"grating" poems
O'er the midnight moorlands crying,
Thro' the cypress forests sighing,
In the night-wind madly flying,
Hellish forms with streaming hair;
In the barren branches creaking,
By the stagnant swamp-pools speaking,
Past the shore-cliffs ever shrieking,
Damn'd demons of despair.
Once, I think I half remember,
Ere the grey skies of November
Quench'd my youth's aspiring ember,
Liv'd there such a thing as bliss;
Skies that now are dark were beaming,
Bold and azure, splendid seeming
Till I learn'd it all was dreaming —
Deadly drowsiness of Dis.
But the stream of Time, swift flowing,
Brings the torment of half-knowing —
Dimly rushing, blindly going
Past the never-trodden lea;
And the voyager, repining,
Sees the wicked death-fires shining,
Hears the wicked petrel's whining
As he helpless drifts to sea.
Evil wings in ether beating;
Vultures at the spirit eating;
Things unseen forever fleeting
Black against the leering sky.
Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,
Clawing fiends of future sadness,
Mingle in a cloud of madness
Ever on the soul to lie.
Thus the living, lone and sobbing,
In the throes of anguish throbbing,
With the loathsome Furies robbing
Night and noon of peace and rest.
But beyond the groans and grating
Of abhorrent Life, is waiting
Sweet Oblivion, culminating
All the years of fruitless quest.
26k
Like a toddler taking maiden steps
The narrow stream moves through the woods
Tripping and falling over pebbles and boulders
Chiming its silver anklets
Forcing itself in irrepressible flow
It thrusts and shoves its way down
Through thickets and a line of ferns
And the tangle of creepers and thorny brambles
Drowning the whisper of bamboo leaves
Its sweet murmur falls in my ears
As an eternal living melody
The cosmic song heard over eons
As the water sluices down the rocks
It becomes a frothing braided torrent
Producing a harsh grating roar
Like the crescendo of a tribal symphony
There it forms into a small pool
With its waves gently rippling
Where birds merrily come to take a dip
And sunning their feathers, fly back refreshed
Sometimes travelling unseen
It suddenly emerges into the open
Cutting its way through cracks and fissures
Never willing to surrender before hurdles
With a bearing immaculate in grace
It sends out waves of pure delight
What joy it is to watch the dilly dally
Of this sedate pilgrim moving to its destination
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016 at 10:07 AM UTC
Into a place far away but too familiar,
I push open the rusty purple gates,
Inhale a lungful of the province air,
Kick away blue pebbles on the dusty ground,
And then
Mano my lolo, my tito
Beso my lola, my tita
And give my cousins a nudge on the arm,
A pinch on the cheeks.
I squeeze between four people
In a rickety wooden bench and
Pass around plate after heavy plate.
I fill my banana leaf
With spaghetti too soft too sweet,
Almost like pudding,
With crispy chicken dripping with oil.
I wash it off with a cool glass of gulaman,
Chewy beads and gems in sugary water.
Fathers talk about basketball, boxing, billiards;
Mothers browse through photo albums and magazines;
While we children argue about Superman or Batman.
Our laughter fills the humid air
And goes up, up, up to the ears of the neighbors.
In celebration of the time we have together
And a nice sunny day
We devour our meals
And go ahead and
Climb trees and
Get our faces sticky with sweet fruits,
Lick chocolate ice popsicles,
Chase each other in the weedy playground,
Bike around town,
Pick colorful flowers,
Wrestle with each other,
Play badminton on a windy day,
Scare around chickens and guinea pigs,
And play patintero under the dull orange street lamps.
We nervously creep inside the back door,
All sweaty, bearing bruises and scratches
But still with wide smiles on our faces.
All is futile though.
An angry grandmother awaits,
Scolding us for
Coming home past sunset.
More and more stars glitter the sky
As the night gets deeper and deeper.
The gentle evening breeze whistles a note
As it enters through the window.
The karaoke blasts grating voices
Interrupted by hearty laughter.
Playing cards and corn chips litter the table.
We children exchange jokes and ghost stories.
And then,
We bid our goodbyes,
Sharing hugs and kisses
Stained with discontent and sadness.
Our hearts about to burst
In excitement for the next
Reunion.
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 3:56 AM UTC
You have ruined me.. all I can think of is the sun glinting off your spun-chocolate hair, the infinite depths of your sea-blue eyes. All I dream of is your honeyed voice telling me that I am different; I am loved.
You have ruined me. All I hear is static when you aren’t here, that flat, buzzing, grating sound of nothing and everything coming all at once. All I see is uncertainty and anxiety and empty eyes when you aren’t beside me.
You have ruined me, but so did Apollo to Icarus, and Orpheus to Eurydice. To love is to ruin, and dear god, I am irreparable.
Jul 4, 2022
Jul 4, 2022 at 9:15 AM UTC
What if I miss
A list
Flurries in the wind
Jumping out of hand
Lucky-opportunist
Grating against the limits
Beyond the town
Falling out of pace
Feb 23, 2025
Feb 23, 2025 at 3:23 PM UTC
America, rollin’ its dice,
hurlin’ ‘nades on the ice.
what're we lookin’ for?
***** we huntin’ for?
whether it’s a score to settle
or another lie to peddle
where do we go from here?
how ‘bout that future we held dear?
gone, done, buried, shunned.
eat crow, ***** retch, and—
run?
don’t run. can’t run.
these colors don’t run, I’ve heard.
though maybe they flow against
each other like water and
oil in a grating chemical fash-
ion that can’t be calculated
or be sufficiently integrated
like we dreamed they would.
and dream we do, for America
and her future, or so I hope,
given that each year that passes
leaves bruises and gashes
in that fabric, so fragile, I hear.
sad, wrong, and crooked;
Trump’s America.
Nov 11, 2016
Nov 11, 2016 at 5:34 AM UTC
*O my conscience,
immerse your laments in my shoulder ..
i stroked it every longing grating your beautiful hair ..
i listened to the sound of the breath right conscience little sob ..
i held my conscience,
my beautiful and cheerful absorb the whole silenced ..
i'll understand your silence and every beautiful ..
and I'll put out any smoldering of your jealousy ..
i'll treat it every charm your referral..
just lets you to know,
when incandescent embers of passion vibrate our body ..
a longing,
faint creeping expanse of our memories ..
miss you,
hurling beautiful memories in a serenity..
and among the writhing of our body while longing crave to possessed ..
that love is the inner desire ...*
┈┈┈┈»̶·̵̭̌✽✽·̵̭̌«̶ ƦУ »̶·̵̭̌✽✽·̵̭̌«̶┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈
oh nuraniku,
benamkanlah nestapa keluh kesahmu dipundakku ..
kan kubelai kisi kisi kerinduan disetiap helai rambut indahmu..
kan kudengarkan deru nafas yang mengisak suara hati kecilmu..
kan kudekap nuraniku,
dan kuresapi indah cerita yang luruh terbungkam..
dan kupahami setiap diammu yang cantik..
dan kupadamkan setiap cermburumu yang membara..
kan kumanjakan setiap pesona rujukanmu
ketahuilah,
saat pijar bara gairah bergetar ditubuh kita..
sebuah kerinduan,
sayup merayapi hamparan kenangan kita..
merindukanmu,
melontarkan indahnya kenangan dalam kehampaan..
dan diantara menggelinjangnya tubuh kita saat dirasuki kerinduan ..
bahwa cinta adalah nurani kerinduan...
Dec 27, 2013
Dec 27, 2013 at 8:29 PM UTC
My auspicious and audacious assault augments the annoyance of aged accomplices.
My bodacious broadside of boffolas berates and buffaloes bros beneficently.
A classy crusade Clownishly chiseling and criticizing childishness.
A devilish ********** of dillydallying dullards; devoutly denying dimwits the dulcet dream of defiance.
Excessive, exuberant edification, ebulliently eliminating education-evictees.
A fair-weather frolic in flippancy with furious fools floundering in flawed foppishness.
Gregariously grating glum guys gleefully, growing grander garnishes of gripping gallantry gaily.
Heckling hooligans highlights my heavenly humor.
Irreverently irking irritable, iniquitous idiots in inestimably infuriating and incredible instances.
A jolly, jocular **** joking with jerks.
A kreiger kicking kleptomaniacs in the karyotype. (Cut me some slack, this is 'k', after all.)
A ludicrous, laughing lambaste of lollygagging lunatics, loftily loosing luscious lunacy on lucky losers.
A magnificent masterpiece of malfeasance, a monstrous, malevolent mission of massive misfortune for the minor minors missing no malicious missive.
A noxious, narcissistic niggling of nitwits, niftily nixing the noisome naivete of niggardly nobs.
An offhand, off-color outburst of outlandish observations to outclass the obnoxious overtures of obsequious offal.
A pragmatic prediction of possible platitudes or platypi, a placid parley of pyrotechnic pleasantries provoking Pyrrhic protections by prurient prats.
A quixotic quibble quarreling with a queer quarry.
Ribald ribbing, ruining the robust reality of the repreachful, repugnant, and rapacious with risque ridiculousness.
A silly, slighting slander of sluglike slavishness, succinctly sinking sloppy simpletons sourly.
Tracing the titillating talent of towing tyranny to towering terrors to tactless, togless, terrapins of the times.
Jan 7, 2012
Jan 7, 2012 at 11:25 PM UTC
I fell out of time
into wavery scarves of seconds
glittering of snowflake anticipation, and
minutes of quiet purring joy.
Tonguing thickening clouds of breathsteam
he has always been a familiar stranger;
every joint is a champagne cork, white
marble smile that bubbled
over wooden lips. Tell a story
in ten words or less, tap fingers pointed like guns
twice against her hot temple, smile
and half a tooth still ****** Tell a story with one
word, bang, and sock away the other nine.
Turn to a cat and say, I’ve got your tongue.
We sat together on our heels in the smoke
and snowfall, the plumed weapon of breath
melting. Cars slide into the lot, ice over easy.
The alcohol tasted like soap. It is not enough
for maybes and not-know-hows---grating
cheepcheap common sense, fail me now.
Maybe you didn’t write LOVE on her
battered wrist but LIVE instead,
maybe you stole all the magnetic a’s
off the fridge, you’re not the one
who highlighted instructions on a macaroni
box, so you broke all the chalk and wrote
the name of your childhood dog above the sink.
Maybe “hostile” is a fuzzed blue comforter
three months past laundry day, every lint
ball sharp as the word “cut”, the word *****
the word “scream”. Maybe I’m naive, sentimental, but
I believe in a common kindness
like the common cold running thin
in threads of worn-out heart chambers.
Dec 16, 2013
Dec 16, 2013 at 12:07 AM UTC
one finger grips your life, and your
teeth grind together,
like the stone below, grating.
inside your heart the head is
beating, screaming to stay together.
but your green eyes,
they slip to the right and down,
"dont look, please baby."
I know you'll do it anyways because
they truly were my downfall.
and you exhale slowly, the sight
of death so close.
his warm breath, turns your cheeks
pink and your eyelashes flutter.
A final smile spashes your face,
the finger slips and you let go.
the black whole ***** me in,
sickly sweet it feels.
"The faithful will always wait."
the sentence you whispered,
in your death, to me.
tightened my face, it stopped
my heart. it made me miss you
and leave you in one fell sweep.
but I wait for you in faithfulness.
Nov 3, 2011
Nov 3, 2011 at 12:08 AM UTC
.
*Tumbling stones rumble unheard,
a slide that sends gravity shifting,
starting a new path through time,
the butterfly effect begins shifting.*
i.
The ancient track
is solid beneath her feet,
though she has walked
between the stars.
She knows not the place
but has been there before,
And the trail wends its way
through forest dense and dark
to a hags tooth mound
and the Tomb of Travellers,
upon the stone door
an inscription, a warning.
'Prepare to go everywhere.
Prepare to go nowhere'
ii.
*“Let time take me wither it will,
be it fluid or be it still”.*
iii.
The slow grating of stone on stone
as the door swings open,
light penetrating the gloom,
and the Tomb reveals its treasures.
She enters with reverence
and moves to a vacant plinth,
a marbled seat warm and empty,
her place for the connection ritual.
iv.
A mix of herbs into a secret potion,
preparing herself to swim Time's ocean,
clear cool water to bathe her skin,
awaiting the pendulum of life to swing.
The symbols in her third eye complete,
she eases so gently into her travel seat,
bringing the brew to her expectant lips,
a bitter taste as over her tongue it slips.
v.
Oh gently rock her mind to sleep,
just one last barrier for her to leap,
through Times gate to other places,
as the drug through her mind races.
vi.
A small squat figure emerges
in a midnight blue hooded robe,
Grimly the Guardian of the Gate,
carrying careful an ancient globe.
And her eyes glow with wonder
as she receives the Seers Sphere,
cloudy with the hue of pearl,
its significance is so crystal clear.
vii.
She places it in a depression
in the arm of the marbled chair,
settles herself and closes her eyes,
letting her mind drift on the air.
The connection ritual reaching ******
acceptance or rejection time is near.
Will the bond form betwixt them?
She places her hand on the Seers Sphere …
© Pagan Paul (30/09/18)
Oct 3, 2018
Oct 3, 2018 at 6:04 AM UTC
"...Let the pines grow out of my skin.
Winds howl in my mouth..."
--James A. Ciletti.
Let the cylinders be there to connect the lonely,
grating bones, above the level of the rational
falls of water and the pictures, so inspired that
They like to appear on stage to whistle as vapors
rising through the spout. The moon is smiling
down upon the frost of the equation. Perhaps,
no animal has been hopping through pristine
squares of frozen falling, remembering
the singular match, the leaf leaving.
{ [ d _ ind del d j e ( m ) ] / ( d e ) } =
min y ( N , Z ) d t - C .
Coldness was like the presence and solutions
to incredible problems, growing worse, while
others, watching, stood, silently observant,
hoping to help, but the springs in the agreements
were the assistance for the splashing colors,
anticipated and arriving as a series of blades
removing lovely, warm weather.
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 6:55 PM UTC
the grating voices of neighbors unsuccessfully singing Celine Dion ballads
the monotonous mechanical humming of the metal factory
the squealing of housewives watching an afternoon soap opera
the blaring siren of a firetruck racing with tragedy
the clunks and clangs of a nearby construction site
the roaring of the engine of an overloaded jeepney
the chiming of laughter from kids playing in the streets
the calls of the street vendor peddling sugary cotton candy
the whining of the dog begging to run around outside
this is the music of life in the outskirts of the city
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 3:45 AM UTC
My head is reeling
What a feeling
Bass line pounding through my brain
Skull is cracking
Quite nerve racking
I need something to help dull the pain
Images horrific
Pressure is terrific
Listening to what the station plays
Eyes are burning
The world is turning
It's like it is the end of days
I need to spend some time relaxing
Getting my music back into my head
Listening to ABBA oldies
followed by David Gates and Bread
An afterword or two by Chapin
With The Carpenters along as well
Will help me clear my mind of what's there
And take away the images of hell
KHEL, hour of power
The station of the hour
Killing my braincells by the day
Hard Rock bottom feeders
Rotten Singers, silly bleeders
I don't know why I stay
Thrash and Metal
Brain won't settle
My head is almost set to burst
Glass and Glitter
Makes me twitter
I no longer think disco was the worst
I need to spend some time relaxing
Getting my music back into my head
Listening to ABBA oldies
followed by David Gates and Bread
An afterword or two by Chapin
With The Carpenters along as well
Will help me clear my mind of what's there
And take away the images of hell
Hey There DJ
That's what the kids say
I do it just to help to pay the bills
Super sonic
I need a tonic
To help me swallow down the pain pills
Every morning
Without warning
The pain begins in my head
Metal grating
Music hating
I guess I'll feel alright when I'm dead
I need to spend some time relaxing
Getting my music back into my head
Listening to ABBA oldies
followed by David Gates and Bread
An afterword or two by Chapin
With The Carpenters along as well
Will help me clear my mind of what's there
And take away the images of hell
Jan 15, 2013
Jan 15, 2013 at 3:53 PM UTC
The colors, they won't
Bright, bea t ful c l rs
Flash ng, exp nd ng, piercing
Red, green, blue
An ndless
CACOPHONY
Of meaningless
noise
The noise, it won't STOP.
Viol nt, grating w vef rms
Sq e king, screech ng, piercing
SINE, COSINE, TANGENT
Like play ng a ch lkboard on a t rntable
Like playing a KNIFE on a BREATHING RIBCAGE
n ndl ss
p m
Of m n ngl ss
Delete Her
Mar 6, 2019
Mar 6, 2019 at 4:33 PM UTC
Poetically vibrating
Intensely radiating
Broken letters synchronistically mating
I love the way I am matchmaking
It's scintillating
A river rush of vowels are grating
Against consonants that were waiting
Sentence structure upraising
And then
I am only making
An attempt at escaping
This world
That is wasting
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 5:05 PM UTC
Lately I’ve felt as though every little sound and feeling and smell and sight is grating at my nerves and chipping away at my sanity.
My clothes feel constricting and too loose and scratchy and smooth and not right
My ears are full of constant ticking and ringing and noise
My skin wraps my frame too tightly and I want to rip it apart and off of me but then I’d be cold and miserable
It’s all too much and everything is loud and jarring and I feel frenzied and too stuck and not stuck enough and all I want to do is jump in front of a van because then everything would
Just
Be
Quiet.
Blessed and sought-after and evasively, quiet.
Jun 26, 2022
Jun 26, 2022 at 4:42 PM UTC
They said
her tongue is too big
for a pretty little mouth like that
They wanted to cut it
as if it will give me more freedom
Change my mind
Liberate my sleep
Then they said
tape your mouth shut
Rip it from your lips then
remember that sting every morning when you wake
Build up that grainy residue
So that no amount of scrubbing away will change anything
That raspy, hazy din of voice–
It’s not mine anymore when you let it invade your comfort
Whose grating is it then
when I bend and it works
Your move
then it just doesn’t?
I’ll rest in my autumn warmth
wait for the drowning of winter
then after
I will warn you of Spring
Nov 17, 2020
Nov 17, 2020 at 3:18 AM UTC
fell into a hole of myself--
i know too much
a bag of cheetos in an ill-fitting suit
runs the country - made the mistake
of reading what it had to say
awhile ago
all in the stirring of a feather
my ego, my ignorance
smattering albiet aggressively in an annoying
aggregate, dog-bark bird-squacking
grating my effing ears
these 7am mornings
Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 9:55 PM UTC
Percepts of enlightenment & civilization to encounter
The grim aftermath of tales unspoken from the galaxies afar
Betokening Indian tales of deeper truths than ever,
For the Great Spirit still swirls in gestures previously milder,
At a snail's pace and surely winning the pursuit among souls or
Is example better than pre-conceived precept?
or
“Is that a dog in the manger?”
Now cherishing the viper?
The human dilemma between liberty & authority?
“Has mythology now become psychology?”
A dingy white color in disguise of tranquility
To suit the blemished features of the 21st century
With fair women & brave men turning fables into verse,
Yet Socrates’ doctrine about death bespeaks a wafture so callous!
The new-age “iron claw” screams nastiness in time and space.
The pretences of mankind like the puritan;
Mars trapped in the net of Vulcan,
Jupiter is serene and above the conflict to win,
While Venus tries to fight upon the plains of troy
That the Greek gods of serenity may win at Tuscany.
“When do these sultry groans of mortal remorse cease?”
To calm the sordid uproar that Love may peruse
Through the scattered white aromatic rose petals
In search of the scintillating path back to the highland stables
Were snowflakes are an irresistible lure for the Arctic snowbirds!
Nature herself is proud of her designs
Yet!
There is nothing grating in mortal cosmoses but direct villainy.
Sinister fate climbs the lonesome banister faster
Before the “fanged dawn” descends nearer,
As stronger minds virtually become weaker;
These “shameless actors” are melted into “thin air”
“Must they cheat themselves with that same foolish vice of honesty?”
Mischievousnesses feed!
Like beasts till they be fat, and then they bleed
As they are led to bend the curve of “No return”
Since it is only rational that after the darkest of nights
There is a brighter day to reveal the true knights
Of the once gloomy age of Democritus.
Tis plain, from hence, that our vows
Request hurtful intense things,
or useless at the best.
Sep 17, 2009
Sep 17, 2009 at 5:16 AM UTC
,,,"---"",,"",,---,,,"""
palpable piquant
pastel scream
surrounded by
portentous
dream
seafoam and symmetry
loquacious land
shuddering snow
and
sibilant sand
caustic, cocaphonous
calypso clouds
awed by the
eloquent
elongated
shrouds
burnt to mere
nothingness
negated, naught
turbulent
truculent
trickling
thought
dense and dowdy
docile and dubious
rousing and rowdy
quiet and studious
grating, gallumphing
gruesome
ground
supine and succulent
*asymmetrical
sound*
soulsurvivor
(C) 6/22/2015
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 5:54 AM UTC
*you're haunting me still
why?
vibrations from your exit still lingering in my bones
they crack and quake
grating against themselves
why aren't they healing?
these wounds that I have been so persistently nursing
why can I not mend myself of this?
the needle is too dull
the thread is fraying
alone in this room
with your ghost still sitting next to me
gently touching my hand, laying its head in my lap to play with its hair
smiling
laughing
a perception
not the reality
I keep my heart in a box under the bed
next to treasured memories of a memory
I want to burn it all
I want to give it back to you
I want to keep it
it makes me sick
when its dark I wish to travel to far away mystical places
dance among the stars on cotton candy roller skates
yet all I get is you
your face
fetal position, clenched jaws, toss and turn
tortured still
in a state meant for rest
dream catchers strategically placed
they're meant to save me from you
ward off and expel YOU
yet my soldiers of the night
my dream wardens
they're no match for the slyness of you
you slip through as if made of air and elegance
replaying all your proudest moments of my misery
ive never felt such indifference toward someone
I want you gone
out of my head
I wish I could peel you from my skin
wring you from my marrow
shed the skin of this serpent's memory
wake to a new day
finally feeling good
finally feeling anything
finally feeling*
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 12:21 AM UTC
Cool, gentle air
glides across my face.
Strains of hydrangeas
mingle with THC
and sweet, cheap, fermented
grain alcohol.
The stillness
knocks the breath from
My lungs.
Wafts of voices drift
across the swaying trees
mingling
with the steady chirp of
crickets and a lone car puttering
in the distance.
A gentle whistle
Like the start of piano concerto
No. 15
crescendes
to the roar
Of a thousand bullfrogs
Straining to hit a high note.
Trees bow
To the iron god,
Voices melt into the grating
Metal monster
Declaring their
Subservience.
The air rushes and then
Disappears
Just as suddenly
And the voices return
and the crickets hum their
chorus
and the stillness
whispers
crescendos
screams.
May 14, 2012
May 14, 2012 at 1:32 AM UTC
I am panic
Frenzied particles
Moving and shaping
Everything I seem to be
Inside of a
Concrete cage of consciousness
Inside of a
Dazzling dot and dye marked
Enigmatic epidermis
Here I am
I am ice cold
Frost bitten to the core
A bullet train made of sleet
Running on cyanotic cylinders
And the gritty grating salt
Beneath your cold, wet shoes
All at once
I dissolve and destroy myself
Yet I just keep
Coming back
Here I am
I am as satisfying as
The long winded palindrome
On the tip of your tongue
The redundant rhyme
You chanted as children
And the hymn you harmonized
With haunted heathens
Here I am
I am the all encompassing embrace
Of all that you are
****** up futile flaws and
Autonomous awe inspiring anomalies
I will hold it all together
In the way no other has
My seams of love
Stitched and sewn
With intentions as pure as gold
And nothing else
Nothing more
Here I am
I am the writhing writer
Frantically feverish with
Fingernails like forceps
I pry these words from
My brain like a
Sickening surgical procedure
On a ***** disheveled mattress
As if they were
Ingenuities oozing with infection
Here I am
I am the ritual rebirth
Wrongfully righteous reincarnation
I tip and turn like the tides
Lurching at the shore
Time and time again
In an endless cycle I am
Looking for
Nautical nirvana
Here I am
I am the exceptional exchange
Of a daunting and diligent dialect
Only few can understand
And to those fluent
In my twisted and tiring tongue
I say
Here I am
Jan 3, 2018
Jan 3, 2018 at 11:03 AM UTC