"gunshot" poems
When she held me, I felt like an earthquake,
shrapnel cutting quick to the bone.
I’m disaster, an unknown
kind of danger is the most dangerous
When he held me, I felt like a riptide,
all control ran out the door.
With the *** and cappuccinos
I felt out of place in my new home
When she held me, I felt disgusting,
every move my own betrayal.
Yes, she hurt like a gunshot
but I did this to myself
When he held me, I felt strange,
like I should give my whole self.
He never asked, I’m thankful.
I don’t want to ruin everything else
When she held me, I felt like a secret,
like I was something small and wild.
In a room of screaming children,
we were something invincible
He never held me, but that’s alright.
Someone tell him I understand.
Take it slow, like we’re new friends.
I’m alive for once
No one touch me, I don’t want it.
Stop breathing down my neck.
My throat fills with *****
But the hands never rest
No one touch me, leave me alone.
Stop pressing on my back.
There are thumbprints on my wrist bones
and handprints on my thighs
Don’t touch me when you aren’t here.
So many years have passed.
Is it trauma? I don’t care.
The filthy feeling always lasts
Don’t touch me when you aren’t here.
Nobody ever has to know.
When you’re sitting by your lonesome
Nobody cares, you’re on your own
Nobody cares, you’re on your own
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 12:10 PM UTC
Pinto?
No, not the wild-spirited, color-splotched mare
with mane streaming like flames-thrown
behind in the wind
Taking desert inclines
with scuffing hooves on rock
catching her balance in mesquite
curbing?
The sage, dust
All
that nature throws in its pathway to knowledge
toward treachery of crosswalks?
“P-l-e-a-s-e don't slow down!
Stop signs--?
”No!
Just keep going!
Don't slow down now!”
“They'll hear us coming
3 blocks away!”
Pinto?
Clogged carburetor--?
No one much-mentioned
rear-end inferno reputation??
A mere twinge in my signature
Woman-without-a-clue
“Hey, it runs, right?
Gets where we're goin'?”
Kids duck in back seat
so as not to be seen
In the cloud of smoke
We make our approach
Hiss Spitter, Belch, Pop
and--
BANG!
--Like a gunshot
Kids take cover
on street, in backseat
duck down
so not to be noticed...
“Oh Ma!
MA!!!
Not right here!
Farther down!”
...so not to be seen
...by friends that matter...
in this ride
from hell!
Backfiring Beast--
“Friends”
skitter away
from what will emerge from the smoke and fumes
of high-risk-situation
Kids spill out through jammed door
to unexpected accolades
onto equality's curb
of laughter
Public school's
wake of exhaust and relief
I drive mercifully away
Start of another school day
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 1:11 PM UTC
I was relaxed, and deep in thought
The type of talk that silence brought
When just in earshot it rocked,
tick tock
tick tock
"Must be a clock"
I told myself and resumed my thought
Though as the seconds passed I could not,
Despite the will with which I fought
Do to its incessant knock
Tick tock
Tick tock
I searched for the clock
Unable to find the train I sought
I grew more and more distraught
With each and every tick and tock
That find the clock, I could not
As the silence grew more fraught
With the knock,
Tick Tock
Tick Tock
I knew the pain of Lancelot
On and on it ticked and tocked
I cursed at the unseen dreadnought
It no longer merely mocked
But each and every tick and tock
Became an unseen onslaught
TICK TOCK
TICK TOCK
T'was 11 o'clock,
When my heart felt the gunshot
Though the shots I could not block
And on and on the bullets poured
Further into the fray I bored
Each foot a cinderblock
Weighed by war
I slowly walked
Tick Tock
Tick Tock
How I'd make it answer for
Alas
With little blood left to speak for Desperately I implored
"Restrain your hands that caused such gore;
We need not fight evermore!"
But when I heard the ceaseless knock
Tick tock
Tick tock
I new my words had been ignored
And slowly collapsed to the floor
****** and bludgeoned when I hit bed rock, I had still found no clock
But tick and tock it had forgot
The church bell rang t'was 12 o'clock,
Though mortal wounds the seconds wrought
I no longer was distraught
And as I lay in the hemlock
It occurred in my last thoughts
I would miss the beating knock
tick..., tock...
tick..., tock...
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 9:04 PM UTC
Her nervous laugh
is the ***** of a champagne glass
he does not care she has no brains
he worries about his tie
asks her to confess
she never loved Tom
showing off his wealth
built on the sand grains
of dodgy business & deceit
& brick of bravado
a siren, she has called his heart
to sail to her across the years
all to end in a gunshot
by a pool
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 9:15 PM UTC
An affable Irregular,
A heavily-built Falstaffian man,
Comes cracking jokes of civil war
As though to die by gunshot were
The finest play under the sun.
A brown Lieutenant and his men,
Half dressed in national uniform,
Stand at my door, and I complain
Of the foul weather, hail and rain,
A pear-tree broken by the storm.
I count those feathered ***** of soot
The moor-hen guides upon the stream.
To silence the envy in my thought;
And turn towards my chamber, caught
In the cold snows of a dream.
10.7k
Sweaty shuffle, gloved hands
light fuse, twitching in countdown
until heels spark trigger,
cannons drumming grass
driven by bellows,
magnesium snort
in wind-whipped ears
until gunshot
snap:
shell bursts,
shattered tendons
man falling into dust
while fragments *****
burning air, tearing turf
as cheers become screams,
awaiting another bullet.
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 4:00 PM UTC
Tethers that prevent flight
from shaken swollen tears
feathers spent in woeful plight
and a snipers cross-hair sight
amid muffled explosive cheers
Brothers in Arms
never lost to forgotten years
and the sound of a distant gunshot
is all that he hears.
R.I.P. Sgt L.J.
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 10:50 AM UTC
If God is the book then life would be the pages in him,
for us to study and turn to each new page of her.
There is so much paper here, but no place to start a fire.
A fire of words and dreams to chase.
Will you run with me, with feet wide awake?
Please do, and I won't be scared to bleed for you
when the time comes.
These words I have don't dream lifeless
or die in corral conversation or in a helpless blind study.
I will help you see it is in fact that God's home is make-believe
with no welcome mat to greet you. Maybe God never
learned to let bygones just be gone.
Maybe this is why you have never seen the glorious
Matriarch or heard her voice, but I bet it sounds
a lot like the space between a gunshot and a black
male's body hit by the bullet right before the screams.
Did you know this is what black feels like?
These pages feel like an eighth-grade suicide poem
written because it is solely triggered by life, and
since life is so freaking triggering and our only
real competition, then I will write words that are
weapons. I will write real-life pages of myself,
that is more jazz than blues, more biggie than Pac
more Prince than Michael. I will write myself out
this padded room call earth, because after all heroes
can dream too, and our thirst can become hunger and quickly
I learned to eat my own words and breathe in endless
possibility in a world where breathing is no longer a privilege
Just a means to be necessary.
Jesus! I got a life with no religion and still, I manage to turn
doubt into rhinestones right along with these pages
of myself. I will turn page after page as if I were Jesus turning the other cheek, and like Jesus, I can take all my
dislikes and burdens and turn the into sunsets. I will teach
my pain to laugh. Ignorance is not bliss, it is kind. It teaches
us to look deep inside of ourselves to see the word of God,
and I have seen it, I have seen I am half human and half star
and my DNA is all angelic. God wrote his first poem in blood right here on Earth. Her pen never felt writer's block. He never suffered inside the ink. Do you know the difference between God and everyone else? She never starts emotional fires to burn pages of himself and herself as we do.
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 10:31 AM UTC
By Drake
Poem by Arcassin Burnham
You use call me on my,
You use to, you use to,
Yeah,
You use to call me on my sprint phone,
Late night when you crave for us,
Call me on my sprint phone,
Late night when you crave for us,
And I know when that hotline bling,
Baby I'll save you the ring,
And I know when that hotline bling,
Baby I'll save you the ring,
Ever since we crossed paths,
You,
Choosing occupations for yaself now,
Even when you told my *** to get out,
gunshot to my head I feel so stretched out,
Cause ever since we crossed paths,
You,
Started going out and being a *****
Never settled for less, I know you need more,
All these mood swings I never seen before,
You use to call me on my sprint phone,
Late night when you crave for us,
Call me on my sprint phone,
Late night when you crave for us,
And I know when that hotline bling,
Baby I'll save you the ring,
And I know when that hotline bling,
Baby I'll save you the ring,
Ever since we crossed paths,
You you you,
You felt like I left you on your own,
Its obvious that the love is gone,
I never felt like I could be wrong,
Ever since we crossed paths,
You,
You got exactly what you asked for,
Why you wanna go and just do that for,
Beautiful honest woman's what I took you for,
You use to call me on my sprint phone,
Late night when you crave for us,
Call me on my sprint phone,
Late night when you crave for us,
And I know when that hotline bling,
Baby I'll save you the ring,
And I know when that hotline bling,
Baby I'll save you the ring,
These days all I do is wondered
If you ever smashed my heart into little pieces
wondered
If you ever smashed my heart into little pieces
Wondered if I ever hurt you deeply,
You don't have to please me,
you could be mad at me,
You could be so mad at me,
No,
Don't you turn the tables,
Changing my area code,
All the delightfulness in you Don dried up and died,
Now I need someone to set the tone,
Yeah
You should just be yourself,
Right now your someone else,
You use to call me on my sprint phone,
Late night when you crave for us,
Call me on my sprint phone,
Late night when you crave for us,
And I know when that hotline bling,
Baby I'll save you the ring,
And I know when that hotline bling,
Baby I'll save you the ring,
Ever since we crossed paths!
Nov 28, 2015
Nov 28, 2015 at 3:06 AM UTC
to every family that has lost someone to the war on drugs, i offer you a piece of my heart. take it and make it yours.
when the other children ask if i miss you, i answer no. how can i miss someone who has not even left? you are still alive, i feel it; i know it to be true. you live in the paper thin walls of our home, a ghost lingering on the dining table.
(i'm sorry there's hardly any food laid out. sometimes mother forgets to buy any or her hands shake too much for her to cook -- i don't know if it's from the cigarettes or the lambanog. brother is always out nowadays, trying to make money. he leaves before the sun is up and comes home long after mother has gone to bed. i think they're like this because they can hardly bear to look at your seat without dying a little more.)
grandmother tells me to talk some sense into mother. "just because he died doesn't mean she can let her children die too. she is just sad. she needs someone to talk to." what she means is: comfort her. but i wonder. what comfort can you offer a dead man walking?
sometimes i stare at the sky from the hole on my ceiling, and i wonder which star is you. is it the bright one that is always at the center of my vision? the one a little ways to the left? on better days, brother joins me and takes my hand in his. i swear it's almost like you're back, laying beside me.
it's hard without you here. we miss you. when i see the other children and their fathers -- whole, unhurt, alive -- i feel a pang of pain. it's like hearing the gunshot all over again.
i don't know if you were still alive then, but i was the one who called for help. i screamed until my lungs gave way to the torrent of pain that filled even the spaces between my bones. i don't know (nor do i wish to) if you were still alive or if you had already had a taste of sunset.
it's a little funny. you had promised me we'd go to the lake that day. just you and i. you had gotten a job the week before and you wanted to celebrate with your favorite daughter. (i didn't have the heart to remind you i was your only daughter.)
and i want you to know i am holding you to that promise. when we meet again. in space. heaven. eternity. in whatever version of the afterlife we end up in. we'll go to the lake.
just you and i.
Dec 31, 2016
Dec 31, 2016 at 7:20 AM UTC
There was a shooting in Redstone
Only one man dead, none hurt
He was found dead in the morning
With just one hole right through his shirt
He was lying in the main street
Face down, right there in the dirt
He was found dead in the morning
With just one hole right through his shirt
I'T WASN'T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS
FACE DOWN HERE, IN THE STREET
I'M A GUNFIGHTER OF MUCH RENOWN
I'M JUST A GUN WHO CAN'T BE BEAT
I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE
LYING DEAD, SHOT IN THE BACK
I WAS GUNNED DOWN BY A COWARD
I DIDN'T HEAR THE GUNSHOT CRACK
The crowd had formed around him
Lying there, all hard and cold
No witnessess to the shooting
At least not one so bold
They knew him from his weapon
The sixteen notches on the grip
He came in on the Flyer
He won't be on the return trip
I'T WASN'T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS
FACE DOWN HERE, IN THE STREET
I'M A GUNFIGHTER OF MUCH RENOWN
I'M JUST A GUN WHO CAN'T BE BEAT
I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE
LYING DEAD, SHOT IN THE BACK
I WAS GUNNED DOWN BY A COWARD
I DIDN'T HEAR THE GUNSHOT CRACK
He was staying at The Belfry
He only brought one bag to town
No one knew why he had come here
Except to shoot somebody down
The papers ran the story
The next morning in THE SUN
They ran a picture and a story
Of the "Man With The Pearl Gun"
I'T WASN'T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS
FACE DOWN HERE, IN THE STREET
I'M A GUNFIGHTER OF MUCH RENOWN
I'M JUST A GUN WHO CAN'T BE BEAT
I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE
LYING DEAD, SHOT IN THE BACK
I WAS GUNNED DOWN BY A COWARD
I DIDN'T HEAR THE GUNSHOT CRACK
The story was quite lengthy
Considering no one saw him shot
But, as usual there was someone
Who had a story to be bought
He'd been shot from an end window
Above the Local Mercantile Store
One bullet from a rifle
And the gunman was no more
I'T WASN'T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS
FACE DOWN HERE, IN THE STREET
I'M A GUNFIGHTER OF MUCH RENOWN
I'M JUST A GUN WHO CAN'T BE BEAT
I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE
LYING DEAD, SHOT IN THE BACK
I WAS GUNNED DOWN BY A COWARD
I DIDN'T HEAR THE GUNSHOT CRACK
Turns out the gunman's killer
Was the one he'd come to find
The shooter was the killer's child
The only son, he'd left behind
They never met before this
He'd never ever met his Dad
But, The Gunman came to find him
And in the end, it's kind of sad
I'T WASN'T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS
FACE DOWN HERE, IN THE STREET
I'M A GUNFIGHTER OF MUCH RENOWN
I'M JUST A GUN WHO CAN'T BE BEAT
I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE
LYING DEAD, SHOT BY MY SON
I WAS GUNNED DOWN WITHOUT KNOWING
I GUESS HE'S NOW THE WANTED GUN.
Oct 1, 2012
Oct 1, 2012 at 8:35 PM UTC
She laughs as I tell her how
The way she devours her stadium dog
Is so *******
I can’t concentrate
Only we are interrupted by
The crack of gunshot over an open plain
It is followed by a hoorah hurricane
So unison I stop trying to make her laugh
Think about the car ride later
And being stuck in traffic
And sliding gently into home
I want to tell her about years from now
Ninth inning deathbed passion
When my red seems finally begin to burst their cotton
About the splinters living inside of my hands
I was living with them inside of my hands
That’s why I was so rough sometimes
How the scotch guard kept the **** off of my knees
I loved to trace the outline of her ***** diamond
Until there were grooves in there
And my initials in her catchers mound
We are so much hoarse voices
Lost in the noise of ***** hands clapping
How I imagine
As I am sliding into home
In our shower
The soft patter of water on the curtain is stadium applause
Let me run grooves in your shapely pattern
Your laughter is a full circle homerun from heartache
Save me again sweet music
Open plain gunshot buildup
And then a noise so booming it is silence
And us
Ninth inning deathbed lovers
Gently sliding into home
Feb 26, 2012
Feb 26, 2012 at 7:10 PM UTC
From a fifth storey bachelor’s window
pondering shadows in the car park below,
Johnny opens another can.
I stuff another pipe.
We talk about our trip to Brazil
and how great it would’ve been had we gone;
Johnny turns up the radio.
I take the first drag.
Old girlfriends swing by in our conversation,
most of them giving us the finger, mind you;
Johnny dabs at his tears.
I pass him the pipe.
Dusk-scalpels are slicing through the curtains now,
they scrape over coffee table dust,
through Irish coffee stains,
cut open Johnny’s frown:
The neighbours are at it again, arguing;
he accuses her of seeing someone else,
she tells him *correct,
it’s your ****** sister.*
Johnny taps out the pipe in the ashtray,
says he has to do someone a favour;
throws on his jacket,
says take it easy.
Johnny’s shadow tiptoes into evening,
a car alarm screams and a gunshot cries.
I convince myself
this is Brazil.
Feb 3, 2011
Feb 3, 2011 at 7:59 PM UTC
Marines call to say hello,
impress. I'm over 35 but my boys
19. They could go: Hide!
One moment spent tying a shoe,
another dying, gunshot wound or poisoned food.
Events in their mere chronology
make no sense.
And the details of yr dad's life don't either.
Late night
quiet cigarette smoker. But next day,
the butts cleaned into the can. Who does that?
Lady in a skirt or overalls rolled up - cigarette smoke.
Now it's yr dad.
Yr dad who
watches for war.
Even if Uncle Sam disbands, dissolves
we the people will still be here and stay involved
with North America. The purple mountains majesty
and shining seas
little people, big people, brown, red, and white. Addicted
to action movies.
Perhaps there is no choice. One must sit, sitting still
as a buddha, sitting bull.
I can imagine myself and all others - drivers, voters, runners -
little fetal muscles
at first. Metastasizing. What's it called when the cell
at the tip of the *****
or organism, divides, and the ***** grows? It's called
girl on a bicycle.
I find I make no sense. Her **** a practicality to her, is
delicious to me
a miraculous sea lettuce or snapdragon. You've heard it before.
A moral dilemma
wrapped in robes and silks and odors. Yet, come close,
and business beckons
work gets done, life goes on, hair grows in, we go on
vacation
the Marine Corps calls, desperate for new fetuses to teach
purposeful workmanlike killing
I'll do my own killing, thanks, when violence comes to the
neighborhood
if I've got your back
your back's gotten and if I'm on point, the point's taken.
One world under God invisible with liberty and justice for all who
Art in heaven
what the hell's his name.
Nemesis.
Hysterical.
The small war of an especially inept empire. The world's too big
to swallow as the Krauts and Nips found out. Empire
is self-correcting. Them dark-skinned mustachioed *********
who can't fix their own electricity seem to be kicking our *****
pert good. As did the ***** before them. All to the good. A
good lesson to know and then we all become friends following
the brawl. We apparently cannot skip the fight. It must
be fought, and **** the girls.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 8:24 PM UTC
ring
ring
ring
ring
hello?
ring
ring
ring
ring
hello?
ring
ring
ring
ring
a gunshot was heard,
but not by her,
blood gushed out of her face like a grotesque river,
a bullet hole in the side of her head,
maybe we should put down all the technology...
before someone gets hurt...
Sep 6, 2017
Sep 6, 2017 at 11:22 AM UTC
To soak up the dirt is to soak up the stories.
My story is grime pushed into the cracks in the concrete
From all the crusty hobos and sweat-sheened showgirls.
My story is glitter from all the strippers and their grinning patrons, and
***** spilled liquor, and ***** from those who have sought a cure.
I am nourished by pain, and also rubber from the wheels of souped-up sports cars
Driven by men with chasmic souls. The oil from a billion french fries
Palliates the sting of alcohol upon my fractured, ***** skin.
The filth of the cigarettes and of the **** smoke,
Dank in the air, and heavy, slathers on another coat.
I see all things and I hear all things and I know all things.
I can see up your skirt right now, you precious little object,
As you flee the casino like a gull from a shark’s open jaws.
Your nightmare is right behind you, and he’s starving.
His humanity has been chewed up by the worms of his rancor,
And all that remains is an animal with hot blood on his brain.
In the alleyway I hear the pop and crack as stiletto gives way to concrete
And bone gives way to undue stress. His smile is unhinged as
Stifled screams and muffled gunshot atomize in the black air.
A decade later, the mops of sad janitors cut through like razors,
Making clean spots more unsightly than the ocean of grunge.
Surreptitious blood spatters, long since scrubbed
Still glint under blacklight. The chalk outlines have absorbed
Into my unholy black skin, and though I was drunk on your blood,
I still remember cradling you as you died.
Aug 24, 2012
Aug 24, 2012 at 1:57 AM UTC
There is constant tension around the pool,
Yet the adrenalin is pumping in your veins
We are always ready for something in life - like a dramatic gunshot before a race,
However, a false start will set you back.
We are always eager at the beginning of a project, like diving into the pool, but how long can we keep this up?
The focus is on the finishing line, but there is always a sense of doubt in our minds.
You try not to compare yourself with the swimmer next to you, as your eyes glance in their direction while gasping for air.
Comparisons will be your downfall.
Often, you can see your goal in the distance, but negativity creeps in because there are always massive obstacles to get over.
You are edging forward, but tiring out at the same time in the chlorinated scented water.
Staying positive does not come easy when you are a step behind.
Jan 2, 2015
Jan 2, 2015 at 12:26 AM UTC
The South African sun caused my
Eleven year old eyes to squint.
Sat in the stadium, my father and I,
Sweated and watched rugby;
A father - daughter tradition.
That Saturday afternoon was the final,
The stands were crowded and full,
Like a fish-tank ready to burst
At any moment.
In front of my father and I,
There sat a dark-haired woman
In a lose fitting jersey.
About forty minutes in,
She bent down, sudden and quick,
Her head, hitting her kneecaps,
She screamed her intense screams;
Muffled in her own bent body,
Some spectators thought her crazy,
She continued her whails, and soon
A small crowd grew in front of us,
One man pulled her straight in her seat,
Her hands, her face, her her legs and stomach
Were all drenched red with blood.
No one ever heard the gunshot;
They traced it back to its origin,
Two hundred meters away,
Fired from a building by the stadium.
The bullet just happened to land where it did,
And the game went on.
- Jamie F. Nugent
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 8:09 AM UTC
The things we take for granted,
a gunshot away from being gone.
Dec 15, 2012
Dec 15, 2012 at 1:12 AM UTC
Soul like a Gunshot Wound
Take out the bullet soon
Or leave it hurting
Let it become part of you
A pain that's burning
Eating your soul for years
While you are learning
To deal with the pain that grew
To become all of your fears
It'll hurt so bad later
You will bust out in tears
To take out the bullet
That became your savior
As you worship the scars
On your skin that cater
To the pain that stayed here
With the bullet
In your Soul like a Gunshot Wound
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 5:26 AM UTC
Hanging on the wall, next to my bed post,
A friend of the forest looks surprised, most.
Oh dear, she did not hear the gunshot near,
Nor tree nor hill nor her fawn shed a tear.
Over there, the finest hair of the hare,
Cute and fluffy hopping into my stew.
It's seat is sweet and hard to beat I swear,
Though his hide is gamey and tough to chew.
A sow, a cow is how I eat for now,
I feast on the beasts with the finest meats.
Fresh flesh on my breath, fresh blood on my brow,
Slaughtered, like their daughters; fair market treats.
I feel nothing for these creatures I hunt.
Would you rather feast on the yeast they shunt?
Sep 22, 2018
Sep 22, 2018 at 12:48 AM UTC
[pills rattling]
[water running]
[muffled voices on television]
[exhales slowly]
[ominous music]
[breathing unsteadily]
[melancholy orchestral music]
[door opens]
[gunshot echoes]
[demonic orchestral music]
Mar 26, 2014
Mar 26, 2014 at 3:17 PM UTC
Tired of the fight
Fed up with the pain
No reason to live left in sight
I just don't want to go insane
All I want is to go to sleep
To never wake up with the next days dawn
Maybe with the gun to my head
I will finally get to stay asleep
With these Gunshot Eyes
Sep 3, 2022
Sep 3, 2022 at 11:41 AM UTC