"heaves" poems
They look out from the terrace.
At the borders of sight
live rocky hills behind brown
and golden and olive crop
under a cloudless sky.
BANG!
An artificial cloud.
“Mira,” she points, “Venga!”
They fly down stairs,
diving like sparrows
into the street.
Boys sprint across pavements and climb;
men vault over fences in time
for news to reach ears.
"¡Ya vienen!"
Excitement and fear.
The rattling of cow bells
and galloping nears.
Men bait and dodge horns
and escape through doors
and up and over
red wooden bars.
Sticks beat on the concrete ground
and closer, louder, gallops sound.
Seconds away –
until the last,
he side steps into a house;
indoors,
apart,
he runs through the foyer
and up the stairs
around a corner
with long strides
too fast to follow.
She chooses left and
sings soprano
when doors won't budge
and
it
crashes
in.
She turns and the fear is paralysing.
"FERMIN!"
"FERMIN!"
"FERMIN!"
He hurdles the stairs
and explodes
but it rams her
to and fro,
thrashing her head
against the wall
where horns
sin and gore
cement and brick.
He clasps the tail
and heaves its hide from
side to side as
hooves smash
crates of wine -
they slip and slide
in fractured glass;
he finds a horn
and yanks the head!
He's yanked instead
near dead before the men
arrive down stairs
to punch and kick it;
strike and stick it
smack and hit it;
'til it
fits and quits
and flees the foyer,
fast and frantic,
flying flustered
by the frenzy,
finally finding
pattering
paves
it
peters
off
down
the
street.
"¿Que ha pasado?
¿Quien ha sido?
¡El Balbotin
y la Chicha!
¡Que una vaca
les ha pillado!"
"¿Estas bien?"
Dizzy she's there
with searching hands
and scolding.
"Podria haber sido peor"
Apr 25, 2018
Apr 25, 2018 at 7:09 PM UTC
465
I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air—
Between the Heaves of Storm—
The Eyes around—had wrung them dry—
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset—when the King
Be witnessed—in the Room—
I willed my Keepsakes—Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable—and then it was
There interposed a Fly—
With Blue—uncertain stumbling Buzz—
Between the light—and me—
And then the Windows failed—and then
I could not see to see—
12.1k
Translation From Catullus.
Equal to Jove that youth must be—
Greater than Jove he seems to me—
Who, free from Jealousy’s alarms,
Securely views thy matchless charms;
That cheek, which ever dimpling glows,
That mouth, from whence such music flows,
To him, alike, are always known,
Reserv’d for him, and him alone.
Ah! Lesbia! though ’tis death to me,
I cannot choose but look on thee;
But, at the sight, my senses fly,
I needs must gaze, but, gazing, die;
Whilst trembling with a thousand fears,
Parch’d to the throat my tongue adheres,
My pulse beats quick, my breath heaves short,
My limbs deny their slight support;
Cold dews my pallid face o’erspread,
With deadly languor droops my head,
My ears with tingling echoes ring,
And Life itself is on the wing;
My eyes refuse the cheering light,
Their orbs are veil’d in starless night:
Such pangs my nature sinks beneath,
And feels a temporary death.
8.2k
stranded in
the beauty of her throat shunted
her preference
a short drop
in a bulwark twisting knot
a hanged ghastly pendent
her feet arching desperately in search of a floor
they will never find
obedient!
yet
her face
a hideous insubordination
she dissolves like tropical butter
a screaming silence
a falling prayer
shuddering
with downward sloping limbs
she
blue
hemorrhaging
eyes wobbled
bulging to break into paradise
tumbling
like a dizzied cyclops
as numb lipped jutting howls
turn cement
always willing to help
he scums
for her
in pulsing heaves
of beatific gush
Oct 1, 2018
Oct 1, 2018 at 10:46 AM UTC
. @
@ @
@ @
@ @
@ @
@ @ @ @ @ @
america, americultus, americate, dubiously **********
::: our gold-flecked bodies.
blackbirdian danceparty, i'll go.
washed-up beach bottles and all our feet amongst them curling time.
teens dream in orchid; they wait for stars and dark and los hombres of good dust.
they wait on eyes, and on embers, on belly belly.
jellyfish flashlight shrine.
we eat acid and strawberries and butter in the cemetery,
and feed foxes lizards face first :::
us lost ghouls on school-nights.
flash tag jazz, and yellow bicycles.
::: that hot eternal light.
that candy colored smoke don't smoke; go south on her body.
then thoughts form thoughts form action, form twangs all tuned to air.
& we, as notes, we notes harp like light
to dust.
our glistering hormonal thrusts beneath sheath of liquid love. her eyes,
with those multi-speckled strands
infinitesimally drunk :::
seed from my ****
pearled halo: smoke above my head.
::: waves and machines and weekends. filtered by the long ****
of existence.
boys wait in rooms of hotels for more drugs, and the girls bringing them.
like caterpillars on silky thin treadways,
with nothing but the flavor of our passions to ignite the way. we
exacerbate the boundaries of our intentions. we
curl under sheets, bending sheets of light and sound. we
flakey emaciated flakes. [sequence suffered time in motion] we
dirt. it’s what we are; dirt.
we are druggernauts, tasting ourselves along the iridescent brim.
::: we crawl up cross-glowing hillsides toward portals and faraway
bleep-blorps of hot god-head calibration.
we sticky-crackle go burn. [nature puzzles]
the brain shifts back; twenty-one grams they say the soul weighs.
they say things.
cherry blossom tree tips in the dark.
tele-portal surfing with an intergalactic pizza priest, and his satchel of secret sauce.
he heaves in the corner; rebirth :::
tendrils pulled tight, everybody **** chung…
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 3:44 PM 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
*The oyster whispers echo
within its own silent shell
Its utters of longing
sought to bejewel
a pearl's essence,
as an ocean's murmur
heaves within its shuck
Some might call it lightly
fragile hope;
a fleck of light in dark
Or just a dream
of an unspoken grain of sand,
a diamond in the rough
someone you used to know ...June 2017
Jun 4, 2017
Jun 4, 2017 at 1:48 PM UTC
"Poetry is confession, obsession, reflection.
Empathic minds, valentines, hope divined.
It's a kiss, whispered sweetly" (2)
who needs challenges, commissions.
kicks~in~le butte~
when heaven heaves rains, one downs tall orders in
short shot glass verses, which glossed over at its
first communion(cation,
come back
months later
to subtract - another
poem from where it lay dormant
on the doormat
of my sub~sub~terranes
of my diluted subconscious au natured dry & rugged terrain
a favored poet,
a secretive admirer,
whoa~whose~her truthful name, I've yet to uncover,
but whose one true soul inspires me repeatedly,
ana~lyrically licks me into
dredging from me
un begrudgingly
and yet,
another love poem,
she herself wrote when elixiring (commentating (3))
'pon one of mine,
a long long time ago
Alas! Alack!
unnaturally immodest,
one concedes,
when obviously a Super~Woman!-cedes,
seeds in three verses, what I could never unknot
nor uncover
so I requite & requote with
unlabored pleasure
miz patty m's
primary terse verse,
neither secondary & never tertiary,
her absolut perfect mixed drink
defining, summarizing,
the essences of love
*"(Love) Poetry is confession, obsession, reflection.
Empathic minds, valentines, hope divined.
It's a kiss, whispered sweetly"*
I concede, in deed,
and in writing,
I know nothing,
of writing
of only love poetry
and all the great predecessors,
elsewhere lyricized, named and tabulated,
by yet another women, (1)
I will take my weary words elsewhere,
and if
perhaps,
disguised as a woman,
(Natalie, Natasha, Natali
see note below)
perhaps my verbal herbal insides,
my turgid insights,
will be shorter, sweeter,
but never more completer
than those of,
who can syncopate it
in rhyme
and the naming of my
predilection,
by mid~initial,
will give a measuring
of solace, and
a kiss and hug from my mirrored selfie,
having been unsuccessful at
my one chosen endeavor,
only love poetry,
adieu,
I, due,
utter
Nevermore
M>
Sep 2, 2025
Sep 2, 2025 at 3:38 PM UTC
you whisper against my skin and I look down at the cave that’s in my chest, gaping and dark and bottomless, shouts echoing off the walls. you never let me rest, tapping and tapping at the insides of my skull. an isolated night heaves up in front of me, motionless and quiet and all the while, tapping and tapping. I can’t eat for the sound, can’t sleep, but I listen and stare as shapes and seconds shift by and fog rolls into my eyes. tides rise and break in my stomach, swells crashing over my eyelids, threatening to escape my mouth.
Feb 5, 2013
Feb 5, 2013 at 2:54 AM UTC
He sees the world as her backdrop,
And loves her wholly.
She knows that and wants to love him back, but
All she can feel is lonely.
As he sleeps she cries in
Tight, silent heaves in rhythm
With his chest as he breathes.
His face is lit from neon light,
Slipping through a slit on the strung-up sheet--
An eye to the street,
And to everything that's beyond this life that she leads.
But she needs him and
Please, she begs, *Have him
Hate me, at least. I'm weak--
I'll linger until he throws me away,
Because at least then I can say
That it wasn't my choice, but
Everything must fade.*
She goes on a walk every night now,
Riddled with complexes and smoking,
Eyes roving with 2AM mascara,
Wearing a spring dress in dead winter.
Head down in a crowd, aware
Of herself existing only when men stare.
They crave for her, she craves for him,
Her sadness, a narcotic magnetism.
She drowned off the coast
Of the island in her kitchen.
She weighed herself down with
Her faults like mountains and
Yellowed ambition.
Dec 8, 2012
Dec 8, 2012 at 1:40 AM UTC
Among the shadows where two streets cross,
A woman lurks in the dark and waits
To move on when a policeman heaves in view.
Smiling a broken smile from a face
Painted over haggard bones and desperate eyes,
All night she offers passers-by what they will
Of her beauty wasted, body faded, claims gone,
And no takers.
5.5k
The forest of legs swayed in the moving shadows beneath the chatter over head, each threatening to block our path and crush our attempt to get to the first fallen crisps of the party season, which as yet laid undisturbed.
We weaved and advanced as fast as their legs allowed, eager to scavenge the waiting bounty before they were trampled underfoot by the oblivious adults who were intent on a seasonal ritual of their own that went on high over our heads.
We emerged unscathed at the edge of the forest and raced across the open parquet to the cover of the drapped, white topped trestle tables catching our breaths and crunching our snatched crisps planning our next move toward the plateau above.
Our scout had reported rich pickings, but when we looked around, seeking signs of our brave advance party, we could find no trace beyond a half eaten volovant and what might have been regurgitated mushroom. We shook our heads in despair at their folly. Every kid knows to stick to crisps and to processed meats, avoiding anything that might contain vegetables. We saw an open French window just beyond the trestles and heard plaintive heaves that had a distinct 6 year old strain.
We checked each other's resolve and saw on each other's faces that we believed our mission was more important than any one stomach. With a maturity that would have surprised our parents, we pushed the plight of our friend to the back of our minds and focused on the task at hand.
We each reached up with practiced stealth, taking only a second to check the food on offer and with a speed bred into us by the curse of older siblings, we each grabbed our prize.
Acknowledging the hazards of the return journey we devoured the meat at hand and with hyena grins savoured our just rewards. While our fallen friend heaved once more, we saluted one another: the season had started better than any of us could have hoped.
Sep 7, 2018
Sep 7, 2018 at 5:25 PM UTC
We laugh upon this empty rock
We smile as we run our circles
Giggling rats
Lice swaying in unison to our meaningless song
The black ground heaves
with laughter
Let’s go waterski
above the empty sea
You’ll find me snorting and choking and twirling in a hailstorm
Mar 10, 2014
Mar 10, 2014 at 3:19 AM UTC
Alcoholic bulimia.
Empty out your insides.
Hardly anything within you.
Still purge all of it out.
Leave a synthetic stomach As Barren as the lost at sea.
Puking until weakened by vicious dry heaves.
exhausted and now pleased
Tile rubbing raw the knees.
Alcoholic bulimia.
Put cold fingers down your throat. Alcoholic bulimia.
Laughing as one chokes.
Alcoholic bulimia.
Bronze hair in ***** soaked.
Put cold ******* fingers.
Down your cut up throat.
Put cold ******* fingers.
Down your cut up throat.
Put cold ******* fingers.
Down your cut up throat.
Alcoholic bulimia.
Alcoholic bulimia.
Finger nails cutting the asofogis.
Head in toilet stains with
Feb 11, 2019
Feb 11, 2019 at 8:19 AM UTC
your love is like a candle
untroubled to handle
crafted with senses
your candlewick heaves
and chases untimely
blue and smooth
it trails divinely
melts under my touch
and dresses down
a molten savor
weak and steady
it lugs me flavor
uncharge the flame
in the cold throughout
that shapes me with form
then burns me out
scorching and
heavy; a vibrant tone
never here to stay
but it's where i go
when i'm alone
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 12:21 PM UTC
"We´re all a little mad here" he says,
wide eyed, letting the words lip slither off his snippity snake tongue.
We smile and we laugh in unison.
In unison our heaves,
ins outs
match one another,
as belly moves,
up and down we synchronize,
ha-h-ha,
What does he mean?
how silly!
Then deep thought unlit
hide behind our bodies rocking chair movement
snip snapping hip
We´re all a little mad, are we not?
as ego wears a crimson feathered mask
and covers in gold to hide
the deep dark coal
secrets that slith and creep
like crocodiles,
sewer nights in paris,
smelly grotesque,
we hide.
"We´re all a little mad here" he says
as our bodies move in unison.
Our bodies move in unison.
In unison,
while echoes
tap my animal soul.
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 6:35 PM UTC
Nostalgia
is a poor excuse
for ignorance
yet it pervades
with a tenacity
stemming from fabricated desire
for the smell of ****
we're told
is roses
and it's blasphemous
to question potential "isms"
lurking behind the veil
of Saturday morning cartoons
and black and white family sitcoms.
Yet by the time the sonic *** organs
have lain into us with repressed emotion,
the holy spirit has spilled its ***** in the dirt
to traverse onward floating apparition
out of the room and down the hall
closer towards progress.
and we are left reeling
stumbling into the hallway
buttoning our blouses
and yanking at our zippers
wondering what could cause
such great haste
and we follow blindly
in the wake of the first high
or we turn backwards
and plunge into fading bricolage
as a means to cope
with the rapid and fleeting ***********
of the electric eye
in its shape-shifting pylons and appendages
getting smaller in the naked eye
and gargantuan in the mind.
Clutching our *******
in great amorous heaves
of lust
or donning our father's clothes
in a mask of artifice
and enlightened cultural pretension.
Moaning for the days of youth a week ago,
the epoch squeezed in the space between thumbs,
looking for treasures in the trash
craving something tangible
in an increasingly intangible world.
The semblance of touch lost on a generation
who knows only of emotion through hieroglyphics
and never through direct sensation.
So we dig through the toy boxes
and leave Generation X puzzled
as we dig into their records
in Guns n Roses T-shirts
and high waisted jeans.
We're just looking for an immaculate conception of something palpable.
Oct 25, 2016
Oct 25, 2016 at 10:26 AM UTC
.
*… and the look of fear
co-existing with pain
on a contorted face
that knows
it is in mortal difficulty,
as ragged fingers
clutch,
clutch,
at a fire they cannot reach,
ripping agonies react,
to an enforced cardiac episode,
as blackness closes in
gravity heaves its hardest,
but the fall is fake,
a red herring in the event,
and the weight of the world
presses down, searching,
retracts
waiting,
presses down, searching,
retracts
waiting,
as breath is given freedom
in exhalation to the light,
that slowly rolls back
the pitch hue of the void,
returning back images,
feeling,
a new belief,
and the fire inside quietens,
and the fire inside quietens,
to the intense glow
of a burnt aching heart.*
© Pagan Paul (2018)
Jun 14, 2019
Jun 14, 2019 at 5:45 AM UTC
I watch you smoke Neptune for the last time outside your front door
Listening to you talk about music or the weather
Your hand twitches and the cobalt glass shatters in three pieces at your feet, but you don't even look down and continue your monologue
The dry air between us heaves a smokers cough and sighs
In the den, under low ceilings and blurry repercussion
Ciphering through lots of nothing on tv
You settle on some garbage show
But end up kissing me instead
I had to leave at one thirty five
Someone always has to leave eventually
Sep 15, 2012
Sep 15, 2012 at 6:58 PM UTC
The horizon glows purple beneath the muted kaleidoscope of a fading rainbow
Salt hangs in the air, thick as the sand trodden on by so many
Daylight heaves a last sigh and closes her eyes, tucking herself into a comforter of oranges, purples, and blues, resting for the day to come
Foamy crests chase each other towards the feet of the travelers, and shyly retreat back on themselves, stumbling clumsily
The birds dip into the chilly water and bob over the rolling waves before suddenly taking to the darkening sky
Here, landscape, human and animal intermingle, amid the tranquility that only the sea can bring
The days stretch on, full of lazy possibilities
And each morning is a fresh start, full of new wonders
Aug 6, 2015
Aug 6, 2015 at 9:28 PM UTC
she brings me pancakes and lights me a cigarette
my ***** are cement and icicles form on my toes
she opens the curtain to a dying dove on the balcony
the banks are closed and the stock market has crashed
the periscope lens, so lucidly balanced, has fallen
irreparably into the crypt of a dream
i take a bite of an apple and stare into the mid-morning sun
after bagging the bird, she drapes herself across my chest
she is worshiped like a cradle, or a gravestone in a thunder storm
in her ecstasies, a prism, a poem fits like a glove
as the sunlight warms her ******* she heaves remnants
of last night's whiskey into my adam's apple and it burns me
the words she struck me with still sting in my ears
her fingerprints remain on my back and my bathroom mirror
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 8:51 PM UTC
---
**i'm here
invisible hand
retching in your pocket
reaching in your face
teaching all
or nothing
blue bottles buzz
round my head in circles
making me dizzy
I pick a posie of dandilions
gone to seed
I foray about
looking for the shiniest
diamonds in aluminum cans
the brass ring
must certainly be
tarnished gold
the forge bellows that is my chest
heaves in another cough
cooling my tounge
the empty wind that echos ashes
spent embers collect
in the cracks
of the
abyss
my bones which were disjointed
oh so slowly reassemble
instantly
but someone
at the factory didn't
read the
destructions
my legs are arms
my hands
feet
i lie under a cold
sky
in july
oh don't cry
when i die
no whitened seplechur my inheritance
my epitaph nonsense
a palm tree o'r my
grave**
soulsurvivor
(C) 6/13/2015
Jun 14, 2015
Jun 14, 2015 at 12:38 AM UTC
Tell me not here, it needs not saying,
What tune the enchantress plays
In aftermaths of soft September
Or under blanching mays,
For she and I were long acquainted
And I knew all her ways.
On russet floors, by waters idle,
The pine lets fall its cone;
The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing
In leafy dells alone;
And traveller's joy beguiles in autumn
Hearts that have lost their own.
On acres of the seeded grasses
The changing burnish heaves;
Or marshalled under moons of harvest
Stand still all night the sheaves;
Or beeches strip in storms for winter
And stain the wind with leaves.
Posses, as I possessed a season,
The countries I resign,
Where over elmy plains the highway
Would mount the hills and shine,
And full of shade the pillared forest
Would murmur and be mine.
For nature, heartless, witless nature,
Will neither care nor know
What stranger's feet may find the meadow
And trespass there and go,
Nor ask amid the dews of morning
If they are mine or no.
2.9k
The zest of your starlit eyes,
The sound of your mischievous laughter,
The twists of your black strands past the breeze,
I shall breathe, I shall dream,
That splash of raindrops on your lips, your hands,
That impatient tear, sliding past your dimpled cheek,
Those fake fits of anger,
Those blunt threats of fists and fights,
Shall beat within my heart,
until the my veins throb,
until my words tremble,
The sliding of your hand out of mine,
The parting of your shadow, and sliding apart with the light,
The aimless wait for your back to turn,
The constant urge for your feet to stop before the next turn,
I shall remember, I shall blame,
For all those lies and broken promises,
For all those dreams that burned into ash,
For all those half heartened prayers,
I shall bereave,
till my chest heaves,
till my eyes gaze,
till my nights dream,
till my soul begs.....
Sep 22, 2012
Sep 22, 2012 at 3:25 PM UTC
a river runs through a ghostly town
soaked clay red with the blood of the earth,
the land is marked with tire tracks like an addict's elbow crease
sweating oil and electrical wire,
fields tilled with the claws of a paper beast
sprout telephone poles and generations of debt
amongst indigo coffee beans,
rotting tin roofs striped with rust
creak folklore in the pouring rain,
muddied palms clinging to trust on mala beads
are stung with poisoned ink leaked from shrines golden and winking,
an ornate temple carves god sharp into a clouded sky
its steeple piercing his hands
shards of bone spilling ash onto upturned foreheads,
sun scorches unsuspecting soil and it cries exhaust fumes,
the sputtering song of a motorbike is answered
by the howl of a stray mutt in an alleyway
reverberating pleas to a clenched fist,
an unremitting flame sweeps ruin
across leaf barren trees
wind choking on smoke coughing up skeletons,
and the planet heaves
and the planet heaves
weezing on humanity's delirious daydreams
Jul 21, 2015
Jul 21, 2015 at 2:11 PM UTC