"gurgling" poems
there's a fisherman down by the sea
sitting on the wharf
watching the sun sink into the western sky
a frown frames his house
he looks out the window
at his pole, gear
and especially that of his net
emptiness
metaphors that weigh on him
uprooting his garden
a garden of no delight
one lonely row of forget me not
and regret
all wilting
his foundation
lost
never found or realized
he pauses
runs his hand over his pole
like a belt without any notches
his grip slipping into the abyss
as the last of the orange
sinks
bleeds also
at where the sea meets the sky
where his day slowly turns to night
somewhere out there he sees his image
in nature's mirror
at his crossroads
for deeply
and some may say shallowly
he looks onto the sea one last time
and he means what he says
and throws his fishing gear in
tears welling in his eye
as he watches his teddybear sink
lips gurgling
seemingly asking why
... why
he answers back
there were no fish or bites
in his lonely sea
or wind at his back
... there
his window opens wider
the sea not singing or dancing
he sees the ambient light
correlations
... here
Logan Robertson
7/06/2018
Jul 6, 2018
Jul 6, 2018 at 8:20 PM UTC
Time is of the sentence, while
verbs reveal their intents
for adjective nouns (pro or no
comment) quickly in vents
meant for air, but coarseness
courses through upturned grates
shredding of courses into no ways
to go from here to home,
awaiting infinitely fine moments
caressed along necks of silken
skin within the wear of stretched out
glances left lingering still
in compassionate ponds rippling
soft warm smiles lazily by
the melting cares of the world
golden in luxuriously wrapped light
playing across the surface & through-
out into emerald encrusted irises
to cast love's shadow over
swamps of fear gurgling neuro-
toxic diatribes against plu-
perfect pasts & future
imprefects presented in a case to
Your Honor's (the jury) out of bounds
dissolved with ear ration-
al solutions mixed & stirred
thoroughly throughout,
without spilling too
much.
Feb 23, 2012
Feb 23, 2012 at 2:35 AM UTC
On the bank of a rushing brook
I sat for hours watching its course.
Peered into the clear gurgling mass
That cascaded down from a mountainous source
Like a slithering snake, it slinks and slips
It babbles downhill night and day
Rolling and gliding through plains and dales
It winds its way to the wider bay.
Dipping my fingers in its icy chill
How my hand got repelled as from a shock!
In its ripples stirred by the kissing breeze,
I saw trees, clouds and the jutting rock-
All floating in queer, fanciful shapes,
Shuddering, trembling and standing still
And the fishes leaving zigzag trails,
Swishing and swimming in the winding rill.
As I quietly watched her speedy flight
With her ***** rising in mournful heaves,
In my ears fell her whispering soft
Orchestrated by the rustle of quivering leaves
I hardly knew the time speeding by
Nor noticed the birds’ homeward flight
Or the Sun moving to the west end side
And the Sky reddening at his sight
As the brook thus continued her headlong ride
To be mingled finally with the ocean wide
I walked, brooding over man’s relentless stride
To be merged eventually with the Cosmic Guide.
May 24, 2017
May 24, 2017 at 9:10 AM UTC
"So the pen is mightier? who'da'thunk'it."
He said to the bleeding man tied down
to a messed, stained, bed.
The bound man figured,
even though he just got
to an LA plagued
by criminals, killers, and copy-cats,
that he wasn't getting out of here whole,
finally.
Holding a pen knife,
red-faced and sweating,
was his captor.
It had been a struggle
to awake and realize
who stood before him:
Quill.
The exact killer he'd been looking for.
He had heard about him in the Halo Herald,
An LA pun, it's not very popular,
but he liked the funny section.
"Are you just going to stand there?"
The bound man says, eagerly,
"Hey bud, you're the hanged man,
I'll do the talking."
"It's about time!"
"huh?"
"I'd been waiting.
heard you'd be at that
open mic. Knew you liked
the mealy type."
"Shuddup or I'll write you off."
Quill runs his pen knife over the bound man's right cheek.
"Stings a little.
Usually, I start with a rufie
and emotional damage.
But it looks like you
want to cut to the chase.
I'm a man of a similar mind.
spirit.
problem."
"Nobody's like me dude."
The bound man locks eyes with Quill.
"What're your trophies? huh?
I read you like to drain your victims,
cook'em dry.
don't you use their blood and powdered remains as ink?
Short stories or something?"
"Oh, an avid reader?! it's your lucky day:
you get to be part of the collection!"
The lamp nearby tumbles
to the floor as Quill lunges,
ready to ****
"Wait! Don't you want to know who I am!"
"Not really."
"I'm a ser-"
The sentence is finished by
nothing but the sound of blood
and air
gurgling
into places it was never meant to be
as Quill's blade passes through flesh.
"Pfft, what, you think you're special?"
Quill saunters over to the sink.
"I'd hate to waste ink.
but there'll be more.
there's always more.
isn't that right, Celine."
he says to no one
and stands there with a smirk
as if listening to her.
Oct 15, 2022
Oct 15, 2022 at 2:22 AM UTC
for Nick and Kaitie
1.
Yesterday, right when our call got dropped,
I was going to tell you something about marriage.
I was going to tell you something gnomic,
a maxim worth getting engraved.
I've since forgotten,
but I believe it was akin to saying that, like Truth,
marriage is impossible to define in verbal space.
So, I guess I'm glad I forgot. The words
would've seemed either too hastily conceived for their subject matter
or else weightless, enigmatic – without impact.
I think it was Auden who whined, “Marriage is rarely bliss,”
though he lightened the phrase by encapsulating it in the context of modern physics –
namely, at least it has the ability to take place,
and that should be enough to bring bliss equal to Buddha’s Emptiness.
So, I'm happy our call got
dropped,
for the dial tone was
the pithiest aphorism on marriage any sentient life could've produced.
The key word is “produced.”
2.
This is what marriage is not:
Socrates gurgling hemlock
on his dusty prison cot,
giggling as he glimpsed a dikast’s deformed ****
Nietzsche tenured for philology
at Basel; Nietzsche feverishly etching
Fick diese scheiße! on a Jena clinic's wall; biology
predetermining the team for which he was pitching;
a poem; a hotdog; *******
a discharged Kalashnikov
engendering generational pain
somewhere in Saratov
circa 1942;
this is what marriage is not:
hatred, jealousy, ballyhoo,
obsessive yearnings for a yacht;
this is what marriage is not:
anything one pair of hands has wrought.
August 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 8:29 PM UTC
The cave opens it's great crumbling maw,
streaks of light fall on the sparse green blades,
which dot the floor,
mushrooms push forth from the ground,
like fingers reaching to air,
the gurgling of a stream,
dances along a riverbed path,
paradise enclosed,
by earthen walls and canopy,
the glen lit by diffused and dappled sun.
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 10:13 AM UTC
and today
on this day of
your birth
I am ******
down into
the rhythms
of all that
we have been
until this moment
the biting rawness
of new ebbs
the saddened veins
that vibrate
like used, worn
guitar strings
the curve of
your fingers
that once played
upon my skin
your weighted down aura
that I can no longer penetrate
and buoy up
and here I stand
all glowing light spirals
my head whirring
in mystic opulence
my gaze pulled to
the reverence of stars
my purity of river
in a swoosh
around my waist
that gurgling clarity
of liquid
pooling me in sacred
cleansing
that I must now take into
another rush
of estuary
and as I raise my arms
to the heavens
I almost fade
into the floodlights
of time
and my tears
push through
my skin
like the clear
jewels
of
salvation
Jan 13, 2017
Jan 13, 2017 at 2:54 AM UTC
The sky, black as the eyes that stare at it.
Star-studded and as seamless as new programming.
I look down, the streets molested by fluorescent splotches --
red ribbons of memory evaporate from the lights of motorcycles,
gurgling by.
A homeless, pregnant woman, in a bar, once told me,
"Forgiveness is letting a prisoner free, then finding out that you were the prisoner."
The sunset looks like an explosion of emotions
no one understands, yet.
The smudges on her lips
look like the bruises of an orphan apple.
Oct 1, 2015
Oct 1, 2015 at 11:37 PM UTC
Budging the sluggard ripples of the Somme,
A barge round old Cérisy slowly slewed.
Softly her engines down the current *******
And chuckled softly with contented hum,
Till fairy tinklings struck their croonings dumb.
The waters rumpling at the stern subdued;
The lock-gate took her bulging amplitude;
Gently from out the gurgling lock she swum.
One reading by that calm bank shaded eyes
To watch her lessening westward quietly.
Then, as she neared the bend, her funnel screamed.
And that long lamentation made him wise
How unto Avalon, in agony,
Kings passed in the dark barge, which Merlin dreamed.
4.3k
"Don't be afraid,"
My mama said.
Gurgling water,
my mind went to wonder,
how would like,
if we had no daylight.
Would the sun
Shine in a different color?
Or will the world just become duller?
Or; would the sun turn to none?
But I guess,
That's too bad.
Because nevertheless,
The sun..
Is still rad.
y.m
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 9:54 PM UTC
Spring comes
as grasses leap forth
and emerald hues are added to the landscape,
with wildflowers peeking up from the
dewy roadside.
The world smells
fresh like worms and earth,
while birds drift down to finish last year’s
seeds.
Yellow rain boots hop
out of shelves and into the puddles,
while mud gathers and plays in the road,
gurgling with mirth at passers by.
The badminton net is resurrected,
regally looming over the lawn,
as the swings squeak joyfully in the breeze.
The fireplace gives a sooty yawn
and falls to sleep.
And in the kitchen, fiddleheads unfurl upon
a hot pan
as the old and sour scent of the earth
settles upon our plates,
spring steps lightly
onto the world.
~Yuka Oiwa
May 6, 2008
Jul 23, 2012
Jul 23, 2012 at 7:38 PM UTC
A breadcrumb I am - the morsel of my old dough,
a piece of chewed bread rotten, missed near a toe,
shredded by the sons of righteousness and “normality”,
entombed I am under the carpet to fulfil “morality”.
Mum added the yeast for me to grow, as well as flour,
Hoping my crust would golden as a vivid live flower,
She sprinkled little salt into me, to know the grimes,
Sugar too, for life brings out the salt to eyes, at times.
Dad poured the water, to soften toughness uncalled,
For man is kind too, not merely clay masked, walled -
And above all, they added affection and compassion,
They wanted me to satisfy mineself, not one’s ration.
Into the oven, 9 minutes, under fire: I show colors,
The warmth turned the heart warm for all others;
I am left to rest, to harden the shell and eternal body,
To be perfect as ma and pa wish: not adverse, shoddy.
But the stale, unpuffed, unfresh bread of this world,
covets but loathes what is good and not yet twirled,
It wishes for me to inhibit mold and evict dignity,
Mais allez, étrange moi, expose me not to malignity.
The least of their gurgling sounds puncture heads,
And the weakest of their advice the spirit dreads;
The making of me is the capacity of mine flexes,
Your ingredients suit not me, mortals and sexes.
Days yearn for you, not this battle of complexes:
You, mine old dough who suddenly “complex” is,
My parents baked me on low heat nice and gentle,
And they sear me with words not for me, mental!
Know you: Pita, Kmajj, Brioche, Shrak, or Baguette,
Bread is bread, could be different, but it is no threat.
Jan 18, 2023
Jan 18, 2023 at 9:27 AM UTC
It is a violent love affair
I have with things
I cannot share
A ****** bout of grim despair,
A scar, a wound
That's always there
They cannot see the beauty
In the effigy ashes
I use to paint my world
It is an absecence of understanding
That they possess
A whispered scream,
a gentle stress
A breath is a dream
a gurgling
Blood quenched scheme
A quest,
It would seem
To uncover the meaning
In a thousand crumbling suns
Firing warped waves
Of possibility
Until you faint
From lack of ecstasy
You'll never know the truth
In my plea
Unless you take the time
To drown in my sea.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 9:59 PM UTC
There's a stream,
splashing and gurgling,
sending up in the air a single bead of water,
sun beams giving a lightbulb's twinkle
and inside lying fragments of it's history,
I wonder if it has a tomorrow
As I daydream about it's mysteries;
The path down the stream,
taken within the flow
with other waters,
weaves,
in and out of the gills of a baby minnow,
over and through smoothed rocks,
Seeping from a canal
racing through locks,
drifting down straights with no bends
Left from the **** of a stag weekend,
And before that a can of cider,
and before that a tube in a mechanical assembly line,
from a water tap,
that came from a reservoir,
Which fell from clouds above it's perimeter,
and before that splashed from ocean froth,
lifted up in a collision of waves like a table cloth
after being taken on the hull of a speed boat
carrying ******* from a river,
where it had once briefly been on a paddle
from a man fishing to make his living.
And further up the river where it divides into streams and then nothing,
and then famine,
moist ground from tears,
It had been someone suffering.
A million lives
entwined in a drop of water,
each one a coincidence,
coinciding just by chance
the spectrum of it's experience of us is wide,
and with each and every drop the water empathised,
Tears at a wedding,
At a funeral,
Christmas spirit in mulled wine,
A plume of sea water from the belly of a jellyfish,
Pushed forward through it's life,
A trillion drops of water helping to make gravity decide
How high or low to go to make the tide,
Unified in direction
helped by the sun's and the moon's light,
Does it take the love of one direction (not the band)
to be unified?
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 8:35 PM UTC
Imagine waking up on a filthy, uneven floor -
light coming solely through the flimsy wooden wall.
Imagine trudging through the mud barefoot -
mud merged with remnants of God knows who.
Imagine breathing in thick layers of sooty dust -
the colors sullen, lifeless and dull.
Imagine smelling the scent of faeces and decay,
of diseases and of death every single day.
Imagine your belly gurgling with hunger and distraught,
sniffing glue - the only way to delude.
Imagine walking on rickety bridges -
a step amiss and drown you will in these murky watery ditches.
Imagine wearing the same old rags - all tattered and torn,
being beaten and battered, no rights of which to call your own.
Imagine having silly daydreams of going to school
but there's not a penny to spare - not even for a worn-out book.
But alas, imagine no more for such children exist,
with ghosts clouding their starry dreams
And death hanging heavy upon their tiny, little feet.
Sep 23, 2016
Sep 23, 2016 at 4:49 AM UTC
I know
That in some unknown woods
I will find my long lost footsteps,
And in the ruins of a forgotten castle, my dreams
My song, in the gurgling waters of a hidden stream
And my poetry, in the rustling leaves of a ****** forest
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 3:20 PM UTC
The shrill wake-up call of a rooster
Even before the crack of dawn.
The faint cawing of crows
to let the world know
it’s time to leave Slumber land.
The flapping of wings in unison
before flying away early to catch a worm.
The desperate call of a baby squirrel
lost somewhere and seeking its mother.
The cooing of pigeons on the roof
reminding you to pause and
listen to the Sounds of Nature.
The rumbling sound of thunder in the distance
heralding a heavy downpour or two
soon to be followed by the fierce rain
giving respite to the parched earth.
The rhythmic pitter-patter of raindrops
falling on the corrugated tin roof.
The whistling of the wild wind
on a cold, stormy day.
The first cry of a new-born
announcing its sojourn
from the womb to the world outside.
The gurgling of the waterfall
rushing to mingle with the river.
The rustling of colorful autumn leaves in the park
trampled upon by children running around.
Then the sounds of silence at night
interspersed with the sounds of crickets and frogs
and the sound of barking dogs at a distance
coaxing you to retire and
wake up to yet another beautiful dawn
to listen to the Sounds of Nature.
Gita Ashok
9/10/2010, 11 am
________________________________________
Oct 8, 2010
Oct 8, 2010 at 9:41 PM UTC
I don't know why I write poetry
all I know is that writing poetry makes me rich
enjoying -- not possessing
the ever-expanding universe
without fear of inflation
in the sky --
white clouds
singing larks
whispering wind
the tender moon and twinkling stars
on the ground--
mountains hills plains gullies
lush green red brown yellow
oceans streams lakes ponds
splashing gurgling burbling
the blooming flowers
the vacillating leaves
children's innocent laughter
cats dogs chickens ducks birds
jumping chasing croaking singing
all are parts of my life's fortune
of course, there too are
ferocious dark clouds
harrying eagles
howling storms
withering flowers
roaring guns
and piercing screams
the shadows that lend dimension
to poetry and life
In fact, I don't write poetry
poetry writes me
Jun 17, 2017
Jun 17, 2017 at 3:51 PM UTC
In plain sight, the Peacocks ply their wearisome
Colours. Awkwardly swaying, pompously preening,
They cry to be seen, their voices are gurgling
And gawking. The direction of wind is their vane.
Overhead, in the secret sky fleet wings are truth.
In the sun the searing Falcon is seeing all;
His talons turn and steal away, they are mad,
Playful fingers— they will have their say.
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 12:10 PM UTC
I spent three days in a daze two years ago, and three days lost again this year. I woke up and forgot what it was like to have a heart; all around was silence and silence and silence. The type of silence that shoots straight into the very core of all you know, as if you are noise and the silence is life.
In those moments I wasn't a soul, but an ocean.
This is what happens when a human body transitions into the sea, you see. It is drowning and suffocation, and no amount of screaming produces sound. There are no cries, only the murky crash of waves and the gurgling of sea foam. It is breathless crying, sorrow and endless emptiness, as if the entirety of the universe condensed itself into the tiny space between your rib-cage, and the stars burnt out. It is as if all the stars burnt out and their deaths caused the same death in you. The same sorrow, the same pain, the same loss - only magnified.
The coral reefs are stained black, and the sand is ash. The spaces where your lungs once were are now monuments to things you have lost. There are relics in places where there should be blood, and there is death in places where life once was. And as you feel this, you know it is inescapable. You cannot swim, only sink. Your heart is tar, an anchor sinking into the depths, until you become the sea floor.
-
"Is he really worth loving with all this pain?"
"Always."
(A.H.Z)
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 5:51 AM UTC
I continued the gentle climb
passed building, birdbath, “bathtub Mary”
and was stopped by the sound--
Endless mission of the river
as she made her way over the rocks of early summer.
I knew I'd found our home
At the top of the stairs
a wooden deck off second floor
Up the fourteen stairs to our new door
I could see her now fully
gleaming
beyond the red oaks and wild cherry
framed unspeakable
by greens
and fragrance of the multiflora rose
just coming into bloom
I could go on-- but there are so few words that fit
the sound of a river so content
She whispered to me between her gurgling song
“Hush....”
Jun 6, 2018
Jun 6, 2018 at 9:19 PM UTC
(Act 1)
As I lay there among the trees and the shrubbery
Spread before me were fields of gold
Weeds, flowers and twigs tickle my face
And above me an azure sky
Shining upon me by some heavenly divinity
Light streams through gaps in clouds
The sun beyond is impenetrable, a fortress of energy, and the clouds seem in awe
For miles visible, grass twinkles with morning dew,
So that I see flashes of reflection when I stare out across the horizon
A chorus of starry wonder brought to this ground;
When I try hard, I can calm the pulses of light in my eyes.
The sea of glittering droplets seems to fade,
But is never out of reach of my concentration.
And I perceive rolling mists
Hills that seem to swim to and fro and warp in and out of the skyline,
And the wind silently brushes the grass,
Gently moving the blades in a swaying rhythm
Like the rhythm of my heart beating, yet time stands still
And I can only absorb the pinks, greens and blues.
All the gold, seeming like visions of eternity
Momentarily I think all is boundless
My transient thoughts alone may speak a thousand stagnant words,
But that indescribable epiphany brought a river of speech and thought,
With which I felt I could transcend the inhibitions and degradations that afflicted my mind,
Soar above fields marked by fences and enclosed by vision and space
As if I were to find a boundless pattern, to speak aloud words of wisdom,
That I had been in this world for longer than that flash of inspiration that had brought me here.
I am, and therefore I think about what I am.
With all the force of crashing mountain-tops,
Or the bolt of lightning splitting the air
I am emancipated, as I ascend, beyond the negligent frontier of chaos
Below me that gurgling pit of utter curdling mire,
That entrenched the soul in fear,
And its walls reached and leaned, unassailable, around me
And now in golden fields, no restrictions placed on thought or speech,
Logic or discourse still grip or rule me.
Dec 2, 2012
Dec 2, 2012 at 9:09 PM UTC
The closet in the dim isolated room
Stores away so many of my bones
That store too many secrets for the
Weak hearted,
So each week I’m parted from demons
That are a part of too much of me.
But I can never see the difference, my two sides won’t show it.
It does so little to comfort me; what have I become?
Am I the walking dead and a watcher of the funeral of my smiles,
Whose continuous lives and illness discomfort and confuse all?
Am I fast asleep when dreams of a peaceful life take over?
Because I awake to find that I’m too stripped back and empty to find anything to give,
A signal I care, or knowing something has shifted
A tectonic plate in my brain,
Erupting the series of footsteps to the door
Of the insane, knocking furiously enough to break it.
The desperate pull of the veil over my mind
Disguises it as curtains for a show, a grand act.
I am the star of the leading role, too centred, too vain,
Perfect to match the unmatched mess I feel every day.
The genius illusion is that am I really acting?
Even I do not know.
The stage is my war zone; no man’s land,
Because I am obviously not human,
And I cannot let anyone else in.
It's bad comedy of a pathetic attempt at drama
For anyone willing to tolerate my oh so called woes.
I choke on the mixture of laughter and tears
I collect in a cracking overflowing jar and drink,
Getting intoxicated on my pity, and hazy on the self-mocking,
Gurgling manipulations of sharing the side dish
But also shoving away any takers.
I am greedy - I want it all to myself.
And to myself it shall remain.
I buy all the tickets and keep them to remind myself
How my dim isolated room shrinks with each entry,
How I refuse to give out any more keys.
Maybe the walking dead is what I am;
Surely life is not this lightless when it is lived.
At least I hope not.
May 29, 2016
May 29, 2016 at 11:09 AM UTC
As soon as I heard the rumble of my husbands car
fade into the distance,
I put down my Bible, stepping out of bed.
I smoothed out the covers, like always.
because I'm not one to leaves things messy
because cleanliness is close to Godliness,
that’s what they say.
I fiddled with the faucet
testing the water on my hands.
The kids don’t like it too warm.
I left the door open
so I could hear the faucet running
all the way down the hall.
I opened the bedroom door
and squinted as I flicked a switch.
Let there be light!
Three sleepy faces peeked out at me
from underneath their blankets.
Such precious eyes looked up at me.
Poor things,
Daddy had just put them to bed.
They yawned and blinked their shiny eyes
and we all held hands as we walked down the hall.
They told me
Mommy, Mommy, it’s not bathtime.
I answered,
No, it’s not bathtime, it’s time to go.
They asked and asked,
but I just smiled down at them.
What curious little miracles!
The boys went first.
I placed one hand on each of their heads,
my fingers in cornsilk hair.
Their confused wailing
bounced off of the tile walls.
I silenced them with shushing sounds.
I told them don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid, Mommy’s got you.
Mommy won’t let go.
Mommy won’t ever let go.
I smiled at their tiny, twitching hands
and laughed along with their gurgling voices.
I wish they wouldn’t have splashed so much.
That’s just like the boys;
they were always making trouble.
How inconsiderate of them
to leave less water for their sister!
I laid the boys down to rest
and gave each one a kiss
on their clammy foreheads.
They were side by side on Earth,
now side by side in Heaven.
I lined them up next to each other
Like sweet little packages.
Little packages sent up to God.
I left my princess to float.
She just looked so pretty I couldn’t move her.
I could see her so clearly
once the splashing had stopped
and the water settled.
She was so beautiful
with her hair swaying
just beneath the surface.
My perfect angel.
I left her to float
like Moses on the River Jordan.
With my little cherubs put to rest,
I return now to my Bible,
but this time it’s not for reading.
I place it in the oven
and lay my head on it
like a tiny sacred pillow.
So that I can rest too.
and I'm not afraid
because it's time to go.
Jun 20, 2015
Jun 20, 2015 at 1:46 PM UTC