"guttered" poems
There’s a scurrying sound of something, burrowing,
Down in the depths of the dungeons, hurrying,
Skittering, pittering-pattering, scattering
When there’s a footstep, hear them chattering:
‘Here come the lords, and here comes the vassal,
Tripping their way through Cockroach Castle.’
Here come the ladies, all in their finery
Tripping and sipping the wine from the winery,
Trailing their silks, their satins and bustling,
Up in the ballroom, while the rustling
Army beneath the sounds of their razzle
Is down in the depths of Cockroach Castle.
Spilling their millions up in the glooming
Out from the flagstones, terror is looming,
Up on the awnings, hung from the ceiling
Under the swish of the skirts they’re stealing,
Dropping in hair, and burrowing faster,
Cockroach Castle is set for disaster.
Suddenly all of the room is screaming
Flapping of hands, the roaches are teeming,
Myriad hordes in the Carbonara,
Candles are tipped from the candelabra,
Choking smoke from the candles guttered,
Flames leap up from the ones that stuttered.
Clothing and flags and the awnings razing
Silks and satins flare up, and blazing,
Roaches in eyes and ears, they’re rasping
Clogging their throats, to leave them gasping,
There isn’t a lady or lord, or vassal
To come out alive from Cockroach Castle!
David Lewis Paget
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 1:08 PM UTC
Ears pressed cool against
glass tables and vinyl flooring
words score high drained slowly
slow like wasps caught in guttered draining
not like velvet names etched in casing, but weathered like bricked and beaten graffiti –
Waning like wax always melting
Tools: spelling and grammar – uncheck
Don’t fret too many gerunds grounding air suffocating hearing between the lines that past lower truths out straight in dirt and stinky face: eyes drawn with pensive staring
lines drawn global remains of words unused: boycott form because it isn’t daring.
Adopt sonar because it traces the smokestack between eaves drop
and scrap metal hearing like thorns prickled cut by cleaver.
Clink, clink, clank.
Unlatch cellar doors of images fixed in meaning: glances slanted
heads poked out behind legs enchanting ink under eyelids.
Clank, click, click.
Wishing: Sunday morning came to rest and the cat perched rest without the windowsill and the space between my legs lost meaning.
Forgetting: Painted houses haunting furniture misplaced, training lessons in memory fading.
Dreaming: Sounds dipped in vegetable oil, Van Morrison in teething states caring.
Still lost without my last breathe wondering…
Mar 2, 2011
Mar 2, 2011 at 1:31 PM UTC
Covered feet on black clicking the time of walking stride
The fume of frozen gas sticking to my throat
The late winter leaves having stuck to guttered sidelines
Their huddled swaddled backs burdened with the soft shell of academia
I missed this place
As much as it is a sign of failure it also holds triumph
Where I found my mind when I thought the world
Was defined by a god long dead
That I was lost in a sea of faces
Who prayed, believed and spread faith
Like a soothing blanket
Their thoughts where not troubled
They didn't not question
They had hope
As false as I believed it to be
Even now as I watch them
Flocking to bus stop shelter
How they hold a happiness beneath their chilled skin
Glowing with some assurance I feel I'll never have
But I'm pushing for that feeling
That place to belong
Somewhere between down to earth and too consumed with my study
But not quite there enough to fall into that group
That speaks academics but knows when to let go
But I can't let go
When it is a matter to the existence of even having a soul
Why do others not feel this need to know what constitutes their own being
Why do I scream out silently to persons whom I had not hoped to know
For we all know that faces on the web are less real than those we see
Everyday
Every moment waiting for that moment they would reach out and cure the ache of loss
They slow the footfall pavement
When passing the stop
Hearing the lively chatter
The silly matters that don't haunt an old soul not looking trouble
As if their frequency vibrates on a different level
Fm to my Am
Where the genuine character of my self turns back on itself
And I become the shy
Confused not knowing how to approach them
So instead of humiliate I walk by
Singing my oldies and rhyming my rhyme
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 12:29 PM UTC
They say that music uses your whole brain,
Lights it up like phosphorescence.
For a moment you're either brilliant or insane,
Distilled from all your pain right to the essence.
Ever felt the cut of a cold winter day?
So frigid that it's crystal clear like a frozen pond.
Ever wish your every feeling far away
And all your thoughts and longings dead and gone?
I woke up on a day like that, naive,
And felt the frozen sun reach through my window,
Ready in my ignorance to believe
That only changing seasons abruptly go.
As the sun had set in rings of red
And bled across the silent snow to darkness,
As the bruising blues of brutal nighttime spread
And shimmered shadows over all the rest,
The burning soul behind sad eyes, it choked and guttered,
Flickering like a candle in the rain.
And battered and abused, a heartbeat stuttered,
Shuttered in a mind unwilling to explain.
A scalding form among the frost blooming like flowers,
Silent and arrayed in lacy snow,
Passed away the last of all her hours,
Numb, full of surrender and alone.
As I'd layed me down that night to rest,
I had a sudden painful urge to pray.
Didn't know quite how- I had to guess.
But I knelt, puzzled, to do it anyway.
They say that when you watch a ballerina dance
Your body tenses like you're dancing too.
I pity those who never spare a glance,
For it fades quickly as all other beauties do.
I marveled tears upon my pale cheeks as I spoke,
And we both shut our eyes at once to dreams.
But in the cold sun only one of us awoke,
And shook off death in wispy silver beams.
You never know what you have done by living here
Until you stumble into the void of what you've been.
On an ice cold silent night with Christmas near,
She closed her eyes forever and I never lived again.
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 4:52 PM UTC
*your hate my friend
rings more true
than your concern
ever did
lately your
devious
cunning and
withdrawn
darkness
of desire
and lust
bursts
enveloping
you in
lurid
colours
gliding
away from
your tricksy
innards
mimicked,
withdrawn,
bulbous,
your guttered
hatred and
ignorance so
pronounced
nothing
could have
been more
stark
but this
clear, dire,
directed
detest
my friend*
Sep 22, 2016
Sep 22, 2016 at 7:03 AM UTC
Remark, pageant, how well this worn Cartesian speaks silence instead of wit.
Crucify maybe and often; singsong prattle succumbs him you.
Torturified lamb’s breath, teensy sighs and sweep of tentacled agog garners attention and wildfire – hop and home to not attend, to see.
Brandish magma wake and crystal cleanse re-barb, vicious cycle in heat patterned pro-guiro neural network, neat, loud for senses laden.
Up them and through them.
Scent the seeks you stones in barb, a fence in white a guttered prose, slitherentine.
Stately made his gatekeep - defend you. Harbor outwards with willpower nonchalant.
Pardon his with provocations, decadent don’t they know. (You know you, don’t they?)
And then.
Feb 20, 2017
Feb 20, 2017 at 4:43 PM UTC
The towering candles of the monk’s studious hours
Now guttered to an old head on the pillowing smoke.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin bloated on the lawn
And the rat tails from his eye sockets engorged.
War is the end of all lore,
The bare abdomen of the ****** Mary gutted for her son,
War is a prostitute’s mouldering arms,
The infidel to love, the mutilator of colors,
War is the broken feast of the heart,
Bones picked clean.
Jul 13, 2024
Jul 13, 2024 at 10:35 PM UTC
*your hate my friend
rings more true
than your concern
ever did
lately your
devious
cunning and
withdrawn
darkness
of desire
and lust
bursts
enveloping
you in
lurid
colours
gliding
away from
your tricksy
innards
mimicked,
withdrawn,
bulbous,
your guttered
hatred and
ignorance so
pronounced
nothing
could have
been more
stark
but this
clear, dire,
directed
detest
my friend
your hate my friend
make murky islands,
rake dead leaves,
but make not you
remember the moment
you lost yourself, from
quiet wisdom to animal
stench, unquenchable
your hate my friend
defeated you and
you need no more
defeating within
your hate my friend*
Oct 13, 2016
Oct 13, 2016 at 5:12 PM UTC
.
Sadness looms every dark corner,
spun of worried cobwebs
Threaded feelings of despair
collecting minute particles,
captured by a sticky allure,
woven in the frantic fear
that encases my mind
Stooped in a bleak alleyway
neath dripped graffiti horror
My accelerated breath burns
in exhaled delusions
amidst dumpster definitions
plaguing the infestation
of my guttered heart
Aug 3, 2016
Aug 3, 2016 at 4:14 PM UTC
hands all over you before me before us before this
it's just an unplanned demand, charting all over my card
burning desire, I'm burning with my desire
I was already a poet by predilection, you took a penchant for my chanting words
how can you say that when I'm still under the shadows?
without lips and guttered lungs - I'm just a hopeless snow
(I'm melting - demanding)
I know without colours you could still feel the heat
shallow of me to think you need the torch to find me in the dark
but I've been trying to picture you in my head,
don't you want to draw me too?
Jun 16, 2017
Jun 16, 2017 at 5:04 AM UTC
What can be harder than metal or bone?'
She asked, ivory champing on the bit
And she spoke with iron, stoking,
Poking the fire.
'Fire.'
My hearth stuttered in protest, but
By blackened, guttered tongues
I could not speak
And her belief was left untouched.
There's charcoal in my breath
My lungs clutch fiery coals
She knew, she told me so
And iron only felt the touch of my chest
She stoked the flames
And from between my cagèd ribs I coughed
She held out her hand
And the yellow licked her palm, bristling
She laughed.
'What's harder than metal or bone?' she mused
And poked my chest some more.
'Fire.'
Jul 3, 2016
Jul 3, 2016 at 2:51 PM UTC
Dark melodies, haunting,
caress lost souls
within a melancholy vacuum.
Strength and fragility combine
with minor harmony
to ease minds less troubled.
This gift of yourself,
writhing, dark longing,
as you ache for decay.
Beauty all but forgotten
by the pens that brought your demise
as they pick at your bones
re-running self destruction
in front page spectaculars.
Lone death is not your legacy,
a symptom of the silence you craved,
now unending.
Seattle's lights dimmed in your wake
it's brightest flame guttered,
reviled in tabloid taunts and tales of lonely rooms.
Still you walk in the halls of the jaded,
weaving life between scars
a saviour to the unsaved,
our hearts desires brandished
within passions voice, eternal.
*"My gift of self is ***** my privacy is raked
And yet I find, yet I find repeating in my head,
If I can't be my own, I'd feel better dead"*
Jun 29, 2014
Jun 29, 2014 at 5:58 AM UTC
The spilled ink stained
All over the circular walls in the halls
Of my guttered mind
Reaching into the crevices
Of my brain, I strain
To see the colors
Indistinguishable to my eyes
I've become blind
Nothing is clear anymore
The mixture muddied and incoherent
I'm drowning in the thickness of it all
Oct 28, 2016
Oct 28, 2016 at 6:20 PM UTC
I’ve been dipping my toes
into his daydream.
The one where silhouettes
dance across the walls,
and unzipped dresses leak off shoulders
like guttered water finding its way
to the soil after a downpour.
The floorboards become puddled silk,
and I realize I wouldn’t mind drowning
as long as it’s in his endless stream of lust.
May 19, 2019
May 19, 2019 at 8:31 AM UTC
The forms of lions reported were false.
It was a body of men with no heads.
They were no one, but everyone was it.
A cannibalistic **** of Self.
Gaping yaws with no faces to give word,
Unable to hear their own glottal calls,
Guttered incoherence for none to see.
Their fire and power were unlike those stored
In our hundred buried years of Mundis.
Unbound viscera – black, boiled, and souring:
Replaceable parts via war and tea;
Served with flesh overdeveloped to taste;
Served to slouching tongues and beastly fingers
By those for whom labor is cause and curse.
Adrenaline and other chemicals
Oiling their blood, charging minds, taxing nerves,
Traumatically driving their will to serve
Their bottom-toothed anathematic maws.
Those best who remained born of conviction
Died with the worst unexceptionally.
We now ask not what is coming for us,
But how long we will allow it to feed.
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 9:24 PM UTC
There used to be a fire,
that burned inside of me.
I never had to tend it,
it had always just burned free.
It roared so fiercely,
and burned so ******* bright.
It kept me moving forward,
and broke the darkness with its light.
Then something started changing,
and the light began to dim.
The flames began to lessen,
and they never grew again.
Every day that passed,
the fire was less and less.
And the darkness creeped in,
making my direction a guess.
Then one day it flickered,
guttered, and died.
The darkness consumed me,
and I grew cold inside.
Now I just stumble,
trying to relight my flame.
But I can’t see where I’m going,
all this black looks the same.
I just need a spark,
to rekindle my soul.
And if I can’t find it,
then I’ll never be whole.
Sep 26, 2019
Sep 26, 2019 at 1:32 PM UTC
there was an empty seat
at the table tonight.
while the candles flickered
in the streetlights,
i shut my eyes
and wished you'd appear
right by my side.
i blew and the flame sputtered,
then guttered out.
but, when i looked up,
you were still
nowhere to be found.
i looked up to the stars
to try again, but spotted
your irises instead—
a vision hanging
in the heavens.
there was an empty seat
at the table tonight.
Apr 23, 2017
Apr 23, 2017 at 2:16 AM UTC
baby our love has gone cold
cold
cold
cold
so
so
cold
our love isn't as tepid
as it once used to be
our love has become
a wasteland of misery
our love vaporized
into the sky's grey pall
our love no more floats
on rhapsody's ball
baby our love has gone cold
cold
cold
cold
so
so
cold
our love crumbled
and broke apart
our love lies in the ruins
of my guttered heart
our love wasn't meant
to be a lasting meld
our love is now
an unattached weld
baby our love has gone cold
cold
cold
cold
so
so
cold
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 6:51 PM UTC
Shake off the yokes
that bring you to your knees
Find yourself a spark
and give it gasoline
Burn it up, burn it up
Burn it down, burn it down
Show us the face
you've hidden away so long
Smiling or not
your true face can't be wrong
Brighten up, brighten up
Bring us down, bring us down
Loved ones wilt
Friends and parents die
Soak up the love
and please don't blink your eyes
Soak it up, soak it up
Lay them down, lay them down
Candle guttered
and it's getting mighty cold
No turning around
when it's your time to go
Light it up, light it up
Fall on down, fall on down
Fall on down, fall on down
Fall on down, fall on down
Oct 24, 2020
Oct 24, 2020 at 5:35 PM UTC