"guttering" poems
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
3.6k
Tears from dusky lowered lids
crystallize and scintillate in the
flames of the guttering candles.
(Walk away, love, walk away!
Kiss my cheek and turn.-
A shattered heart beats, ****** in your breast.)
We love, and yet we return to our 'others'.
We pray we never hurt them. Pray we never break.
I cannot stop this love! I do not regret it. There!
I only hope that we hide it well enough that it not disturb the innocents...
because, we were innocents too, when it came crashing into our lives.
Bien! Non Regrets Rien. Sing the song, and Edith will sing with us. ...
Or Aznavour will. Or Lara Fabian, or Jacques Brel...
Sing on le chanteur et les chanteurs,
then come and weep with me.
Dec 19, 2011
Dec 19, 2011 at 5:31 AM UTC
I would not have a god come in
To shield me suddenly from sin,
And set my house of life to rights;
Nor angels with bright burning wings
Ordering my earthly thoughts and things;
Rather my own frail guttering lights
Wind blown and nearly beaten out;
Rather the terror of the nights
And long, sick groping after doubt;
Rather be lost than let my soul
Slip vaguely from my own control—
Of my own spirit let me be
In sole though feeble mastery.
2.7k
We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell
Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.
Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime,
Kept slush waist-high and rising hour by hour,
And choked the steps too thick with clay to climb.
What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men
Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,
If not their corpses...
There we herded from the blast
Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last,
Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles,
And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping
And sploshing in the flood, deluging muck -
The sentry's body; then his rifle, handles
Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.
We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined
'O sir, my eyes - I'm blind, - I'm blind, I'm blind!'
Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids
And said if he could see the least blurred light
He was not blind; in time he'd get all right.
'I can't' he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids',
Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there
In posting Next for duty, and sending a scout
To beg a stretcher somewhere, and flound'ring about
To other posts under the shrieking air.
* * *
Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,
And one who would have drowned himself for good, -
I try not to remember these things now.
Let dread hark back for one word only: how
Half-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps,
And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,
Renewed most horribly whenever crumps
Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath, -
Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
'I see your lights!' But ours had long died out.
2.5k
blood
blood patter and splash
leads us concrete toward
tracing back til the scene
i’ve flashing thoughts of the brutality
the violence that must of cussed
between persons
in fear fray and inebriation
down the steps
my four year old child and I go
the greasing bleed in bronze putters
growing and leadening
on stone labours
glowing citrus the refrigeration
of the underpass
‘flips the bird' at the summer blaze
grey dead coral bricks of urination
seasoned in deep beading now cold
the broke up weapon
candy slates of brittle teeth
glass / bottle / beer /brown
the neck its' hilt
and the main mud of the bleeding
the flies are the thing
that bothers my ‘little nipper’
usually a flapper of queries on repetition
no other queries are raised
just eager for the vibration
of train carriages gatling over our heads
i stopper any words i may have on the matter
he holds my hand with his hot hand
we progress under a port arms
procession of caged floodlights
and walled in by fresh graffiti
fingers dripping retching for the guttering
Dec 22, 2023
Dec 22, 2023 at 3:05 PM UTC
i must be the only one
who finds sparrows
amusing outside my window
filled with song,
the same in me trying to imitate
their song with a range of onomatopoeias
never written (thankfully, poets
who write sparrows' song, may you
be disgraced, chirp chirp,
beat-box that **** elsewhere, where
you're welcome by admirers),
the same in me laughing
at the kangaroo hops
unable to use both feet to walk
in the guttering of the carcass plateau of crows...
but there my laugh,
like the last whims of a pope when a robin presides
over the ritual outside the window on the sill...
i find pronouns unable to capture
timing, a class of words for standing still,
they just can't capture timing, they're space
orientated, a man of 70 will say the same
of a man aged 20 about a woman,
but both will be idiotic about the size of
her earrings concerning her promiscuity:
bigger the earring, the bigger the need to feed
her juiced up genitalia lips...
warm **** and cold mouth,
some say in reverse: getting ****** off
is like ice-cream being eaten...
and cold in reverse would give you circumcision
defined lawfully as **** a cold genital
assertion of womanhood will peel the skin
right off... ask for a cake you''ll be welcome
away from the bony **** of your hand's embrace...
perhaps marriage... and that cold mouth
that encompasses all hidden glaciers;
still, the **** is about sparrows in rain rain gutters
hopping along to the orchestra playing only
one tune that's ha ha ha.
all in all, when aroused, one hole warms
up the other cools down... the third?
don't know, don't care, apparently it's exhilarating,
trying to turn men onto all three
and away from homosexuality,
with the fourth (woman's ego) being missed...
could never equate that to a phallus and a hole...
i always felt ***** by that thing, the fourth dimension
once the **** was explored... it's all Dostoevsky after that...
everything is permitted, no deity exists,
i guess a the end is required of such a poem as this.
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 10:20 AM UTC
Eulogising was a challenge
under constant bombardment
from falling masonry.
But the gathered crowd deserved the effort.
There was Honest Bob,
whose cut-price bricks
had won the tender
and built the edifice behind us.
Slick **** the concrete king
fresh from an industrial tribunal
and ready to pay tribute.
Fat Larry, the glass magnate,
dodging the shrapnel
from his wind-shattered panes,
just like the rest of us.
I raised my voice
amidst the crash and crumble
to praise the architect.
There were those who had forgotten
the terrible designs
that had been *******
by her dogged determination,
Her clarity of vision
(here, I was interrupted
by three roof-tiles in succession,
smashing at my feet),
her strength of purpose
(nine bricks and a length of plastic guttering)
and her shining conviction.
But here, in the shadow of the teetering mass,
we could all acknowledge
her unforgettable legacy
with pride and gratitude.
Champagne, truffles,
and off we all went,
helicoptered to who knew where
happily leaving others
to clear up the mess.
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 5:14 AM UTC
Now hollow fires burn out to black,
And lights are guttering low:
Square your shoulders, lift your pack,
And leave your friends and go.
Oh never fear, man, nought's to dread,
Look not to left nor right:
In all the endless road you tread
There's nothing but the night.
1.7k
a woman's passion is a fiction of the sun
a radiance that forms and lingers
it's time burning like a rag in a guttering flame
it flickers, it spits a storm, a moment's certainty
a lifetime's doubt
it is the whisper of the wind in barren trees
a crucible for gravity's fervor
a silence dreaming its imploded sounds
Sep 26, 2025
Sep 26, 2025 at 3:53 AM UTC
I heard a song
From within the rain
As it splashed against
My window-pane
Like a mystical bell
Casting a spell
I looked outside
While raindrops fell
Ripples of jingles
Guttering in song
As children in play
Went skipping along
Their faces a picture
In the beauty of nature
Laughing and jumping
In puddles together
Crystaline beads
Hugging the trees
As it slowly danced
To the musical breeze
Pavements of silver
Reflections of truth
Feeling the love
As the sun shone through
The skies ablaze
As the music fades
Where a touch of love
Now smiles above
In the beauty, born
From the rain.
© Jon.London 2010
Copyscape Protected
Jul 30, 2012
Jul 30, 2012 at 4:15 PM UTC
A
Drop.
Then it came
Pirouetting.
It came clattering
It came guttering
with furore and fight
with rhythm and rhyme
like many dancing feet.
On steel roofs
On downy pines
and baobabs
and old cracked earth
Pattering and shimmering
drawing dust from dirt
women and men from houses
enshrining the sky with their trembling hands.
Aug 3, 2015
Aug 3, 2015 at 5:57 PM UTC
The airport bar in Boston,
I'm sway drunk
& holding my glass
as if it's liquid gravity.
She sits next to me,
technically. But she's
drifting away like Orion into
unreachable courts of evening.
Its a hard thing to live with
someone who loves you less and less.
Rooms are always empty and loneliness
settles like ash on the soul.
The heart passes sentence
against itself.
Guilt's rapier
parries any kindness.
Sometimes I was desperate
and clawed my way through
acres of gin.
It never ended well.
But at that airport bar
I first heard a voice calling
from under the scattered waves
of the alcohol sea inside me.
It told me the truth:
her love was guttering
like a candle whose wax
is fleeing across the table.
Apr 16, 2019
Apr 16, 2019 at 10:02 AM UTC
well acting is a metaphysical assertion of the physical act of theft, in Cartesian terms: a part of the extension is stolen, for example an object passed down via generations, your grandmother's wedding ring... acting is in a sense a theft that defines creating a civilisation and eradicating tribalism: galoshes, guttering, sewers and irritable bowel movements.
some said acting
was a subtler form of
defining theft,
given the term
doppelgänger;
i.e. i stole your shadow,
all you have is a hand
to mimic a shape of a hare's head
to please children,
deal with it.
Mar 6, 2016
Mar 6, 2016 at 10:28 PM UTC
When Susan’s work was done, she would sit
With one fat guttering candle lit,
And window opened wide to win
The sweet night air to enter in.
There, with a thumb to keep her place
She would read with stern and wrinkled face,
Her mild eyes gliding very slow
Across the letters to and fro,
While wagged the guttering candle flame
In the wind that through the window came
And sometimes in the sentence she
Would mumble a sentence audibly
Or shake her head as if to say,
“ You silly souls, to act this way!”
And never a sound from night I would hear,
Unless some far-off **** crowed clear;
Or her old shuffling should turn
Another page’and rapt and stern,
Though her great glasses bent on me,
She would glance into reality
And shake her round old silvery head,
With-“You!—I thought you were in bed!”
Only to tilt her book again
And rooted in Romance to remain
ባልቴቷ ሱሳን
ሱሳን ሥራዋን ሰራርታ
ትቀመጣለች ወፈር ያለ
ሻማ አብርታ፣
መስኮቷን አርጋ
በሰፊው ከፈት
ባለግሩም መአዛውን
የማታ አየር
በደንብ ለመሸመት!
ገፁ እንዳይጠፋባት
አልባ በአውራ ጣት፣
ሻማዋን ንፋሱ እያንገላታት
ተመስጦ በሚስተዋልበት
ቅጭም ያለ ፊት
እየተደመመች ታነባለች
ዓይኗን ከዚህ ወደዚያ
ወደዚህ ከዚያ
በፊዴሎቹ ላይ
እያደረገች ሸርተት፡፡
በዛ ኮሽታ አልባ ፀጥታ
ይሰማል በለሆሳስ ስትናገር
የሆነ ነገር
ወይ ጭንቅላቷን ነቅንቃ ስታበቃ
ስትል ‹‹ምን አይነት ናችሁ
እንዴት ንደዚህ ታደርጋላቸሁ?››
ከሩቅ አውራ ዶሮ ኩኩሉ
ረጭ ብሏል ሥፍራው ሁሉ--
አይሰማም ምንም ድምፅ
ካልሆነ መፅሐፍ ሲገለፅ፡፡
በትልቁ መነፅሯ ልታይ ዙራ፣
ሥፍራውን ማትራ፣
ሽበት ቀመስ ጭንቅላቷን
እየነቀነቀች ወደኔ ያየች
‹‹አንተ ገና አልተኛህም?››
ትለኛለች
ዳግም ወደመፅሓፏ ተመልሳ፣
በተመስጦ የፍቅር ታሪከ ውስጥ
ራሷን ልትረሳ!
(በዋልተር ዲላሜር)//
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 1:35 AM UTC
The night flopped over the chimney tops
and dripped from the guttering as
the day broke through in spots
I could hear the house martins sing.
The radio sizzled, the
bacon crackled,
on the range was a pan
full of porridge from the
morning before.
Boots by the door which were itching to go
everything's slow when you want to go fast but
at last we were out on the last day of the world,(a
game that we played where zombies were real and
they were coming for us to make of us a meal)
Each day is a bonus where the onus to be, is
the King of all castles, the Queen of all seas and
to seize with both hands the hands of all friends.
The day ends with a call from,
Mother, you know,
everything goes fast when it ought to go slow.
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 3:57 AM UTC
We are never the same person twice.
"Now" ends as soon as the word is uttered;
whoever we are in one breath
flickers and fades in the next
until it is a thing of the past,
a guttering candle.
We are never the same person twice.
I promised myself I'd never fall for a smoker.
You promised yourself you'd never smoke.
And we swore to each other we were not promise-breakers.
So tell me,
when I first saw you with
the ****** thing
between your fingers,
why did I so badly crave
the taste of nicotine
as long as it meant
your lips against mine?
And why was I willing to risk
entering your carcinogen-filled haze
just to be near enough
to hold your hand?
You turned me against my own self,
yet I could not bring myself to hate you.
You could not bring yourself to love me,
though I've given you all the reasons to.
We are never the same person twice.
Yet we are not always so volatile.
I constantly find myself on my knees.
I am constantly digging through our ashes,
Searching for embers that must still be there.
I constantly find you towering above me.
You are constantly pacing around in your drenched shoes,
Blindly extinguishing everything we could ignite
With your saltwater tears I know will never be for me.
We are never the same person twice.
I await the morning this actually feels true.
The morning I wake up a version of me
That is no longer in love with every version of you.
Aug 1, 2015
Aug 1, 2015 at 11:48 PM UTC
Within white stagnant walls kinship reeps phyletics
Lavished in immoral conducts; distributing demon fits.
I envisioned hell before me when sick pricked.
My shrills were short lived; as my ambuscade died down.
Escapading not, I did muster inducement.
Decoy to fail, could I never entice this asylum town.
Decifer the mutters I did; creating chaos while dim.
Told in realm; increased heartrate overwhelms;
*"You're a sick little ***** with the dunce smoothered cap oversized."
"Have you ov procelitized, I would be seven lighted voices and notith six dark cackles"
"I spit on you in shackles, spy the roaches and the grime"
"Crawl for Roman Nero, he wanes"
"Guttering your vessels into wine, you are now his drooping mane"*
I saw the heads of six, as roaches looked upon me taking turns to spit.
My time here arose as a feeding black hole.
I crawled for Nero and six more; I stuttered trying treason.
Here I lie pathetic; with rays of decoy,
Dreaming the nightmare most feared; most do not believe in.
Hallucinating alone within the stale walls; I felt prone to end all.
Once gathered what had struck; I knew perspectives aren't always as they seem.
Merely and only; one severe demented dream.
Shall I not turn the tables on authority once more.
To ambuscade the power; leaves needle incisions sore
Not only pain by fluid; both realities changed illucid.
I did what I must've to be discharged;
I did what I must've in best regards.
Oct 30, 2010
Oct 30, 2010 at 2:17 PM UTC
KABUL, Afghanistan
scorching sun
phantoms of heat
drifting above the roadway
Col. Geoff Parker, 42
"rising star"
perched in the command vehicle
proudly on guard
Taliban
wild rush -- crump
waves of heat and fire
spinning debris
"This barbaric act of aggression"
anger and outrage
desert wind flutters
tattered and scorched fatigues
"It's always unfortunate"
reek of charred flesh
guttering flames
unfortunate
Aug 24, 2010
Aug 24, 2010 at 9:09 AM UTC
Time ticking down,
Like the guttering of a dying flame,
So close,
Can nearly taste,
Where you and me will soon be three,
When our son we can finally meet.
I can picture his little hands,
His oh-so little feet,
Eyes as big as plates,
So filled with possibilities and innocence,
A pitcher for you and me to fill,
With kindness and glee.
But it seems so far away,
Still seems like a bit of a dream,
That the hypothetical seems to still carry me,
On a cloud,
Gently floating,
On an azure dream.
May 20, 2023
May 20, 2023 at 12:42 AM UTC
Sun
From rain
Guttering it's vibrating current
Feeding flowers,
Flowers from Hell.
They bloom through the cracks,
Cracks in our streets
For the dealers to prune and pick.
What chronic digestion pains, prays
For relief as petals scatter,
Scatter the windy alleys.
The night gives no surrender
To the lowly craving bones,
Caught in shadow the flowers blown bare,
Leaving only the seeds naked and black
Slipping the cracks
And dealers awaiting the bloom.
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 9:41 PM UTC
He knelt
for twenty
years and
more to
fan the
guttering
flame, and
when he
sifted
through
the ashes
found
no reason
to remain.
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 12:24 PM UTC
Do not feel sorry for yourself
Self pity is silly
The whole world is full of the brutish agony of life
Struggling to survive the gales of it's storm
You are a small candle guttering in the wind
But
Please,
Know yourself
Inspect yourself
Dig deep and look deeply
Into all the little crevices and cracks
At all the dark lines of imperfection
All the edges that threaten to break themselves
On all the surfaces of the world
And when you have investigated the whole of yourself
Then own yourself
Own your cracks, your faults, your hates, your loves,
Your lacks
And when you own them,
When you have accepted the intimate nature of your own imperfection
Please,
Work on them
Change them,
And change yourself
Only a fool stays the same
Just,
Don't feel sorry for yourself
Jan 7, 2018
Jan 7, 2018 at 5:19 AM UTC
<)))< <)))< <)))< <)))<
<)))< >(((> <)))< <)))<
<)))< <)))< <)))< <)))<
being
different
means
going
against
the school
being
free to
think
alone
though
you're
thought an
oddball fool
at least
your mind
isn't set
in stone!
for who is
foolish but
the ones
who follow
blindly
with the tide
for their end
has e'r begun
to withdraw
to run & hide
in the crowd
they are not seen
in the shelter
of conformist streams
but who of import
has ever been
who did not
stand out like a beam?
be a lighthouse!
not a candle
almost put out
and guttering
there is nothing
you can't handle
God will give you
roots & wings!
Aug 19, 2017
Aug 19, 2017 at 1:45 AM UTC
everyday i'm discussing with everyday, myself as i make out to the glamouring
the inches and dashes of every self i have
and stitches of sinew here in which lies the me that is this i, i that am
i walked in leaves of grass, of wriggling splendor's summers of shoulders
and achy crimsoned necks by the suns meters of light
measuring the stints of our crawling opaque days and suns of many sons
it's very that is that even when sun should repose his ***** of uncadenced
carefully miraculous shimmering blood
like orange and ardent flesh he'd go on us it, giving his very stuff our bodies
to wear on our wheres and whens and whys. is night not also beautiful?
it is naked beautiful. **** and beautiful
plenteous and beautiful with all its hearts in tinder palely igniting every
atom of copious earth. bowls of copious illuminant children, the things
which will become after us
the us that we were before their coming. but they are gorgeous and neither
would i weep if in my going they should take that space where were was
i. resting the shouts of my self
in the orchards of youth, i am now so but it's quickly running, flitting
eagerly from my this. in vines and plurals i am single and many. neither
none nor many. but many ones,
little bubbles of tranquil vile fluid guttering the songs of wind.
i go to streams and they are me. i go to mountains and they are me. i go
to valleys and they are me.
can i be streams and mountains and valleys? can i not be streams and
mountains and valleys? they are weeds and i am a **** a **** is a rose.
i am rose.
i am blossomed in full spring. able of petals. i am turned to the sun, with my
root between the lips of earth. who is my lover. the earth is woman.
she is a ****
a **** is a rose.
by another name. they smell just as sweet.
Apr 27, 2011
Apr 27, 2011 at 11:21 PM UTC