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"jointed" poems
I see you, monster... In your sockets bore dead, dark eyes They hold the blackest of stares Nebulous swirling pits of demise Thin lips would spout the most sibilant of hisses Every so often would curl into a snarl Dry and chapped, almost unworthy of kisses Large, rough snout, jutting out like a crag You sniff around tirelessly for easy targets Preying on the unsuspecting minds of those under your flag Tapering chin, sprouting strands of coarse hair Unkempt and gritty from your last meal Decaying teeth, crooked due to little to no care Your face is cratered; tales of trying adolescent years Wearing a face only a mother could love Expressionless but it screams out your fears Ugly jointed limbs that grew out of sync Disproportionate, misshapen, grotesque Little noggin with sparse hair, packed within, a brain that thinks I hear you, monster... As you stalk your sleepless nights Nocturnal ambience be your playground Lurking in the dark; places with no light Bulky, heavy feet but deft and silent Can barely notice when you're up and about As if cloaked yourself stealthy, with steps ever transient Respire you do, exhaling breaths so gnarly Ingesting good air, converting into fervid, loathsome notions With which you paint a portrait so ghastly I feel you monster... Deep within the recesses of my heart Destroying and distorting all that was pure Testing my will till I should fall apart You're but the twisted manifestation of conscience Feeding on my trials and nurturing them into vile abominations I despise that of you but I seem to have developed dependence I see you, monster... You're horrid and beastly, an embodiment of absolute horror I await the day that you would finally dissolve For I am weary of seeing you staring back in the mirror
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Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 9:23 PM UTC
Monster
I see you, monster... In your sockets bore dead, dark eyes They hold the blackest of stares Nebulous swirling pits of demise Thin lips would spout the most sibilant of hisses Every so often would curl into a snarl Dry and chapped, almost unworthy of kisses Large, rough snout, jutting out like a crag You sniff around tirelessly for easy targets Preying on the unsuspecting minds of those under your flag Tapering chin, sprouting strands of coarse hair Unkempt and gritty from your last meal Decaying teeth, crooked due to little to no care Your face is cratered; tales of trying adolescent years Wearing a face only a mother could love Expressionless but it screams out your fears Ugly jointed limbs that grew out of sync Disproportionate, misshapen, grotesque Little noggin with sparse hair, packed within, a brain that thinks I hear you, monster... As you stalk your sleepless nights Nocturnal ambience be your playground Lurking in the dark; places with no light Bulky, heavy feet but deft and silent Can barely notice when you're up and about As if cloaked yourself stealthy, with steps ever transient Respire you do, exhaling breaths so gnarly Ingesting good air, converting into fervid, loathsome notions With which you paint a portrait so ghastly I feel you monster... Deep within the recesses of my heart Destroying and distorting all that was pure Testing my will till I should fall apart You're but the twisted manifestation of conscience Feeding on my trials and nurturing them into vile abominations I despise that of you but I seem to have developed dependence I see you, monster... You're horrid and beastly, an embodiment of absolute horror I await the day that you would finally dissolve For I am weary of seeing you staring back in the mirror
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40
Side by side, their faces blurred, The earl and countess lie in stone, Their proper habits vaguely shown As jointed armour, stiffened pleat, And that faint hint of the absurd - The little dogs under their feet. Such plainness of the pre-baroque Hardly involves the eye, until It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still Clasped empty in the other; and One sees, with a sharp tender shock, His hand withdrawn, holding her hand. They would not think to lie so long. Such faithfulness in effigy Was just a detail friends would see: A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace Thrown off in helping to prolong The Latin names around the base. They would no guess how early in Their supine stationary voyage The air would change to soundless damage, Turn the old tenantry away; How soon succeeding eyes begin To look, not read. Rigidly they Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light Each summer thronged the grass. A bright Litter of birdcalls strewed the same Bone-littered ground. And up the paths The endless altered people came, Washing at their identity. Now, helpless in the hollow of An unarmorial age, a trough Of smoke in slow suspended skeins Above their scrap of history, Only an attitude remains: Time has transfigures them into Untruth. The stone fidelity They hardly meant has come to be Their final blazon, and to prove Our almost-instinct almost true: What will survive of us is love.
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8.8k
An Arundel Tomb
don’t tell me “I love you” ~by Roxanne, for Cyrano~ <> that’s a verse I’ve heard many too times before, that’s a curse of low majesty, a quatrain too plain, if that’s your best sally, retreat, say no more, too simp verses, or ungolden silences, agents of dissatisfying pain I need the best of your taste the finest visions that you eyelids occlude, make haste for my mouth grows exceedingly impatient for the other senses to do their tandem wooing slap only my face with the creature comforts others savor, words of diamonds and pink pearls mined from your breast, the bejeweled words that will decorate my evergreen, that never dies, lest, unless and until, you want my mortal affection suppressed give me your linguistic promiscuity, wake me from the stupor of ordinary, arouse me with thy tongue coiling, a bee sting delivery, a wet poem that makes all my orifices!|offices weep, your mouth, my souls recouper, your wizardry bewitching, answer my inquiry with unbounded festivity then and after all, the plain simplicity of an “I love you,” will be edged with sublimity, my mercies, your mercies our jointed, sharp pointy, introverting, interlocking, *our futures becoming our pasts* 11:07am 19-9-30 <> https://thenewgroup.org/production/cyrano/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwz8bsBRC6ARIsAEyNnvoENpdnWyqeUEwq0avNStgWCf4CocB1i239c2mHdNSFF8gOlWZtfjsaAls4EALw_wcB
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Oct 10, 2019
Oct 10, 2019 at 11:35 AM UTC
don’t tell me “I love you” ~ by Roxanne, for Cyrano~
I shall never get you put together entirely, Pieced, glued, and properly jointed. Mule-bray, pig-grunt and ***** cackles Proceed from your great lips. It's worse than a barnyard. Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle, Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other. Thirty years now I have labored To dredge the silt from your throat. I am none the wiser. Scaling little ladders with glue pots and pails of Lysol I crawl like an ant in mourning Over the weedy acres of your brow To mend the immense skull-plates and clear The bald, white tumuli of your eyes. A blue sky out of the Oresteia Arches above us. O father, all by yourself You are pithy and historical as the Roman Forum. I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress. Your fluted bones and acanthine hair are littered In their old anarchy to the horizon-line. It would take more than a lightning-stroke To create such a ruin. Nights, I squat in the cornucopia Of your left ear, out of the wind, Counting the red stars and those of plum-color. The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue. My hours are married to shadow. No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel On the blank stones of the landing.
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4.5k
The Colossus
I hadn't cried in years. I was always taught that strength was not having the courage to let yourself feel but ******* it up, holding it in. I am sick of "You're going soft on us, honey" Today I came to understand that you are completely okay with writing the same poem over and over again. This is a metaphor for the way you ****** her in my bed. This is a metaphor for the night you copy and pasted love letters. This is a metaphor for what really happened- I never fall in the same place twice. Except when I do. I think the critical difference between the two of us, critical because there are many differences but- I think our hamartia, our fatal flaw, our end scene is this: if people didn't like my poetry, if nobody listened, if I walked out on stage and nobody snapped their fingers, I would still write for just your eyes. I would still cramp my crooked, birth defect, quadruple jointed fingers writing to you about the nights you loved me back, for a minute there you loved me back. And you loved 20,000 other people back. And you loved small towns back and big cities back and the entire west coast back when you drove through, making temporary homes out of people who should have been permanent and I loved you. And I hadn't cried in years. Not because I wasn't sad, but because I was taught that showing emotion was weakness. So if my father made me memorize the How To's of strength, if I were going by the book, today I'd be so fragile you could say hello and I'd shatter so suddenly you'd forget you were the one that let go.
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Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 9:56 PM UTC
don't snap
I hadn't cried in years. I was always taught that strength was not having the courage to let yourself feel but ******* it up, holding it in. I am sick of "You're going soft on us, honey" Today I came to understand that you are completely okay with writing the same poem over and over again. This is a metaphor for the way you ****** her in my bed. This is a metaphor for the night you copy and pasted love letters. This is a metaphor for what really happened- I never fall in the same place twice. Except when I do. I think the critical difference between the two of us, critical because there are many differences but- I think our hamartia, our fatal flaw, our end scene is this: if people didn't like my poetry, if nobody listened, if I walked out on stage and nobody snapped their fingers, I would still write for just your eyes. I would still cramp my crooked, birth defect, quadruple jointed fingers writing to you about the nights you loved me back, for a minute there you loved me back. And you loved 20,000 other people back. And you loved small towns back and big cities back and the entire west coast back when you drove through, making temporary homes out of people who should have been permanent and I loved you. And I hadn't cried in years. Not because I wasn't sad, but because I was taught that showing emotion was weakness. So if my father made me memorize the How To's of strength, if I were going by the book, today I'd be so fragile you could say hello and I'd shatter so suddenly you'd forget you were the one that let go.
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36
In the castle of my smile All lovely words are imprisoned in stone This place I am king that stretches a mile My tongue its gilded throne In the castle of my smile,                 I spy through its bars of milky white The silky wonderful love of my life  Walk Eden's paradise of light. In the castle of my smile,                 I weave a golden rope of magic letters, Gluing jointed lyrics with praise filled ethers Ignoring the splinters of criticism  for better. My means of escape down the walls to you.
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Nov 1, 2018
Nov 1, 2018 at 12:47 PM UTC
In the Castle of my smile
The spider Queen, aloofly vain! She rules a silent ruthless reign, with black-bead eyes like pearls of rain that damp the depths of her demesne. . . . A spider spins, with nimble feet, a sticky web of grim deceit that drapes the corners, dark, discreet, in catacombs of her retreat. Her jointed legs (in number, eight) traverse the threads with stilted gait, but often more she'll lie in wait within the hub of her estate. Shy spiders live their lives alone ensconced within a silky throne; unless a transient guest comes flown, their lives bide empty, monotone. . . Well, now and then, a sullen breeze may twitch the toils, begin to tease – yet nothing's caught and nothing pleas, so patience's bid at times like these. But then again, when stars ignite, may maunder by a gnat, by night, be taught a dance, a writhing rite, within a lace of death, wrapped tight. Sometimes a spider's in the mood and waits awhile, whilst being wooed – and then, to later feed her brood, the widow slays her mate for food. In time a spider dies, 'tis true, bequeathing but a residue entwined, devoid of retinue, in fibers decked in silver dew. . . . One asks "What purpose serves the GNAT – to feed and make the spider fat? Well, 'tis perchance just naught but that within a mindless habitat. . . "Yet, what's the aim?” you may inquire, “at the heart of MAN's desire. To which goals should WE aspire reaching high and reaching higher?" We've, through the ages, left the mire, trundling wheels and taming fire, doing deeds that must inspire, nursing needy, calming crier, … Such things as these, most may admire: - placid dove and war defier (some are bolder, some are shyer) - patience (mess-up mollifier); - humankind (Life's justifier) - charity (charmed self-denier) - tolerance (proud pacifier ) - love of Life (folk unifier). What more could we, as flesh, require? Needless kneeling neath the spire? Childish chanting in the choir? Preaching hell's impending pyre? No, Death's the only rectifier, comes the instant we expire, nothing after, sentience prior. So, treasure Life and don't deny Her.
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Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 1:29 PM UTC
The Gnat
The spider Queen, aloofly vain! She rules a silent ruthless reign, with black-bead eyes like pearls of rain that damp the depths of her demesne. . . . A spider spins, with nimble feet, a sticky web of grim deceit that drapes the corners, dark, discreet, in catacombs of her retreat. Her jointed legs (in number, eight) traverse the threads with stilted gait, but often more she'll lie in wait within the hub of her estate. Shy spiders live their lives alone ensconced within a silky throne; unless a transient guest comes flown, their lives bide empty, monotone. . . Well, now and then, a sullen breeze may twitch the toils, begin to tease – yet nothing's caught and nothing pleas, so patience's bid at times like these. But then again, when stars ignite, may maunder by a gnat, by night, be taught a dance, a writhing rite, within a lace of death, wrapped tight. Sometimes a spider's in the mood and waits awhile, whilst being wooed – and then, to later feed her brood, the widow slays her mate for food. In time a spider dies, 'tis true, bequeathing but a residue entwined, devoid of retinue, in fibers decked in silver dew. . . . One asks "What purpose serves the GNAT – to feed and make the spider fat? Well, 'tis perchance just naught but that within a mindless habitat. . . "Yet, what's the aim?” you may inquire, “at the heart of MAN's desire. To which goals should WE aspire reaching high and reaching higher?" We've, through the ages, left the mire, trundling wheels and taming fire, doing deeds that must inspire, nursing needy, calming crier, … Such things as these, most may admire: - placid dove and war defier (some are bolder, some are shyer) - patience (mess-up mollifier); - humankind (Life's justifier) - charity (charmed self-denier) - tolerance (proud pacifier ) - love of Life (folk unifier). What more could we, as flesh, require? Needless kneeling neath the spire? Childish chanting in the choir? Preaching hell's impending pyre? No, Death's the only rectifier, comes the instant we expire, nothing after, sentience prior. So, treasure Life and don't deny Her.
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70
She might laugh if she read this at the flat little version of her that lives in my mind. She may laugh at my comparison of her to a hideous sea spider but hear me out it could be touching. David Foster Wallace wrote: *“Since pain is a totally subjective mental experience we do not have direct access to anyone or anything’s pain but our own; and even just the principles by which we can infer that others experience pain and have a legitimate interest in not feeling pain involve ******** philosophy— metaphysics, epistemology, value theory, ethics.” *"[Lobsters] do have an exquisite tactile sense, one facilitated by hundreds of thousands of tiny hairs that protrude through their carapace. Although encased in what seems a solid, impenetrable armour, the lobster can receive stimuli and impressions from without as readily as if it possessed a soft and delicate skin.”* and so “We lift lobsters out of the bag or whatever retail container they came home in …whereupon some uncomfortable things start to happen. However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water."* As much as I cannot comprehend the pain of the exquisitely tactile lobster in a *** of boiling water, I wonder if I could walk a mile in a lobster’s 8 minuscule shoes and I wonder what it might mean or not mean to her with her armoured yet acute exoskeleton to be back at home with her father. They might try to butter you up or snap elastic bands around your oversized claws and use a wooden spoon to try and nudge your thrashing, clinging arms back into the *** but remember: lobsters can live to be over 100 years old and grow to over 20 pounds in size which is very large for an aquatic insect and remember that they are marine crustaceans of the family Homaridae, characterized by five pairs of jointed legs, the first pair terminating in large pincerish claws. And DFW famously said, “Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.” and he's not a lobster either
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Apr 28, 2015
Apr 28, 2015 at 6:18 PM UTC
Considering the Lobster
She might laugh if she read this at the flat little version of her that lives in my mind. She may laugh at my comparison of her to a hideous sea spider but hear me out it could be touching. David Foster Wallace wrote: *“Since pain is a totally subjective mental experience we do not have direct access to anyone or anything’s pain but our own; and even just the principles by which we can infer that others experience pain and have a legitimate interest in not feeling pain involve ******** philosophy— metaphysics, epistemology, value theory, ethics.” *"[Lobsters] do have an exquisite tactile sense, one facilitated by hundreds of thousands of tiny hairs that protrude through their carapace. Although encased in what seems a solid, impenetrable armour, the lobster can receive stimuli and impressions from without as readily as if it possessed a soft and delicate skin.”* and so “We lift lobsters out of the bag or whatever retail container they came home in …whereupon some uncomfortable things start to happen. However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water."* As much as I cannot comprehend the pain of the exquisitely tactile lobster in a *** of boiling water, I wonder if I could walk a mile in a lobster’s 8 minuscule shoes and I wonder what it might mean or not mean to her with her armoured yet acute exoskeleton to be back at home with her father. They might try to butter you up or snap elastic bands around your oversized claws and use a wooden spoon to try and nudge your thrashing, clinging arms back into the *** but remember: lobsters can live to be over 100 years old and grow to over 20 pounds in size which is very large for an aquatic insect and remember that they are marine crustaceans of the family Homaridae, characterized by five pairs of jointed legs, the first pair terminating in large pincerish claws. And DFW famously said, “Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.” and he's not a lobster either
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53
I was once a shape... Equally jointed, at four opposite points. I was a square... I never knew the way of the world. Never open to new experiences, even when they presented themselves bare... Even when the shrouds of uncertainty were wiped away leaving the future unfurled. I grew up... Huddled under the roof set above me, with four walls that kept me safe and sheltered. That was the entire universe. That was all I saw... Views so narrow and uneventful... A life so bland with the fun bits all sheared. Never brought up to question... Never given the time and space to think. There was always a yardstick upon which I was measured. The sea of expectations was vast but shallow... So I could wade forever, but never sink. I was once a shape... No one then expected me to be other than a square. I had everything I needed, all within the confines of imposing cordons and tapes. But the world would constantly rap on the windows. Peddling its fantastical ware. It would entice with its secrets and mysteries. Boasting the wonderful stories it'd like to share.
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Jan 18, 2016
Jan 18, 2016 at 4:49 AM UTC
Square
I All all and all the dry worlds lever, Stage of the ice, the solid ocean, All from the oil, the pound of lava. City of spring, the governed flower, Turns in the earth that turns the ashen Towns around on a wheel of fire. How now my flesh, my naked fellow, Dug of the sea, the glanded morrow, Worm in the scalp, the staked and fallow. All all and all, the corpse's lover, Skinny as sin, the foaming marrow, All of the flesh, the dry worlds lever. II Fear not the waking world, my mortal, Fear not the flat, synthetic blood, Nor the heart in the ribbing metal. Fear not the tread, the seeded milling, The trigger and scythe, the bridal blade, Nor the flint in the lover's mauling. Man of my flesh, the jawbone riven, Know now the flesh's lock and vice, And the cage for the scythe-eyed raver. Know, O my bone, the jointed lever, Fear not the screws that turn the voice, And the face to the driven lover. III All all and all the dry worlds couple, Ghost with her ghost, contagious man With the womb of his shapeless people. All that shapes from the caul and suckle, Stroke of mechanical flesh on mine, Square in these worlds the mortal circle. Flower, flower the people's fusion, O light in zenith, the coupled bud, And the flame in the flesh's vision. Out of the sea, the drive of oil, Socket and grave, the brassy blood, Flower, flower, all all and all.
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2.7k
All All And All The Dry Worlds Lever
Sweat brow perculates, unmastered tongue erased all evidence, moist palms dripping anxious thoughts. pursed lips crackled and dry flow words like rapids, blink open eyes crusted by innocence each scar buried in rock, fracture and fault. heart uplifted bent in regrets, memories unconformities, missing from sight. flash to love, metamorphosed in time growing, blending to crystals born. layered finely touched in pain, like grains lithify ossify, remain untouched, preserved in stone jointed connections made. meandering tears entrenched down-cutting cheeks, bone exposed to roots. once deposited feeling, now eroded to nothing, blown by winds unforgiving these days pass like eons.
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Jun 15, 2013
Jun 15, 2013 at 4:13 AM UTC
Loss Prevention
There was a Double Rainbow in the sky, over my house today, Any special meaning there you say? Double Luck, Double Trouble, Double Dip, Double Bubble, Double Up, Double Down, Double Dutch, Double Duty, Double Play, Double Header, Double Cross, Double Jeopardy, Double Negative, Double Genitive, Double Dealings, Double Whammy. Double Jointed, Double Hung, Double Pleasure, Double Fun. I'm quite sure I could go on like this, Beyond the ordinary, If only I had   my copy of Mister Webster's Dictionary. Working this over in my mind, running it up and running it over. The best conclusion I can reach, Two stripe rainbows are nothing more, than what you see and what you think. A pretty painting in the sky, and hence Of no other particular consequence.
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Aug 19, 2013
Aug 19, 2013 at 2:17 PM UTC
Rainbow
The Fox sisters of Rochester lived in a haunted house. A spirit there was stirring That was probably not a mouse. Spirits rapped upon the walls and on the window panes. The sisters Fox would rap right back according to their claims. The Foxes were sensations, The Belles of Halloween Their Séances well attended By the credulous, T’would seem. Spirit fever gripped the land With rapping on a table (Maggie Fox was double jointed And the whole thing was a fable.) It’s hard to sell your real estate when it’s a haunted home. But when spooks rap, rap right back You’ll never be alone.
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Oct 16, 2013
Oct 16, 2013 at 10:01 PM UTC
Mediums, well done
Rough tactile callouses. Jointed mischief collaborators. Twisted knuckly punishers. Wrinkled hills and valleys. Capability embodied. Sensuality expressed. Love experienced. Life recorded. Dancing Phalanges.
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Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 12:46 AM UTC
Dancing Phalanges
*“Since pain is a totally subjective mental experience" "we do not have direct access" "to anyone or anything’s pain" "but our own;" "and even just the principles" "by which we can infer" "that others experience pain" "and have a legitimate interest in not feeling pain" "involve ******** philosophy—" "metaphysics, epistemology, value theory, ethics.”* - From Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace David I've considered it and I think she might laugh if she read that a version of her briny and spined pint sized now resides in the depths of my mind, She might laugh at my comparison of her to a hideous sea spider but it’s because, as you say, one can neither comprehend the pain of an exquisitely tactile lobster in a *** of boiling water, nor walk a mile in it's eight lilliputian shoes So I am left to wonder what it might mean or not mean to her in her armoured yet acute exoskeleton to have quit school and be back to her fathers house on Prince Edward Island. and what I'd want to tell her is: They might try to butter you up, bridle your anger with blue rubber bands, Use their wooden spoons to nudge your thrashing, clinging arms back into the *** but as we know, lobsters can live to be over one hundred years old and grow to be over twenty pounds in size which is very large for an aquatic insect and they are marine crustaceans of the family Homaridae, characterized by five pairs of jointed legs, the first pair terminating in large pincerish claws I know she knows how to use them. Which reminds me of something else you said: "Everything I've ever let go of has claw marks on it." A feeling I can understand Though I'm no more lobster than she
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Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 10:46 PM UTC
Lobster Shoes
*“Since pain is a totally subjective mental experience" "we do not have direct access" "to anyone or anything’s pain" "but our own;" "and even just the principles" "by which we can infer" "that others experience pain" "and have a legitimate interest in not feeling pain" "involve ******** philosophy—" "metaphysics, epistemology, value theory, ethics.”* - From Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace David I've considered it and I think she might laugh if she read that a version of her briny and spined pint sized now resides in the depths of my mind, She might laugh at my comparison of her to a hideous sea spider but it’s because, as you say, one can neither comprehend the pain of an exquisitely tactile lobster in a *** of boiling water, nor walk a mile in it's eight lilliputian shoes So I am left to wonder what it might mean or not mean to her in her armoured yet acute exoskeleton to have quit school and be back to her fathers house on Prince Edward Island. and what I'd want to tell her is: They might try to butter you up, bridle your anger with blue rubber bands, Use their wooden spoons to nudge your thrashing, clinging arms back into the *** but as we know, lobsters can live to be over one hundred years old and grow to be over twenty pounds in size which is very large for an aquatic insect and they are marine crustaceans of the family Homaridae, characterized by five pairs of jointed legs, the first pair terminating in large pincerish claws I know she knows how to use them. Which reminds me of something else you said: "Everything I've ever let go of has claw marks on it." A feeling I can understand Though I'm no more lobster than she
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49
~for you~ me you and this here writ somewhat clothed pretty **** imaginative words, six-pack abs, sheathed in black lace thigh highs, a verbal escapade to reality lick the screen dare... lick yourself, dare... only fair, words so fluid, so sensual, when shared... best, stupendous commemorative come to my bed, come inside my tablet thrive on pleasured kisses, exchange of the essentials bean~genes of threeselfs blended what glory glorious that moment, can relive it, with eyes contacted .. where to here now hereafter, when to here, poem return come once more knowing we have jointed, acknowledging the creation of a co-memorizing-tionary diction, recycling this one poem, our commemoration coin that only goes up in value I love you...
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Jan 17, 2015
Jan 17, 2015 at 9:44 AM UTC
*********
Since they cut my long heavy navel string they too cut the feeling of love. Attachment was never present in the same jointed way that I once felt thoroughly. Then came one who too had a broken heart who's navel was fully hallow.   One who would use the navel string to wrap it around my neck till I choked. I realised then that you made me scared of the word, love, because you used it in the wrong way.
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Jun 22, 2018
Jun 22, 2018 at 4:00 PM UTC
Navel
I sit in a forest, with my back against a large oak, and listen. Among rustling leaves and whining cicadas I hear something else. Something larger. It's moving through the forest on jointed legs, snapping the branches of century old trees. An insect the size of a castle. It lets out a cry. Sounds like a thousand year old whale's death rattle. The cicadas stop whining and I shudder. It's heading to the lake to breed, or to die. Their kind begins and ends in water. Very morbid creatures, they are. I can feel its steps shake the earth as it comes closer and then I see it. Ten long, jointed legs support the bulk of the thing. It towers over me, silver. Its shell is a knight's armour and its red eyes are the devil's. I stand up in awe of the colossal bug as it lumbers past me, blocking the sun and casting me in shadow for a while. I light a cigarette and listen to it move through the forest. Eventually, I can't hear it anymore and the cicadas start to whine again.
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Jun 15, 2015
Jun 15, 2015 at 7:55 PM UTC
Big Bugs and Day Dreams
Each cold wave was starting to slap me in the face and the grayness of morning wasn’t lifting as the sun rose. Goosebumps had made my legs slim sharks, heavy and rough, so I swam to shore spitting out icy water. I was thinking about coffee, maybe crawling into my sleeping bag and listening to loons’ far-off howls until breakfast, and I reached the splintery dock when I choked – tried to struggle backward, without any splash which might wash her in with me. Dock spiders swim. Did you know? They fasten long ropes of silk and dive for their prey, something big since no horsefly sustains a spider the size of a mouse. This one was monstrous, motionless, spiky black legs jointed white at her knees, face-level to my wet bobbing head. She gripped an egg sac, papery and white, marble-sized. It held hundreds of tiny hers. It looked heavy. I had come to her panting but now the water or inertia maybe pushed my face close to that enormous silent mother so I fought harder to stay away, though if the lake had been still I might have treaded at a distance, stared hard, dared her to scuttle and disappear in the cracks in the plywood-patched dock with its rotting ladder and a dozen more spiders, probably, white sacs strapped firmly to their bellies. I flopped like I’d hooked a lip, gasping, desperate for rough open water where depth would deter any diving hairy creature. Somehow I struggled to remoter shoreline where I slid over boulders’ upholstery of algae, shivering, legs frog-splayed, stringent and numb. I never felt it when I scratched my legs crashing through buckthorn, the way to the cabin, though I saw the lines later when I put on soft clothing in a warm inside corner where spiders are smaller and at least have the kindness to keep out of sight.
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Jan 12, 2010
Jan 12, 2010 at 6:44 AM UTC
The Lake Spider
Each cold wave was starting to slap me in the face and the grayness of morning wasn’t lifting as the sun rose. Goosebumps had made my legs slim sharks, heavy and rough, so I swam to shore spitting out icy water. I was thinking about coffee, maybe crawling into my sleeping bag and listening to loons’ far-off howls until breakfast, and I reached the splintery dock when I choked – tried to struggle backward, without any splash which might wash her in with me. Dock spiders swim. Did you know? They fasten long ropes of silk and dive for their prey, something big since no horsefly sustains a spider the size of a mouse. This one was monstrous, motionless, spiky black legs jointed white at her knees, face-level to my wet bobbing head. She gripped an egg sac, papery and white, marble-sized. It held hundreds of tiny hers. It looked heavy. I had come to her panting but now the water or inertia maybe pushed my face close to that enormous silent mother so I fought harder to stay away, though if the lake had been still I might have treaded at a distance, stared hard, dared her to scuttle and disappear in the cracks in the plywood-patched dock with its rotting ladder and a dozen more spiders, probably, white sacs strapped firmly to their bellies. I flopped like I’d hooked a lip, gasping, desperate for rough open water where depth would deter any diving hairy creature. Somehow I struggled to remoter shoreline where I slid over boulders’ upholstery of algae, shivering, legs frog-splayed, stringent and numb. I never felt it when I scratched my legs crashing through buckthorn, the way to the cabin, though I saw the lines later when I put on soft clothing in a warm inside corner where spiders are smaller and at least have the kindness to keep out of sight.
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freckle-faced      jug-eared           left-handed skinny as a fungo bat loose-jointed      like a string-puppet in sports        not great but           scrappy and fun long distance runner      played hard           no grudges nobody’s idea of handsome voice like a scratchy record married straight out of high school      drafted 101st Airborne everybody had a dumb nickname Denny, Little Old Lady nobody remembers why Thua Thien, South Vietnam hit by an RPG August 5, 1968 smithereens in a body bag days later, a letter informs he’s a daddy Denny, if you’d lived sixteen more days you could’ve legally bought beer I’m sixty-seven years old you’re forever almost twenty-one Memorial Day 2015 We've lost them by the thousands. We grieve them one by one.
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May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 2:42 PM UTC
Denny, Memorial Day
ain't no disability, i'm a superhero - kanye west / who i am is a complicated shit-show of mental illnesses, diagnosed and medicated to make me able. according to the kids at school, i will put you in a chokehold for flexing your double- jointed finger. / autism is strange, because words hurt more than you could image. a few words are no longer spoken in our household. freak is one of them. / have you ever feared someone because of rumors? if you have, then i announce you as an enemy, so let's duel with choppy movements and irrational fingers. / school is out, and i'm thinking that who i am is a delicate shit-show of who i want to be
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Jun 14, 2018
Jun 14, 2018 at 7:27 PM UTC
versus.
This dissertation, written by a double-jointed stunt-double A sentient being It must take one to know one Because he found me immediately We counted the tally marks Crushed cornflakes on a Kashmir carpet   We met a paraplegic paralegal   Whose views we're, for lack of a better word "perpendicular" We we're entranced by him He spoke of integrity and the dangers of toxic relationships And how the service of justice is only so-so He was enmeshed by contractual obligations and deadlines He left us with two last pieces of advice "Talk to yourself often, for you'll surely know best for yourself" "Forgive yourself, for forgiveness proves strength and admitting your wrongs shows humility" The stunt-double wrote his paper on this And I wrote this poem This occurrence so rarefied yet malleable -Tommy Johnson
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Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 8:20 PM UTC
Bona fide Gimp
There there my dear, it's only a scratch, another one for the collection. Antiseptic wipe; Dettol 99.9% by the way. Indignancy felt but ushered into a comfortable seat with nice back support and leather upholstery. Tomato Ketchup. "This is just wrong, this will not stand!!" A deafening barely audible roar. Look there is a fly banging its head against a glass window. He repeats the action over and over. A spark flies and it blinds. Sweet immersion. Embrace. Warmth. Comfort. A bubble. Suspension. The gaze into a lover's eyes....post ****** of course! Cinema ticket stubs, bloated belly, extra butter. The cold walk home. Sorry, I have none on me or I left mine inside or look away. Discrepency and some thing dis jointed. Lack of understanding. Inward spirals. HellNoweWontgO, away they went in disgruntled silence. Not a stain nor a mark on the beautiful tree lined streets.
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Mar 22, 2012
Mar 22, 2012 at 11:00 AM UTC
Now Now.
They drink to forget their problems I smoke a joint They cry and move on when their hearts are broken I stay itching for my fixture when my joints are broken If ever their joints get broken they wouldn't be able to live Neither would I and that's one thing we have in common With these joints you made feel like I can move mountains With this knee joint in the future I would kneel and ask you to marry me But the joy in my joints is no more The red blood cells die in vein The cells lose shape of what was once a circle And what was joined in life I ask if only it can be broken as death do us apart But now for now Reality hits me in the eyes and gives back the sight once robbed So just like any human being I can't live with broken joints And just like any stoner I can't get high on these broken joints I get high with friends I get high alone But getting high with you is a memory I wish to relive I embrace tightly every thought of you It is the closest I can be to you lately And with every pull I take from each joint I pray that God may pull you right back into my arms Don't give up on me.... Don't give up on us Runaway But I broke my leg once yet today I'm able to chase after you I'm inlove with you I ask you this, why can't we Be joints joined To experience the joy in joined joints And be joined joints jointed joyfully?
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Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 6:09 AM UTC
Broken Joints