03 PM UTC
Screaming midnight chimes,
hidden alibis illuminate your crimes,
ferule moonlit beams of light,
recoil in the shadows, glowing in white,
shaking soul in the twilight zone,
kicking up dust as you run for home,
emotions take you by the hand,
scatter away like the desert sand,
cold trip in a purple haze,
eaten away in the last of these days,
haunted, we are all haunted,
ghosts of the past gnaw at our thoughts,
searching in vane for safer ports .
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 6:32 AM UTC
Suicidal
Homicidal
Alike but different
Each is permanent
**** someone in rage
Or **** yourself and leave behind a page
Your level of madness is measured,gauged
But why do I banter
Im as mad as a hatter
Nothing even matters
My life in tatters
A knife to me throat
Toss me in the moat
A bullet in the brain
Nothing to gain
Sometimes relief other times pain
The blood will be taint
Burn and Burn
Ashes in the urn
The worlds will turn
The stomachs will churn
For all you see is fake
And they will continue to take
An illusion
To launch you into confusion
A ruse
To light your fuse
Our lifespan
Throughout man
Short and bitter
So many of us quitters
The rest of us let out titters
While they gnaw on us, the critters
Bite and Bite
Fight for the light
To die in the moonlit night
To cause each other so much fright
Our 'Gods' tell us to **** each other
Our own brothers
Let the blackbird fly
High into the sky
To cause the gloom
To signal our doom
Our demise
Of the human enterprise
Oct 9, 2018
Oct 9, 2018 at 11:17 AM UTC