"gulping" poems
I hear your name everywhere
Your whispers in the buzzing of the bees
Your exasperated sighs in the beeping of the cars
Your ecstatic storytelling in the humdrum of random noises
I see you in every hue
Your calm demeanor in shades of blue
Your road rage in shades of red
Your cheeky laugh in shades of yellow
I taste you in every way
Your kiss in this smooth black chocolate
The warmth of your hand in this bowl of soup
Your icy stare in gulping this cold water
I smell you in every scent
Your warm hug in this cup of coffee
Your compassion in this bouquet of Stargazers
Your glistening eyes in this cigarette
Doctors, please help me
I have the rarest case of synesthesia
When it comes to you,
My brain malfunctions
My senses, once numb, feel everything
All at once
In the most passionate and
In the most heightened sense
To feel you in everything.
To experience you in every way.
My eyes only see you
My nose only smells you
My tongue only craves you
My ears only hear you
My brain only perceives you
My synesthesia
Is only in the form of you.
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 9:38 AM UTC
Unconscious of facts
Stomach fibers dig holes
Searching for lost memories
Of natural order
What dignity is found here
Head between knees
Squatting naked at the far end of the shower
Gulping air
Spitting, tasting, burning, drowning
Striving for cleanliness
Yet ***** with buttered bread and sugar
Afterwards
I fasten my grin too tightly
pinching
I wish they were deaf
Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 12:03 AM UTC
you met a girl who
cried raindrops,
tasted of champagne and regret but
oh did she love so hard
i never got a chance to feel how soft she could be
i was too busy drinking in her mahogany eyes and
lightly tanned skin-- by the gallon, gulping
trying to get air in between sips like
an aged merlot she was
timelessly magnificent.
i swear to you
she had the sun within her,
could shine so bright but
a single cloud could wash it all away,
dim her, shroud her
in stringy clouds of despair i swear
i would've done anything
to burn away those clouds.
-a.c.b
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 9:45 PM UTC
I find
Myself
Among common folk
Amidst the real deal
Throwing beers back
Gulping shots
Admitting false guilts
Believing hateful ideals
Bad things
Happen when not
In the right mind
You can't remember
What went wrong
Or
What went perfectly right
But she remains
Beautiful in my memories
Absolutely breathtaking
In my
Lucid dreams
As gorgeous as
a Leonid Afremov painting
Like a hailstorm in august
Unexpected but
Gorgeous
Like you
My dear
Aug 31, 2014
Aug 31, 2014 at 10:44 PM UTC
She watched the water slip and slop
As flurried flames climbed up to heat
And bubble boil the cooking ***
Emitting steam to rise and sweep
In splendid arcs and cloudy wisps
Of candy cotton colored plumes
That filled the cavern air with sips
Of fragrant tones and sweet perfumes
And withered bony fingers bent
To loosely grip a ladle shaft
And scooping water, swiftly went
To pour a steaming cloudy draught
Into a pretty painted cup
Upon a dais of sorcery
And gulping down a mighty sup
She gasped,
"A lovely cup of tea!"
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 3:51 PM 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
Not only sands and gravels
Were once more on their travels,
But gulping muddy gallons
Great boulders off their balance
Bumped heads together dully
And started down the gully.
Whole capes caked off in slices.
I felt my standpoint shaken
In the universal crisis.
But with one step backward taken
I saved myself from going.
A world torn loose went by me.
Then the rain stopped and the blowing,
And the sun came out to dry me.
6.7k
The devil sat upon his toasted grieving red throne
Gulping his tongue, the devil never stressed
She seduced his powerful taste
He knew she was a lost soul, out of control
She was a walking mess, who was taking her toll
He had no business taking a hit to his statured entitlement
He promised to distinguish her from the rest, implicating a battle every dawning blue sky
His threats do not scare her passion to fight
She's a rampage with braided hair and an innocent glare
Zip up your sweater vest, here comes Hells pest
May 6, 2016
May 6, 2016 at 5:01 PM UTC
The blood vats
Stirring clotting goo
A tepid sticky stew
Crimson mess
Spilt on the floor
The hungry goblins
Gulping the pulpy gore
Plasma swimming
In spider web veins
The dripping fluid
Sticking to you
Soaking through
The stained washcloth
Swirling in the warm bath
Cloudy dispersion
Smoky mass
Dark diluting
And disappearing
Through time
And loss
So here we are
Generations of
Vampire blood
Leaching the life force
Spreading the plague
And bleeding
Life from one generation
To the next
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 8:55 PM UTC
Neat orderly lines of chairs,
Rattling biro pens in sweaty palms,
An echoing hall of icy airs.
Exhaling teens failing to stay calm,
A balding figure pouting sternly,
Glares over nervous beings.
Announcing the rules that concern me,
Gulping down that sinking feeling.
A monotone drill bellows out,
I open my paper to 1A.
Oh Christ, what is this all about.
Questions so vague, I don’t know what to say.
This theme remains to continue,
Frying my brain, gnawing at my wit.
A piercing doubt seeps through,
for the rest of the exam I sit.
Seconds to minutes, minutes to hours,
Developing the skill needed to cope.
But my heart persists to cower
Falling lower, as if on a slope.
A bell calls out to signal the end,
I place down my pen somehow.
“How’d it go” asks my friend,
“Alright, double maths now!”.
Jul 26, 2013
Jul 26, 2013 at 4:40 PM UTC
He comes everyday
Every morning, every night
Like the morning sun and twilight
After gulping down a glass of milk
Comes my dear Mr. Milk moustache
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 12:36 AM UTC
What you don't see
is the way I wait,
watching her braid
worries in her hair
speckling small daisies,
my eyes like tumblers
gulping her in swigs
as she perches glasses
on the arch of her nose,
and then we'll take
a photo
to remark on how
we were back then
and now.
Jun 2, 2014
Jun 2, 2014 at 7:06 PM UTC
There once lived a boy young of age,
Candy he loved so much his teeth had caves.
Not one or two could satisfy his urge,
Tonnes could go down his tiny throat.
This one time to the market he went,
His mother holding him firm in the grasp of her hand.
Seeing him sad she saw him standing then,
"Go get some candy" she said putting two pennies in his arm band.
Off he ran to in search of candy prime,
His eyes moving vigorously from left to right in search of the candy store.
Then he saw it, that glorious gleaming colourful shop,
His one and final destination, his stop.
It was small yet filled with people from all over the city,
Every one, young and old wanted a piece of candy.
The little kid pushed and pulled with all his might,
A piece of candy he craved like the elders craved shandy.
The din and crowd couldn't lower his spirit,
His eyes set on this sugary treat, his favourite.
But till the time he could get to the counter,
The last treat the man in front bought for his little daughter.
The kid got all teary eyed and walked out of the store,
Standing outside he watched all the other kids happily walk out of the door,
Drops started falling to the ground,
The girl from inside watched him all along as he cried and frowned.
The little kid's world had fallen apart for a minute,
Till this cute brown eyed girl decided to do something about it,
She went up to him and asked him if he wanted some?
All she wanted was for him not to be so sore.
The teary eyed kid looked up with a smile,
He nodded in cheer as he wiped his tears.
A huge bit of candy he took as he reached for his arm band.
Searching for the two pennies to repay the little girl.
To his dismay only to realize,
The money had fallen down somewhere in the struggle.
Gulping down saliva he dared to let her know the truth,
"I have no money to give you", he said.
"Its ok", said she with a beaming smile,
The boy nevertheless decided to give her his favourite arm band.
That day those little kids exchanged more than just candy and a piece of cloth,
They exchanged smiles, kindness and pieces of their heart.
Jun 4, 2017
Jun 4, 2017 at 7:24 AM UTC
A lone wolf;
Solitary soldier.
Too comfortable you have become
stumbling down a path
for one.
Blinded by
eyes closed
to the world that truly lays
beyond
your chosen screen
of wool
woven, cross-stitched with
Denial.
Hands you refuse to hold
as you boldly
trek
down the dusty trail;
howling out silently
so no one may hear.
Sporting a
mask
made
of self-loathing
and fear,
vulnerability the
enemy you choose to slay,
for surrendering to
a state of
naked, raw
passion
seems more frightening
than the darkest dungeon,
stormiest night.
Gulping down
another shot
of loneliness on the rocks,
not even a splash
of soda,
for you like the way it burns.
Inhale solidarity,
snorting your
line
after
line
of
self-destruction,
acidic dispelling of
feelings
chosen not to be felt.
Sometimes, though,
in the quietest of the night,
sitting on the lip of a deep
substance-induced-slumber,
you may whisper
in a tone you would hate
to be called sweet,
and the mask comes off;
till 2 PM,
waking and at it again,
alone, a lone wolf
howls
at emotional
sobriety
and takes another
drink.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 8:46 PM UTC
heatwave
night air barely sighs
heatwave
bodies lie far apart
on sweat damp sheets
heatwave
tuxedo boy sleeps
spread eagled, legs asprawl
on wet shower tiles
heatwave
the god child
twists and turns
in superman ****** under
mosquito-net blown by fans
heatwave
outside small things
bathe & scurry through waterpans
placed on fast dying grass
and larger things drink
gulping mouthfuls from the pond
heatwave
and we all await the breeze
and the small hours of the night
when the temperature drops
when the air cools enough
so as not to stifle breath,
anger minds, open lips
leaving hurt behind
heatwave
Jan 14, 2017
Jan 14, 2017 at 9:01 AM UTC
I could never finish writing off your name, with your strawberry scent vibrating towards mine and your hooded eyes that covers the wrinkles and your cheek dampens when you crook a smile, I could never stop writing you.
Maybe I was just drawing a thin line with heaven and a tightrope with my eyes close and hell bent towards the unending loophole of my forsaking fantasies, I guess I might stay here. There was something about you that I cannot forsake nor repaint with foreign colors and another texture — you were as a majestic being in my lucid dream.
That even though I cannot recount my fingers one or two or five or ten, I can picture the deepening hole of your dimples whenever you give the world another unbreathable cheeky beam and I sulk here, waiting for another neon glow of that majestic world in my dreamlike prophetic future.
Something told me it was you. As I bear witness another beauty in the realm of my alternative home, maybe then, peering at the sky while I was on a tightrope is worth every penny of sleep and drowsiness gulping another 90's wine.
May 10, 2022
May 10, 2022 at 5:29 AM UTC
We slump in mismatched chairs. Two hunches
over shame and a 3am breakfast, I think:
*There’s gotta be a reason why art rhymes with ****
If you want anything to go anywhere with any respectable…affect,
the force of pressure on the inside must exceed that from the outside.
Interrupting this genius, He asks:
How can you eat that crap? It’s so…empty.
He is flipping through his coffeeblack back pocket note rag.
It’s soiled, wrinkled concave with the ever-heaving
stomachfuls of his inky midnight doubt, and I would really
rather not have it at the table while I’m eating.
I am pouring another glorious bowl of Frooty Froot Hoops—yeasty,
store-brand sugarfuel for the lower-middle-income child poet.
He spends another tasteless oatmeal evening
reading essays about how to improve his writing.
Instead of, like, writing to improve his writing.
I ask:
If you took a knife to the edge of your boundary’s boundary—stabbed right into your life-world’s fleshy monad-sac,
glory running ****** down your blade,
As you breached forth into the well-lit unknown,
would it still be courageous, if you emerged from
your warm wet ignorance, and they were all waiting outside with mylar balloons, a banner, and "Congratulations on your Artistic Rupture!”
in blue icing on the cake??
There's still a moment there, right?
Petrified in the sap of thrill, in the momentous-stasis between
The arrow flung and the arrow fallen. A moment of
advancement …a moment of abandon!
(He nods along, but he isn't listening.)
I say:
Newness, originality, (birth), is purely indexical.
It points, and no one notices that all those shiny vegas lights aren't really moving anywhere—It's just utility bills and light-bulb trickery.
They're asking for genesis extended, genesis again and again
and each false gesture points only towards another
incandescent unreachable elsewhere.
(He nods along, still, not listening.)
But there's little monotony in taking a stab!
Even if it's just for them, again, those perennial spectators expecting,
Waiting outside with ***** little pocket notebooks of their own,
crowding the bassinets, ever-eager to begin another “surprise" celebration.
Gulping sweet, sugarpink milk, I say:
I happen to like this crap!
It keeps my knife sharp.
(He nods along, but he isn't listening.)
Jan 2, 2015
Jan 2, 2015 at 11:47 PM UTC
heartache is
a penny, leaving
greenish glows
in the palm of my hand,
its slick caress a kiss
against the inside
of my pocket.
its weight yearns
like a kindergartener
whose voice
wasn't heard,
who knows
everything there is to know
about outer space,
something she can feel
wrinkling, biting a hole
through her chest.
and this tadpole heart,
it struggles and flails,
gulping to life
between words
it never knew
how to say.
silently,
somehow,
this monster
in my mind
falls gently asleep
with the tide.
May 28, 2012
May 28, 2012 at 2:28 PM UTC
lost in a sea of despair
with no end in sight
people pass me by
but I am unable to cry out
desperately treading water
to stay afloat and yet a part of me
just wants to let go
stop fighting and just sink
to the bottom where I can rest
I see no way out
no sign of hope
and yet something
keeps me going
I will not surrender to
this sea of despair
I am gasping for breath
gulping water
dizzy with exhaustion
before I sink I cry out
with my last breath "Help!"
suddenly hands reach out for me
lift me out of the sea of despair
and as I cough out water
my eyes begin to see
a fellowship of people on a life raft
I ask them where they came from,
and a man with a gentle smile answers
that they have been there all along waiting for me to see them
the sea of despair made me blind to
the very help I was looking for
until in that moment of desperation
I was open and willing to ask for help
Feb 18, 2015
Feb 18, 2015 at 7:47 AM UTC
Raspberry pip boy lingered and hung around,
He was sweet, but with a tartness that juiced up your mouth,
He flowered in Spring, and swelled my heart up through Summer,
And I plucked him, and I ate him, and I begged for another,
But as I chewed up, my heart slid down my back,
As I was gulping down raspberries my tooth had cracked,
The raspberry pips had sunk deep and rooted
In between my poor teeth, how I hollered and hooted
"RASPBERRY PIP BOY ISN'T AS SWEET AS YOU THINK,
HE STAYS FAR TOO LONG, I'M STAINED BY HIS INK.
I CAN'T WASH HIM OUT, BELIEVE ME I'VE TRIED,
THAT RASPBERRY PIP BOY HAS JUST RUINED MY LIFE!!"
A former tooth model, my contract was lost,
To that Raspberry Pip Boy, his seeds, and tooth rot.
Dec 9, 2015
Dec 9, 2015 at 9:39 AM UTC
i am waiting for my coffee
i am the old couple eating pastries
with their chairs turned towards the window
i am the wafting scent of musk and amber
i am the bright magenta trees lining route 240
blooming in april while it rains
i am the veiny hands i know nothing about
except that i wish they would touch me
i am gulping down the foam
tasting the bittersweet memories on my tongue
the ones that have yet to happen
i am remembering what it means to have teeth
to feel so different, so distant
but entirely the same
Apr 24, 2019
Apr 24, 2019 at 2:45 PM UTC
I.
Confidence.
The word is so foreign to me
it tastes like
cotton candy.
II.
Too sweet,
after a day of nothing but
salt and tears.
III.
I eat it like cotton candy,
too.
Huge bites, gulping,
drowning in it would be a reprieve.
Eating it this fast
will simply give me
a stomach ache.
IV.
I became
something I could love.
I don't think anyone
believed I could pull it off.
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 1:42 AM UTC
We approached the counter, side by side.
I said, “Ladies first.”
And, with a trickle of a smile and just a bit of teeth, she said, “I’ll have a café breve.”
The words left her lips in a solid, confident tone, yet they brushed my ears like a whisper.
I must have ordered the same, because that is what I got.
And we sat down in the plush brown chairs and she let her amber hair free from its tight bun.
And we sat. And we spoke.
I spoke of nothingness, I’m sure.
For that is what I remember – nothing.
But she spoke of her dreams, her future plans, her summer plans, her favorite colors and why they were the prettiest.
She spoke of smaller things, like the weather, her chair and why it was so wobbly.
And though it was casual and carefree, I couldn't help but be bewildered by the beauty she bore.
The simple beauty that hides behind closed door and open-mouthed laughs.
And we did this all as we sipped our drinks, gulping down the vague design in the coffee and steamed milk.
And, setting down her mug, I noticed she’d left a smear of crimson on the edge.
And as I stared at the lipstick settled on the rim, I quietly took in the rest of our surroundings –
The frosted windows,
The scent of fresh coffee and pastries,
The lonely barista, who was currently changing the background music CD from electro to smooth jazz.
And as the music began again, so did she.
And the whisper of her voice was like the whisper of the cymbals,
Ringing in time to the beat of the song.
May 6, 2013
May 6, 2013 at 11:16 PM UTC
My house is a silent house
But listen closely
And you'll hear the ever-turning scratch of the ceiling fan
The constant ticking of the grandfather clock
Passing cars and heavy wind vibrating the windows
Looking out, the trees are sighing
Dying
Every leaf panicking with each eager gust
What is nature seeing?
What does it hear?
Observing me as I observe it
My slow and steady silent sighs
My thumping heart's persistent slamming
Increasing with speed at passing thoughts
My gulping down of liquid memories
My bones creaking and aching with pangs of rejection
Overgrown nails scratching at the surface of my skin.
Digging to get rid of an unceasing itch.
Untouchable.
Are the trees digesting that which my body refuses?
My teeth pressing themselves into the plush pillows of my lips
Keeping blood where my face has otherwise drained itself.
Pale as the undead.
Walking mindlessly.
Heartlessly.
Silent footsteps radiate this house's skeleton.
Rattling bones.
Climbing the ribcage,
Pulling up through the spaces
Sit for awhile. Watch the crimson muscle pump
The sound of my wandering eyes looking around for salvation.
The creak in my neck as I turn my head from its position of elongated staring.
Staring at nothing. Nothing is left.
Shifting uncomfortably in a chair too hard
Oceans built up against the dams behind my eyes waiting to be released into canals down my cheeks and neck
Settling into t-shirt stains that wont wash out
No one is left.
My house is a silent house.
Feel my rivers flowing.
Hold fast to them if you can and drown me.
And I will fall clamorously to sleep.
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 11:52 PM UTC
I see you sit expectantly biting lips
on the extended museum steps leading
to a veranda around the building, that invites
a flash mob,of your ilk, effervescent, to come together
perform and celebrate, nothing in particular,
except giving a shock pleasure to all those marked "the other"
Once you made me believe, together we make a whole,
that is the story we live on I was told, I merely listened,
I and you missed few beats and steps here and there
find us now in pages different, why, even ages apart,
"What a fine specimen,!" a pacifist, I can't but appreciate
watching your elan. As if seeing an alien in my home ground,
I watch the spectacle, gulping down my discomfiture dutifully,
while you romance with much finesse,to the cell phone,
you cling on as if it's the beau you want to show off.
"Wouldn't she make a fine museum piece?"
that would point towards the life style,
that highlights only the moment present,
and constantly on the run to remain there,
while past vanishes and future becomes obscure more and more.
With a gentle smile for you to pick up, when you are at peace,
I move on; more than the museum pieces still living,
I am interested in regular exhibits I easily grasp.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 10:20 AM UTC