"inched" poems
For Al, who left us
With each passing poem,
The degree of difficulty of diving ever higher,
Bar incrementally niched, inched, raised,
Domain, the association of words, ever lesser,
Repetition verboten, crime against pride.
Al,
You ask me when the words come:
With each passing year,
In the wee hours of
Ever diminishing time snatches,
The hours between midnight and rising,
Shrinkage, once six, now four hours,
Meant for body restoration,
Transpositional for poetic creation,
Only one body notes the new mark,
The digital, numerical clock of
Trillion hour sleep deficit, most taxing.
Al, you ask me from where do the words come:
Each of the five senses compete,
Pick me, Pick me, they shout,
The eyes see the tall grasses
Framing the ferry's to and fro life.
Waving bye bye to the
End of day harbor activities,
Putting your babies to sleep.
The ears hear the boat horns
Deep voiced, demanding pay attention,
I am now docking, I am important,
The sound lingers, long after
They are no longer important.
The tongue tastes the cooling
Italian prosecco merging victoriously
With its ally, the modestly warming rays
Of a September setting sun,
finally declaring, without stuttering,
Peace on Earth.
The odoriferous bay breezes,
A new for that second only smell,
But yet, very old bartender's recipe,
Salt, cooking oil, barbecue sauce, gasoline
And the winning new ingredient, freshly minted,
Stacked in ascending circumference order, onion rings.
These four senses all recombinant,
On the cheek, on the tongue,
Wafting, tickling, blasting, visioning
Merging into a single touch
That my pointer finger, by force majeure,
Declares, here,
poem aborning!
Contract with this moment,
now satisfied!
Al, what you did not ask was this:
With each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poems birth diminishes me.
_________________________________
(this poem more than most,
for its birth celebrates
my loss, your loss,
which cannot be exonerated 8/7/18)
_________________________________
written at 4:38 AM
September 8th, 2012
Greenport Harbor, Long Island
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 7:07 AM UTC
I treasure those nights of unexpected surrender
when hands molded
caressed
and made me tremble
waking from slumber with body afire
as he inched gradually into me
bathed in my welcoming heat
one palm curled protectively
'round the weight of my breast
as finger and thumb drew on beaded peak
and breath caught in my throat
as his full depth was reached
unable to remain still
rocking back to achieve a deeper sink
his sudden hiss scalding my neck
teeth worrying my bottom lip
neither willing to move
afraid it would all end too soon
and as the flames continued to rise
groans replaced whispered sighs
no hurried pace or rapid ******
slow and sensual movements
dragging us ever nearer the edge
denying that final release
drawing closer but holding it back
sensation heightened beyond bearing
until that fraying tether breaks
causing walls to tighten and quake
drinking every last drop of his lust
clutching inside and out
desperately seeking his mouth
sealing the cataclysmic moment
heart pressed to heart
breath to breath
Mar 23, 2018
Mar 23, 2018 at 6:54 AM UTC
Take a butchers at this me old Chinas.
Slip ya Plates o' Meat into ya Jacks,
brew up a nice cup o' Rosy,
and if you haven't got a Scooby what I'm on about,
feel free to fire me off a Jimmy Nail
and tell me it's a load of old cobblers.
Can you Adam an' Eve it,
I left me Dog 'n' Bone on the Apples
and when I went to call the Trouble 'n' Strife
some joker had Half-Inched it.
But that's not the worst of it.
When I got back to the Cat and Mouse
she'd done a bunk in me shiny new Jam Jar.
I couldn't believe me Pork Pies!
So here I am all on me Todd,
me only transport a ****** old **** van ****
Gordon Bennett!
I'm goin' down the ****** for a few Britneys,
gonna get totally Brahms and List
and blow a big fat raspberry at the whole thing.
Tomorrow's another bale 'o' hay.
Sep 14, 2012
Sep 14, 2012 at 3:20 PM UTC
Her words fell
Like the limbs of a
Dandelion
Departed;
Once a breath per
Echoed meme
And come another dream
With every
Feather’s frolic.
The lips within this
Captured moment
Flutter and fall,
Dismal and drunk,
Like the butterfly prior winter;
An excuse,
And she deserved better.
So to, I’ve learned to meander
One
Simple
Breath,
Be it the gasp, “final,”
Parallel and the very same
She’d blow and blow and
Scatter seed with.
And I’d love her
Just as much,
If only years ago,
But now carry forth,
Lash atop knowing “flee,”
Merely inched
And adjusted winds.
It’s a “later”
Sort of tale atop tongue,
And idea coined “alive,”
Albeit moments before born,
So much closer to
“Never-end,”
Resonant, if only –
Her dandelion’s dream
And soon to be later patches
Green;
Come the grass,
Come the amnesia,
Come the cold,
Oh girl!
Come the day we both knew
I’d leave.
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 10:14 AM UTC
I've been watching you from the nightstand,
Eyes closed,
But hearing, feeling
Each rat tremor on top of cheap carpet
Covered in cat **** and ***** stains.
You have been sleeping too long,
Eyelids turning to flakes of skin,
Feeding your floorboard friends.
I have seen your fingers curl into messy knots of
Purple thumbprints and veins reaching
For the ceiling and roof.
You left me plugged into the wall,
And I have inched closer to my own death
With each misses phone call and text,
My predisposed convulsions.
I just wanted you to know
Your mother called today
To ask for the new street address,
The landlord says the rent is 8 days late,
But your boyfriend is ill concerned with your state of health,
In fact,
He left the state
And bought a new haircut and identity.
Jan 24, 2016
Jan 24, 2016 at 11:07 PM UTC
My mind could not conjure up the notion that the word, the name, meant something. A-n-n-a. I looked. I looked: she stared back the same. Unknowing, unfamiliar. I wanted to remember, I wanted to.
7 a.m, in the crawlspace underneath the house, flashlight grasped in my hand, sweat from my forehead plastering my hair against it. It smelled like dust. I inched forward on my stomach, writhing as a worm. My body seizing against dirt and webs. I yelled out her name. Just to see. Just to test if my mouth still knew how to speak.
Anna.
Anna.
There. In the corner. I flicked my light against a box with tape on the side and her name written on over it in marker. I whispered it to make sure. Anna. One more time. Anna. I sunk my face into the ground. My breath, soft from my lips but coarse in form, disrupt the filth, made me cough. I crawled over to her with ease, as if the bones in my body were pushing me, the muscles guiding me; these pulsing veins, telling me.
When I opened the box, the first thing I saw was her, smiling back at me in the form of a memory. July 1996, our wedding framed around sanded wood, with splinters etching at the sides, aching for a hold on them. And I cradled her, despite this. Despite my skin giving in.
Anna.
I almost forgot.
My head was hurting again. I blamed it on the suffocating of the casket underground enveloping me, not the staples buried into the skin of my skull, not the remembrance that underneath piles of dirt, her body was just a stack of old bones with only a stone to tag her as proof she was once living.
Anna. My Anna. I cradled the picture against my chest. I clung to her.
My light began to flicker, a spider crawled across my finger. Anna was diminishing, like a ghost, like a gentle sweep of navigating headlights turning a corner, creeping away, and suddenly gone.
Anna. A-n-n-a. I shut my eyes. I could finally remember.
Dec 31, 2018
Dec 31, 2018 at 5:04 PM UTC
The deterioration of society,
Commonly serves as writing material;
Hell, even I could write about changes
That have lessened our souls.
But I also appreciate the changes
That have bettered us as a collective people;
I dream of collaboration between church-goers,
And those that turn from the steeple.
We've evolved to a new level of acceptance,
And equality that was unknown;
Yes, the "isms" still exist,
But in a much softer tone.
Gender roles wreak havoc,
And some feel elite.
But we've inched closer to equality,
And those roles we will defeat.
I have so much hope for this generation,
The kids that have been raised with new eyes;
We possess views that our ancestors
Would abhor and despise.
Unity and inclusion,
Love and tolerance;
I will preach these things,
Until there is a balance.
Dec 19, 2015
Dec 19, 2015 at 2:39 PM UTC
They hail me as one living,
But don’t they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?
I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.
Not at a minute’s warning,
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time’s enchantments
In hall and bower.
There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death …
—A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.
But when I practised eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.
When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;
And when my Love’s heart kindled
In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.
And if when I died fully
I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
I am to-day,
Yet is it that, though whiling
The time somehow
In walking, talking, smiling,
I live not now.
3.1k
Today while I was at work I saw a little girl grab some candy from the shelf and shake it in front of her mom to make sure she didn't forget to buy it. As she inched closer to the counter where I was scanning all of the items all I could see were the little girls eyes and the hands that hung on to the edge of the counter. She was so tiny and was still holding the candy in her hand, so excited. Liberated.
I don’t know why that made me so nauseous but all I knew was that this little girl was given a handful of years on this earth just like me. In that instant all I really wanted to do was stop time for this little girl that I knew absolutely nothing about and give her that opportunity to enjoy her candy bar to the very last crumb and let her lick clean the left-over smudged chocolate on her small fingers and small corners of her mouth.
I hope it pleases you to know that she did enjoy it, I didn't need to stop time for her to manage that. As kids, we don’t really have that extreme perception of time and maybe that’s what so beautiful about childhood and also what’s so tragic about what comes after.
I thought this girls whole life in a matter of seconds and I grew to appreciate that little girl. But she will never know this, she will never know who I am, nor will she ever think of me again. But by the time she left the store I found myself hoping her life is everything she wants it to be.
Jun 17, 2013
Jun 17, 2013 at 2:35 AM UTC
Your words crawled through my auditory cortex like caterpillars, preventing me from hearing anything other than the inflection in your deep voice. As your body inched closer to mine, they took residence in my chest cavity, building chrysali that hung off of my ribs making it more and more difficult to inflate my heavy lungs. They cocooned themselves as I too wrapped myself up in you. Suddenly, your lips were on mine and your hands were counting the vertebrae down my back, scaring the insects from their resting place, resulting in chills up my spine. The newly emerged butterflies flew out of my sternum and up into my throat, longing to be closer to you. But then you pulled away and they instantly died, leaving me with a bitter taste in my mouth.
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 10:26 PM UTC
66% is the Devil Point...
I have 6 courses abandoned at 66%..
The greatest power Devil has is not temptation,
It is boredom and procrastination
It is the mid-point sway...
It is the collapse of the pre-frontal cortex,
when we reach half-way through our goal,
when we are too far from our starting point,
and too far from our ending point,
We don't know why we began,
We don't know where we will end.
So the Devil point kicks in at 66% completion,
And makes us procrastinate, makes us feel "meh"
Brave thru it, ye fellow warrior,
Just do the tiniest bit needed in a day,
Just tie your shoes laces and half the race is won
Make a cup of tea.. and the article is written
Clear some clog in the room, and the painting is done..
So, to bump over that comfortable resting point...
that lethargic 66% mid-way stop,
pamper yourself with something momentarily
and just do ONE small thing every day
'Cause I promise you this, when you have inched to 80%
you will be fuelled again with images of victory
all doubt and disbelief and lethargy will be thwarted
You will forget pain and other creature comforts
You will cruise through the finish line..
Jun 9, 2017
Jun 9, 2017 at 5:48 AM UTC
When I discovered I had cancer,
I was told that I would learn a lot
About Life and Death and Time,
But I never thought that I would
Discover what it means
To be intimate
With strangers,
Or anyone, for that matter.
When my insides were cut open like a game of operation,
I told myself:
Be detached.
When visitors came,
We talked about the weather.
When I arrived home, I spent my time
Trying to forget
The experience
Of impermanence
And shared emotions
That I couldn't even grapple with
Myself.
When the person I loved
Left me
I flinched
And then sunk back into an abyss of
Emotionless functioning,
Cutting myself further and further
Off from my narrative
Of pain.
When it was time to go back to school,
I flinched
And signed up for a workload
Heavy enough
To push out the fading reality
Of my condition.
It wasn't until I was sitting on the steps
Outside of a bar that was slowly beginning
To empty out,
As intoxicated shadows gained substance and lit cigarettes against the brick wall.
I sunk down next to friend I had recently met-
My big t shirt inched up above my abdomen
And the lower jagged mark of my scar
Peeked out-
I didn't choose to tell him my story
Until he asked me about the obvious
Stale incison mark that had a presence
Of its own.
Piece by piece, it peeled itself from off my stomach
And liquified into a sequence of events
And feelings
That poured from me
Like a stream of bubbling bath water
Overflowing from the rim
Of a porcelain tub.
That's when I realized that there is something shared and intimate about scars:
Marred reminders of the flesh
That speak to our upmost human
Encounters with our own mortality.
An indecipherable label of sorts:
An unsigned invitation into the taboo.
In a moment of unintentional word *****
At 2am to a stranger,
I regained my intimacy with myself
And my journey.
I learned that while Life and Death and Time
Will always plague our existence,
They distance us from the human experience that is
To feel:
To feel everything in this God forsaken world.
To feel angry at people for leaving when they should have stayed.
To feel compassion at the same time.
To feel intimacy with others.
To feel intimacy with yourself.
To feel love.
To feel pain.
To feel the cold creases in the wooden floor as you make your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
To feel alone.
To feel surrounded.
To feel the trembling echoes of the past and be able to grab its elusive coattails and shake away the dusty remnants of time and shout that you are present.
To feel nothing.
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 1:07 AM UTC
sunshine seeps through blue dresses
and laughing echoes via open windows
with rays on my shoulders
and caresses on my nose.
splashes of rainwater glisten in the sun
with camisoles and lingerie above.
fulfilling stances of smiles and buoyancy
as i sway in my mary janes.
my snow-white blouse feels loose.
i inhale with ease
as the humidity offers a veil
over my bare shoulders.
the bitter moon has inched over
the prospect; the blue skies
have twisted and crooked to black.
dust lynches off disgusting, damp garments.
the moon hits the violet vests,
and cries are blocked by closed doors.
there is artificial light on my skeleton
and slaps printed across my face.
this deceitful place.
with obscure deceptions on every corner.
this circle of life really is bittersweet.
day is kind and night is not.
when the gangsters come out.
when mommy and daddy aren’t so ecstatic.
when brooklyn is authentic.
and your snow-white blouse feels tight.
Oct 22, 2014
Oct 22, 2014 at 1:55 PM UTC
With each passing poem,
The degree of difficulty of diving ever higher,
Bar incrementally niched, inched, raised,
Domain, the association of words, ever lesser,
Repetition verboten, crime against pride.
Al,
You ask me when the words come:
With each passing year,
In the wee hours of
Ever diminishing time snatches,
The hours between midnight and rising,
Shrinkage, once six, now four hours,
Meant for for restoration,
Transpositional for creation,
Only one body notes the new mark,
The digital, numerical clock of
Trillion hour sleep deficit, most taxing.
Al, you ask me from where do the words come:
Each of the five senses compete,
Pick me, Pick me, they shout,
The eyes see the tall grasses
Framing the ferry's to and fro life.
Waving bye bye to the
End of day harbor activities,
Putting your babies to sleep.
The ears hear the boat horns
Deep voiced, demanding pay attention,
I am now docking, I am important,
The sound lingers, long after
They are no longer important.
The tongue tastes the cooling
Italian prosecco merging victoriously
With its ally, the modestly warming rays
Of a September setting sun,
finally declaring, without stuttering,
Peace on Earth.
The odoriferous bay breezes,
A new for that second only smell,
But yet, very old bartender's recipe,
Salt, cooking oil, barbecue sauce, gasoline
And the winning new ingredient, freshly minted,
Stacked in ascending circumference order, onion rings.
These four senses all recombinant,
On the cheek, on the tongue,
Wafting, tickling, blasting, visioning
Merging into a single touch
That my pointer finger, by force majeure,
Declares, here, poem aborning,
Contract with this moment, now satisfied.
Al, what you did not ask was this:
With each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poems birth diminishes me.
___________
4:38 AM
September 8th, 2012
Greenport Harbor, N.Y.
Mar 26, 2014
Mar 26, 2014 at 5:06 PM UTC
I laid nose-to-nose, in tall, old grasses, with a spirited coyote, some nights ago.
He said to me, with lips unparted and low, shiny eyes - to listen.
Hesitantly, I inched forward and nudged that coyote with my face, prodding him for something more.
But, nothing came.
He simply stared back at me, unblinkingly.
“I listen!”
I shouted with a heart on fire.
“I listen more than anyone I know!”
The coyote continued his staring game, quieting my bosomed flames.
Stubborn - they erupted, something ugly, from the valley, into the mountaintop.
Spilling from eyes, in the mountainside, I screamed back into his so loud,
The mountain ached from its shut in echo.
Patient " the coyote waited.
So, I stopped.
Somehow surprised, I found that, after the flames subsided into greys of ashes, in silence, I had begun to listen.
That coyote’s eyes were urging eyes, unmoving " unrelenting.
Obedient, I drew forth my worn, careful bag out and placed it, gently, in the dirt between us.
The coyote snatched it, in the grain between our breaths, and held it between clenched teeth.
I glared at him with challenging eyes " he stared back at me, just the same.
I reached out to grab it, but halfway there, I heard the coyote command me,
“Stop.”
The coyote lay there, my ashes raging about loudly " still silent, my bag between his teeth.
As the ashes settled, his glaring eyes mellowed, and I watched as he gobbled it up.
--
A crow cawed somewhere.
The full moon shone down approvingly.
My soul sighed once.
My body followed.
The coyote slept -
I bowed my head in silence.
Jul 27, 2011
Jul 27, 2011 at 2:09 PM UTC
November
Crisp weather
Together
Again
Our sweaters
Blue and maroon
Were you nervious?
I was too.
Fingers inched
Memoried pinched
Heart strings tugged
Surely cinched
There we were
Together again
More than just
Two old friends
Tree limbs bare
Crunching brush
New old growth
Made me blush
Sep 20, 2018
Sep 20, 2018 at 10:01 PM UTC
They kissed you with that mouth
Wrote books about you
Took pictures and hung them up for beer ads
For humans with high testosterone to ogle
While they ******* the top of a beer bottle
Like it will bring their fathers acceptance
Back into their eyes.
Your nine inched heels gave me whip lash
Your ½ inch eyelashes gave me heartburn
Your spit
Indigestion
Because they kissed you with that mouth.
And you still believe,
You asked for it
You still believed you were not worth getting out of the hood for
The hood
what good is the hood and the hood-rats
You ******* ***** in alleyways
All 10 of them lined up
said I might as well have the money upfront
If I'm gonna **** **** I'm getting paid for it
They bashed your head into concrete so hard.
You forgot how your mothers voice sounded like
Almost forgot how your uncles knuckles tasted like,
I don’t know your story
I don’t know your name
I don’t know you
I just know that your friend
And my friends
Last night
Came to the conclusion
That you were a ****
And you were asking for it
You asked for your head to be bashed into concrete
And hey maybe you did
Maybe you wanted something to hit you hard enough to make you forget
The hate inside
The misogyny you swallow
and wash down the drain
maybe you were there in front of 10 guys because you wanted to know what power felt like
what being wanted felt like
because you thought you were worth the money
but they didn't
because maybe that's what you asked for
because maybe your mother taught you to get high and surrender with glazed eyes
rather then take your higheels off and fight
because your laughter sounds more broken than you do
because your eyes hold remnants of your skull
because you remember the taste of your blood too keenly
because my friends, my female friends who are not evil or sexist
my male friends the protector of women
came to an agreement
you asked for it
put yourself in the position to
smell the inside of your brain
because your blood meant power
because finishing them off
meant swallowing or bleeding
and you did some of both because
maybe you chose survival
because maybe you came in kicking naked and maybe thats how you wanna go out with
another mans hands down your throat
some to aid air some
to constrict
weather you bleed or swallow you are only
emptying out
and I tried to explain that to your friend and my friends but
there is so much anger about what happend to you
and none of it is directed at the ten faceless penises.
Because you were once a chandelier of candles
And now you are a faceless light bulb hung on the moldy hotel building
Because your **** gives you free crack and
My friends have disgust on their faces
And I feel
Pity
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 7:12 PM UTC
A dog broke from her leash and bled out on an unfriendly neighbor's lawn.
An old man masturbated in the rain.
A little girl made a story from the shapes of clouds.
Food rotted.
Water dripped.
Ice Inched.
Electricity prevailed.
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 9:35 PM UTC
last May
on my couch
as we pretended to watch
animal planet
as we pretended to listen
to hippos playing,
the world was silent
as we slowly inched closer
until
we breathed
**** it’
and then
after all that time
for the first time
like nothing else
there was nothing else
but time
that’s when
I knew
you make
me brave
enough to jump
headfirst into
a pond full of
some predatory
hippos.
Apr 24, 2011
Apr 24, 2011 at 9:14 PM UTC
Look!
I'm super ******* clean!
I stepped into the falling water
and inched my way toward total
submersion. It was steaming hot
and my skin had yet to acclimate.
Upon said acclimation I lathered
up a palmful of smell-good gel
and got to work on my armpits
and my torso. I washed my way
down to my belly button and then
I retrieved another handful of body
wash. As I worked it into my hair
then my beard, and I used the excess
suds to scrub my **** and my nuts.
From there I covered my thighs and
worked down my legs. I turned away
from the showerhead and scrubbed
my ******* clean with one more dollop
of Old Spice. I stepped into the burning
streams of water and rid myself of the
day's sweat and grime in one big,
dark puddle swirling down the drain.
I took one more dab of soap and
worked it into a foam.
But I hesitated before I washed my face,
because I realized that I had just
*scrubbed my *******
with the same hands I use to
*wash my ******* face** with.*
But I then sighed and did it anyway.
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 9:18 PM UTC
Winter will soon slip into
spring, all dressed in
green; bouquet nights and
the rebirth of love.
Snakes gliding through
the grass.
But for now, we deal
with ice and snow,
slick roads and cold
hearts.
I was on the bus the
other day.
The driver had a
slippery scowl pasted
on her chubby face.
My mask had inched
down on my nose, and she
yelled, "put your mask
on or you will be off the bus."
I was having a terrible day already.
My asthma was acting up,
I could hardly breathe, and I had
just had to put my beloved
dog to sleep.
I miss her, but she slipped
away peacefully.
I rang the bell to get off at
my stop, as I chewed my
gum in passive anger.
I stood up and walked toward
the front of the bus.
The aisle was slick from
the snow and ice.
As I neared the exit door,
I took the gum out of my
mouth, so that I could throw
it away, but things went
horribly awry.
I slipped on a wet
spot, and to catch
myself, I firmly planted
my gum hand on the back
of the driver's head.
She had short hair, but still,
the *** of gum was now
embedded in her golden
locks.
I'm sure a haircut is
her near future.
Since then, I intend
to tread softly and cautiously,
and just maybe,
she does too.
Feb 26, 2022
Feb 26, 2022 at 12:37 PM UTC
your love was a single daffodil
plucked bashful and gifted tough
to promise and to keep and to grow
it lived from the rainy windowsill
swayed to midnight playlists
inched towards your voice
but it was just
a single daffodil--
it's petals still bent in the shower
and it was only promised
until your breath came
loveless and wild,
it was kept only until
you told me
we had grown apart
Aug 4, 2015
Aug 4, 2015 at 3:00 AM UTC
I was there the day the sun
was a ****** embryo & you
finally awoke under sick blue
mist.
Do you recall when Nell’s femur
fractured and she cried the way a cow
bawls when it is realized the calf will be
someone’s veal dinner.
Do you think of these times
or has a lardy mealworm crawled within
your nasal cavity & inched into your brain
to erase memories?
Gathering atop our 100 year old
dogwood, blackbirds beckon you daily
to return to your home of devastating
trauma.
Oct 12, 2016
Oct 12, 2016 at 6:28 AM UTC