"gooseflesh" poems
She nods and sighs
amongst the conifers.
Evergreen sap coats the
rug of needles beneath, and
the wind covers her skin
with rippling gooseflesh.
A little black balloon lies
beside a bindle of rigs.
The moon robs and blinds
her of sight, shining so
very brightly into her dilated
pupils and hidden irises.
A single rusted spoon glows and
A stolen church candle smoulders.
Her golden locks encircle
the crown of her cranium
in a halo worthy of stained-
glass windows.
Rubber tubing is tied off
above her collapsing veins.
The fallen leaves under her
protruding shoulder blades
stretch out for miles in a
pair of clipped wings.
With a final rattling cough
the light leaves her eyes,
and dissipates into
the punctured skies
as she quietly fades,
and dies.
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015 at 9:54 PM UTC
"You tempt in me…so much…
a sparrow...a lamb… a tenderness… and the captive heart… that beats against my palm…
the bonds…. of trust.. surrendered"
to the silver nepenthe of your voice,
stricken upon the thick red heart
I've pinned to a map,
See, it emits grace
beneath the molten glass,
strung through harp strings and stretched
as sutures ,the solemn musculature of ecstasy
bound in golden ropes and belladonna dreams,
Let the white darts fall
where they may
This silence belies the song
in my throat, hovering
like a silver bauble, your face
is dark, back-lit, harbouring
the terror of words that burn...
My heart
holds the cinder of secrets,
and little poison idols of hematite
and gooseflesh...
Our dream box collects its damp light
from the dark corners of our prison,
as you coax a banyan tree
from its arousal...
A totem filled with marzipan,
and trembling, but to split
its lip upon glass cages,
wrought with jade...
Hold the sparrow face-up,
let the furrow of its wings, tempt
the fates, as it sings to the same scythe
that chimes against the dead angles of the soul's crucified geography....
Jan 20, 2013
Jan 20, 2013 at 12:28 PM UTC
my blue gooseflesh bores me
i lost my lens and i want to build a wall between my body and my blood
i painted all my nails so i would stop biting them
and i bit the polish off
i told everyone i loved winter
every year before i felt at home
i hate winter
it cracks my bones and i overthink everything there is to think about
i think in monochrome pastel
and it isn't as poetic as it seems-looks-sounds
when you feel like your whole body is turning against you
and your bones are shivering with a garish black
tar paint for blood
if god exists
i want a ************* explanation
Dec 5, 2015
Dec 5, 2015 at 1:27 AM UTC
Like when they found the chariot
wheels at the bottom of the
Red Sea so was I surprised
at the faint reaching of the
fig tree, clinging to life amidst
so much dust, as it reached
ever upward in an infinite dance,
unaware of its eventual wanweird fate.
But I tracked on, crunching through
the ancient dirt, scrolls strapped
upon my back, coarse leather digging
through my camel's hair robes, sandy
grit forced in the gaps of
my toes. I cracked the locusts
and devoured them, dampening their bitterness
with the sweet warming explosion of
wild honey. So with bound Pleiades
above me, I gave witness to
Jerusalem, saying "After me will come
one more powerful than I, the
thongs of whose sandals I am
not worthy to stoop down and
untie." And I took them into
the Jordan and made them new
men. As the chill waters numbed
their muscles, their hairs pricked up
like gooseflesh, the night echoing with
splashing water and murmured voices. But
slowly the people trickled away, back
to the twang of lutes, their
ladles of soups, and I was
left alone, sitting, contemplating, always waiting.
So I sent forth the ravens,
carrying my message, to meet at
the Brookhollow no matter the obstruction,
to come by wagon or camel,
no matter of rain or flood.
But they were stubborn and prideful,
and would be moved from their
couches probably by no less than
one of Archimedes' great battleship levers,
and even then with massive groaning
like the coarse wooden hulls of
those monolithic ships. Because the sweet
taste of pastries is lodged upon
their tongues, keeping them occupied with
this world instead of the next.
So here I'll stay, always waiting.
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 1:02 AM UTC
Shadowed moments,
A rush of after bubbles
Whisper-weep a name
Leg wrapped warmth;
Tied down in pearls,
Burning me in the curl
Of satin sheets and tumbled pillows,
And I am stripped bare, across the cradle of dreams
Captured by pulsating fingertips
Fire-staining my thighs...
Shimmering diamond cascades of gentle stir
Fire-Wrap the mist of soft braille
Etching the moan of whispered yearn
Touch-tasting my moon kissed nape;
And I sway to the music of buffeting winds
My hips enticing, enveloping, ensnaring rigid muscle,
Lifting the hem
For teasing fingertips, searing drenched skin, and
Brazen ache meets incessant hunger...
Skin ravaged, blood pulsing...
His breath a rushing kiss between my legs
Piercing my darkness with his heat,
And licks, sweet, the tenderness I open;
This red haze of dry hours
Bathing my skin,
Sheathed behind smiles in dark corners of his eyes,
Unlaboured lust entwines trembling lips
Limbs awakening to thirst for honeyed-sin
My sigh drapes the curvature of his milky sway
Desire's swallow drowns my satin burn...
The immortality of our kiss
Etched in the warmth of garnet's gleam
Lingering upon the smoothness of softly wet;
The fragile lace binds my body, risen from rows of indigo roses,
Sequestered,
Shuttered, its heat like a leash in his palm, wrapped,
Effortlessly;
Surrendering to nuance and caress
Heartbeats
Flailing the drum-skin;
His reaching arms hold me down...
Heartbeat slowing
From the thunder of our storm,
Along my body, his braille
In gooseflesh fabrics and amber
Tambourines of skin seep,
Bind me in deepest velvet, resonating bliss...
A refuge where I curl in trembled release
Buried in purrs
Stained in screams;
Unforgettable moments
Melted in the whimper of love's breath..............
Aug 16, 2012
Aug 16, 2012 at 7:49 PM UTC
Someone is caressing me
In the darkness.
Soft hands,
Warm breath,
I cannot move away.
The night is like a satin shroud,
A long forgotten tomb,
And I am seduced
by someone; they know my weakness,
And make me feral,
Take me, helpless,
Held there, by the dark.
Someone is caressing,
but now I am that someone,
Grasping slender bones
Raising gooseflesh on silken skin.
I bend the darkness to my will,
Seduced, it would seem,
I, Seductress,
Dream.
Oct 5, 2013
Oct 5, 2013 at 9:18 AM UTC
I wish I held a microphone
every time I went to speak
each person would be forced to listen
and shut their ******* beak
This may sound harsh
it might offend your features
but I'm standing
knee-deep in a marsh
surrounded by brain-dead zombie creatures
These people are dull
ignorant or crazed
and deciding if they like gooseflesh
grilled stuffed or brazed
These words are a knife
and with them I will cut
a line on their throat,
a hole in their gut
there's only two ways
to get out of this rut
The other way I know
to make them scatter like rain
is to open this heart
and show them this pain
These words may be putrid
they may offset your senses
but ooze fills my shoes
my legs are cemented in fluid
and I'm reaching out for fences
praying to gods both demented and Druid
I wish I held a microphone
every time I went to speak
but my voice is worn out gravel
I'm stuck up shit's creek
without a paddle.
Oct 9, 2011
Oct 9, 2011 at 7:31 AM UTC
Dislocate me from existence
Put me with the stars
Far enough away to see the distance
Into darkness without reprieve
Under burned down trees
and their shadows
I do not need your voice to convince me of things
like worth
or the color of my blood
These things I am sure of
My heart writes me letters about these things
Forget about what we said we were
Remember I was alone in your company
Your words filled with hot air
Boiling your words
Evaporating anything permanent
Liberate our nerves from any feeling we might of shared
Untie my limbs
Stretching out the presence
Drenching my skin with freedom
Calming the gooseflesh upon my bones
The well in our chests hides secrets
Ones that your words never pulled
The well filled with tainted water
So I added whiskey
And liberated your grasp
I will forever forgive you
Blending business with pleasure
Drowning yourself in an empty well
Dragging feet into the desert
of our yesterdays choices
Oct 22, 2014
Oct 22, 2014 at 4:05 PM UTC
Tiles
Soaking in cold processed air
Licking with every step
feet bare and made damp
by the mornings dew
gooseflesh marks bare arms
baked from the sun
confused by the rain
mixed signals
from room to room
from out to in
in one moment bright and burning
energetic as the sun
in the next flashed by
new room
new rain
relationships half built
abandoned for the better option
lonely walks
awkward eye contact
misplaced affection
stretched thin and frayed
The gecko
stuck behind a glass door
is a better friend
a warmer soul
a more significant heat
sharing my own space
I orientate myself
from one room to another
different worlds cramped
on a single plot of land
Reason tells me I am not alone
the full bed sharing
my cold and processed space
says 'there are others like you'
but full fields I cannot open
full rooms I pass through
as a ghost through a wall
call 'you are lonely'
and there is no one
(but myself)
to blame
Aug 19, 2013
Aug 19, 2013 at 10:35 PM UTC
Sometimes I believe the
only reason my lips are
flickered on my face in this
grand fire of red,
is to say I love you and
kiss you and to
do dark things that
keep behind the
shades.
These ligaments O
What were they
created
for? To feel your
gooseflesh and
blushing
face, warm like
petunias
And I am your
carnation, daisy,
flower. My busy
bee, scholar,
how everything glitters
gold with
you.
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 8:25 PM UTC
This morning is a picture postcard of our first ****
Sweaty and enclosed
a symbolic fan dawdles slowly
over our youthful bodies;
Velvet with electricity.
I can still feel the starch strength of your hair,
read the invitation on your lips
(the only novel written solely for me)
and ignore the gooseflesh as I recall the magic of
your perfume from the deepest, darkest past.
Your mystery was forged out of the shade
which followed early mornings,
cool like gold covered ice,
sometimes we drank the Sun's wine
from the Sun's cups
and your ******* were bared to the sleeping city
pale and luminous as two alien moons
while overhead the early birds sang their song.
Now you live in the future,
as so many others do,
and I am left here;
with a faded blue rose
who's perfume has fled and now smells of old velvet.
Dec 28, 2012
Dec 28, 2012 at 2:17 AM UTC
The whir of the washing machine,
half eaten lunch setting on paper plates.
Spoons under sofas
the cat stalks it’s pray of last night’s tea.
The grey summer sky
“sunshine and showers”
tee shirts, shorts and waterproofs.
The sunhat and umbrella medly.
Mouldy orange juice from when I was last here,
stagnant.
a dripping tap
a ticking clock.
Burnt shoulders.
Gooseflesh legs.
Too hot.
Too cold.
Everybody’s gone away
theres no one out to play,
no one can come to stay
I’ll just sit in all day.
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 6:30 PM UTC
the air touching my skin was noticeably warmer this week
and today is the First of March
and people are beginning to talk about Daylight Savings Time
and there's that familiar excitement in my chest again
the Spring butterflies returning to my stomach
every time I smell the electric ozone scent of
growth
energy
power
life
carried in the warm, wet breeze blowing from the west
it's the chill down my spine
and the recurring gooseflesh
anxiously awaiting all the unknown
possibilities
opportunities
drifting in on the wind
every day it seems the Sun changes color a little more
shading from the hazy white-blue hue of Winter
toward the bright hot yellow-orange fireball of Summer
and I swear I can taste that color shift with my skin
licking it up
cat bath of photons
drinking it down
sunlight pouring straight into me as
endorphin
serotonin
dopamine
adrenaline
altering my basic chemical makeup
transforming
regrowing
my Self
coming back to life
waking the **** up
waking the world up
I can feel it
I know it's time to move again
time to run again
time to drift again
time to dance again
time to **** again
time to kiss again
time to drink again
time to feel again
feel these things again
feel awake and excited and anxious and nervous and alive again
I can feel all of it beginning right now
with every new sensation when I step outside
I feel the familiar twitch of that little seed growing in the center of me
stronger each day
getting ready to burst
Mar 1, 2013
Mar 1, 2013 at 4:37 PM UTC
enigmatic, yes it is!
imaginary conversations and gestures
saying someone is being missed.
in this soliloquy,
gooseflesh arises
when words are set free.
at times i wonder,
why do i have this kind of feeling?
to my stories and queries,
feel like you're responding.
the fact that we're miles apart,
how's that?
Dec 20, 2011
Dec 20, 2011 at 9:20 AM UTC
She is naked and alone,
Everything hurts.
Tears slide down her gooseflesh *******
They are cold and unkind.
Some catch at the corner of her mouth,
And the salt stings.
Baptised in pain and misery,
She raises her face to the unforgiving light
And closes her eyes, they ache and burn.
The tears run, then, to a different place
But they are still cold, they are still unkind,
Everything hurts.
She is naked and alone.
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 5:11 PM UTC
Her fingers shook as she pulled up her dress.
Nail polish,
A ninety-nine cent ‘Reckless Red’,
Provided startling contrast to
Her deathly pale skin
Covered with gooseflesh.
“I’m not sure,”
She whispered,
Her voice hardly audible to the man
Standing above her.
Her thumb drew circles over a patch of unmarked,
Smooth skin.
She added a little pressure,
Giving color.
It didn’t take much to feel her bone.
She was such a delicate woman,
No, child,
And her skin was paper-thin,
Her body free of fat.
A new set of fingers joined hers.
His touch sure and gentle,
Obviously aware of her nerves,
Trying somehow to reassure her
And succeeding.
He had closely clipped nails,
Filed with tender care
Into a smooth curve.
Letting go of conscious thought,
She allowed her body to relax into the chair.
Intense, focused lighting caused sweat to bead on her skin,
Her body sticking to the fake leather.
Soon her voice erased all further nerves
As she trusted the stranger with her life story,
Which he sketched onto her skin,
Adding his own take of ‘The End’.
Her fingers shook as she traced her journey.
Nail polish,
A ninety-nine cent ‘Reckless Red,’
Complemented the inked stars
Which said more than words ever could
About what she overcame.
Jul 16, 2012
Jul 16, 2012 at 4:58 PM UTC
Sun shining
Warmth spreads over me
Gooseflesh covers my arms
I close my eyes
Inhaling deeply the scent of the sea
Looking up I watch as the waves crash around the rocky shore
The clouds roll in
I can smell the storm coming in on the wind
I sit up to leave
The fog has come in now covering everything around me
Something brushes my feet
Its cold
I look down
The tide has come in
How did it happen so quickly
I’ve lost all sense of time
The water rises fast
Pulling me in
I try to turn and walk to higher grounds
I slip
The waves are strong
Pulling me under
I am surrounded by glorious water
In a startled panic I reach for the surface
Air
I have run out of
I find the top
Gasping for air
It fills my lungs
I find I have been drug out to sea
I can no longer see the shore
A wave laps over me
Under Under Under I go
As my last breath is taken
I will myself to live
Pleading with the gods
Any who will listen
The salty water stings my eyes
Just as my last moments come
I find utter peace in all that is
This world I have found myself in is beautiful
A watery dungeon of beauty
I fall down deeper into the depths
Understanding that this shall be my prison
Excepting it
Understanding it
Wanting it
A mermaid I’ve become
A watery angel I shall be
Jan 10, 2013
Jan 10, 2013 at 1:35 AM UTC
1.
a Picasso night,
laden with dust that settles on
my skin like
snow.
I'm sitting in the center of the room
with gooseflesh skin and
broken bones still shifting,
prodding my little flame with
singed fingertips
and all I can see is my childlike
reflection
staring hungrily back at me,
thirsting for an inkling of something more.
2.
the room is awash with yellow light from
the oncoming dawn.
I claw at the floor with
scorched nails,
digging my way out.
through the genesis, my little flame swells with
hope as my reflection shifts
into someone I begin to recognize.
3.
high noon. the roof is gone.
the sun beats upon me like a
drum
and i take the blows with my head
bowed in paralyzing
shame.
something is perpetually falling from
my eyes, but i've already refused
to cry.
the flame is shrunken and deteriorated to
a dull pinprick
of luminance.
i no longer wish to escape this
room;
i only long to understand the face in
the wall
that i know
is me.
i smash the mirrors.
4.
this sunset is all I could have
ever dreamed of.
I am an hourglass tunrned
inside-out and upside-down,
my flame flickering and beginning
to grow again.
I reach out,
grab the hands that have been
outstretched towards me
for what seems like
an eternity.
They will take me home.
Look at the colors, they say.
I know.
I know.
5.
a Picasso night
laden with dust that settles on
my skin like
snow.
I sprout wings and fly away,
stars exploding in my wake.
Apr 11, 2010
Apr 11, 2010 at 8:09 PM UTC
You will learn my rhythm
and lean in when I talk-
The smell of me like petrichor perfume
will linger on your shirt.
Feel of my lips like
satin ties
of the ballerinas shoes
will wind
around your mind
and tie across the gooseflesh
on your arms.
You will know I have come
before my hand
lifts to knock,
and your heart will quicken-
echo percussion against the chambers.
You will remember
the last wet place
we walked with one umbrella.
And when it rains
you will fill buckets with longing
to fit our slick bodies
underneath its black shelter
again.
You will knot your tie
and straighten your collar
and your body will stiffen
because it remembers.
You will have a track mark
like the silver needle bullet
chasing through your veins-
that recalls us.
Like tongue recalls salt,
like wound
recalls harm-
like child recalls
before being born-
like the prayer remembers
before being sung.
like the rock will recall that the ocean was there
and the cell will recall being painlessly split
and you will remember
with such vivid lust
and you will love in a timeless loop.
And I will love you over and under.
We will love till we're small again,
Love as time resets again
And then do it all once more,
Again.
Sahn 4.10.15
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 12, 2015 at 11:42 PM UTC
Eye, I and I
The first telling me
Never to think
But to be
And the latter
Screaming, taunting
Appropriation!
Opprobrious little thing!
The middle cowering
Shaking as she
Soars through
Calmest winds
And brushing
Turbulent ocean
She hurts and
Radiates the suns spit
Permeable gooseflesh
Absorbing any confusion
Processing and mulling it over
With plastic hands
Caressing her feathers
Pulling her into
The stormy cold of Id
While she meditates on
The notion that she is
To be absent of thought
Translucent and hollow
A reflection of skies and seas
Beating her wings
Desperately to catch the
Sinking sun or
Hook the rising moon
Alas she is lost
Manufactured materials
Clogging her pores
Infecting her eyes
*Trying to trick her
Into being but one*
But three she will be,
Three I's with
Three Eyes
To see the maidens yesterday The mothers today The crones tomorrow
Wholly
Never to
Cease or halt or falter
Or question the reality
Of the intrinsic
And never
To trust, to touch
The grand illusion
Of material worth
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 9:30 AM UTC
gooseflesh bulbs on the satin of her skin
like early morning dewfall;
her lips slicken
with blurry, mascara-tinted tributaries
**** it—she can’t even die pretty)
so the wind carries her
like litter,
a years-old newspaper
with no particularly interesting headlines,
from the 12th story window
in the cerulean dress she bought
just for the occasion.
the dead-end city lights bear witness
to her own dead end into five thick inches of concrete.
and with its downtrodden palms
the city blushes her cheeks with abrasions,
shadows her eyes with bruises,
tattoos her lunar body with its worn-out brands;
it takes her in.
and the ****** kid on his paper route finds her there,
and stops,
and stares,
and wonders,
and eventually lifts his sneakers back to the pedals
and keeps on biking,
because there she is, dead on the side of the ********* road,
and what the **** can you do?
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 6:22 PM UTC
shadow people flash across cracked windows caked in icy fog offering my epidermis a thin layer of gooseflesh and sending thoughts cascading into visions of murderous strangers and Victorian era hauntings…catching my breath and remaining froze to the ground while the very blood within these veins seems to turn and transform into thick slow moving maple syrup fresh from an Eastern Canadian tree… attempting to regain my composure I conjure images of sunny days and buzzing bees, free government cheese and freeze tag in the warm breeze…ticking of the wristwatch forces reality into the scene and my pleasant daydreams seem to vanish into the mist swirling around dilapidated stairs greyed from years of weather abuse and staining deficiency…splinters, jagged and threatening, stand poised to pierce shoes and send victims screaming to hospital only to discover untreatable infection based on ancient ***** matter and insect larva bacteria…one deep breath coinciding with a white-knuckled gripping of the three special pamphlets is followed by the most courageous step ever taken…confronted with the specter of the large wooden door, I stop, look skyward and ask god for strength before knocking on the twenty-second home this day…
Dec 1, 2015
Dec 1, 2015 at 2:56 PM UTC
So in Novemeber rain
******* on wet cigarettes like babe at milkless breast
I am passed
by the jogger.
Tanned limbs wrapped in polyester
hair wet by salt and water
I entertain myself
with the thought
that we
are the two types of people
who come out on Monday mornings in weather like this;
scars turning purple in the cold
all numb fingers and gooseflesh
and their breath
as white as mine
against the dark of early the sunrise
is a great leveler
on days like today.
These are the mornings I do not go hungry
in fear of the growing space between my thighs -
the masters of illusion
can make themselves appear invisible
but I cannot conceal my disappearing act much longer.
I am sixteen smoker's cough they tell me
I have a heart murmur I take it
as irrefutable proof I have
a heart feeling
the early
seeds
of death settle
in my chest with every drag,
some things are inexcusable
and I am learning that I am not blameless.
A few too many nights walking under unlit streetlamps
do not make you a victim I am learning that I
am not the victim Atlas shrugging off responsibility
a person
can only carry so much guilt
before they bend and
bad backs run in my family
so
I may be a coward -
but I will never say I was not warned.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 7:41 AM UTC
A firefly alerts me to its presence inches from my face
Bubbly giggles erupt from my lips
Crickets whisper in the bushes next to my porch
Dusk has finally arrived, overtaking twilight
Evening made way for nighttime
Feeling light in the dark
Grass, bright in the sunlight, turned to an inky navy in the moonlight
Heat from the day residual in the post sunset bliss
In the daylight it is unbearable
Just barely tolerable after dusk
Kisses from the wind brush my arms
Lifting up the gooseflesh
Moonlight hazy in the humid air
No such thing as silence at night
Overhead I hear distant thunder
Perhaps a midnight storm is near
Quickly approaching the rocking chair where I sit
Reading, enjoying the evening
Stars blink and twinkle above
Tonight, this summer night
Underneath the summer sky
Violet and blue and indigo surround me
Waiting to disappear in the morning
Xuberance in the bright morning sunlight
Yes, but until then I will revel in the evening
Zephyrs gently rocking me to sleep.
Nov 3, 2017
Nov 3, 2017 at 12:27 AM UTC