"jowl" poems
dented but not broken
in the demon dark
the deep chasms
of the wilderness
and the forgotten recess
silence from tender slumber
has awoken
the synergy of temptations
on their merry dance
sip divines peach nectar
the naked flesh and heaving chest
unleash thy sporadic vital spark
the impressed intent
of thy chosen scent
fuels the interactive nodes
neon infused electronic spasms
that echo in the dark
a subtle jowl in latent jest
as twilights nimble fingers
unbutton what remains of carefree days
and the fallen angels
with such sweet caress
to touch the mystic
unfurl the arc of your rainbow
and shine your rays
on cobbled memories
of Paris in the rain
and Tokyo Blue
hustles in the backstreets aroma
blow the cobwebs a gentle kiss
on days like this
left unchecked and laid to rest
gathered in momentums voice
and uttered as a sensual breath
the nakedness of emotion
the arcane interventions
should not be left to fade
to fill the empty space
they call the void
these technicolour moments
we've made
stumble on the waves
the fragrances of youth etched
in unedited stop motion
the contours of discovery
sparkle in the ether
the azure eyes
and the open arms
of the ocean
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 10:39 AM UTC
Inside your little mouth, a crucifix and a hula hoop plant great capers on the short hash marks on your glossy pinkish lips. Like a boardgame I can't win all by myself or a song without a tune, like the melody that chases strangers, or any words that precede goodbye.
The future is coming quickly now, serfs lining up to set fire to their nostrils, take the cue ball and whet their mass wicks for the apostles. Anecdotal anomaly that J-walk over crosswalks whose life then becomes an apostrophe. Morbid fixture on the substrate, creatures limitlessly nodding. A grape-sized egg fills its own unit and erupts to shape the outlet. Your verb-legs may appear demonstratively while you crowd surf, we should play the music louder while we practice all our dance work.
Sunday morning we wake up stiffly, my jowl hurts from mouthing softwords, the nights' adventurous perversity of thwarting dinosaurs with Cobra Starship. Even the back room closet manager gave us enough bleach to see our eyelids, frothy nictitating flitters drop freshly severed lashes that inspire wishes and sultry playlists.
Consecrated mien market of company meals. Underneath the cable cars the dye blunders sores in my eyes. Said I had to go, said I had to die. Said I had an itch but I couldn't get in front of all of this and unwind. Between all of the bees and buttered flies he made it hard for us all to survive, or service this state of our lives. I recall schoolyards where children paid to their dimes for us to see the spaces in the middle of lines, the circles on the circles we liked, stuck in bubble baths with crayon all on their hands. For the price of staying alive I deliver a bribe to sway eyes from the crimes of street dwelling inner-city sinners with stomach contents' upsetted by the rough ********* of heavy petting. She eats red licorice rope with with my fingers rubbing on her tongue. A pedagogy I use to teach, but pretty much no longer have a use.
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 12:28 AM UTC
You’ll find them in all such establishments,
(Be they graceful small-town former Victorian homes,
Or cinderblock edifices mindful of some campus multi-faith center)
Sitting in the basement, cheek-to-jowl
With moldering burial records and banking statements,
Yellowed newspaper clippings, faded prayer cards
Small squared-off boxes hastily tabbed together,
Ostensibly temporary containers which have acquired
An unintended and wholly unwelcome permanence.
The whys and wherefores of their subterranean placement
A mixed bag of foible and outright foolishness:
Unresolvable squabbles concerning possession and burial,
Families that skipped out on the bill, leaving mom behind,
Cases of outright not giving a good-goddamn.
And so they remain, in lieu of repatriation and redemption,
To sit for something akin to perpetuity in some cases
(Members of the profession resolute in their respect
For the dignity of life,
Though their sincerity enjoys less unanimity)
While others wait for mass burial
Once legal niceties have been satisfied,
While still others, in care of firms not so scrupulous
About crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s,
Are flung, albeit somewhat surreptitiously, out the back door,
The remains to take flight if the grass is dry and the wind is brisk,
Otherwise to be left to the vagaries
Of curious birds and creped soles.
Aug 31, 2018
Aug 31, 2018 at 11:28 AM UTC
Although your friendly demeanor
Helps mask your vexatious vibe,
What's hidden under your trench coat
I can effortlessly describe.
Your ignorance is beautiful
Complimenting your facetiousness,
Which gets people to laugh,
Following you like a princess.
The amiable attitude masks
An ugly judgmental jowl
Which tends to spark
A camouflaged scowl
Your playful features are
No more than soft and cushy wool.
The transparent grin you flaunt about
Is just a bunch of bull.
Now grapple my ideas
Don't throw them out if sight.
Just listen when I say
"You're stupid and I'm right"
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 2:57 AM UTC
In the morning, I gather my thoughts of yesterday
Like the foraging chipmunk, collecting acorns
And stuffing them miserly in my jowls
The past is sustenance for a somnolent soul
As age condemns my faculties
I pull, from my once copious jowl
A jewel of sorts
A garnet set in fool’s gold
My memory is manufactured
Assembled and disassembled
No longer what was or is or will be
But was and is and never has been
I confine my thoughts to winter
Where barren fields and sterile trees
Offer less to recollect
And empty my jaws of these useless reminiscences
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 7:11 AM UTC
Inside your little mouth, a crucifix and a hula hoop plant great capers on the short hash marks on your glossy pinkish lips. Like a boardgame I can't win all by myself or a song without a tune, like the melody that chases strangers, or any words that precede goodbye.
The future is coming quickly now, serfs lining up to set fire to their nostrils, take the cue ball and whet their mass wicks for the apostles. Anecdotal anomaly that J-walk over crosswalks whose life then becomes an apostrophe. Morbid fixture on the substrate, creatures limitlessly nodding. A grape-sized egg fills its own unit and erupts to shape the outlet. Your verb-legs may appear demonstratively while you crowd surf, we should play the music louder while we practice all our dance work.
Sunday morning we wake up stiffly, my jowl hurts from mouthing softwords, the nights' adventurous perversity of thwarting dinosaurs with Cobra Starship. Even the back room closet manager gave us enough bleach to see our eyelids, frothy nictitating flitters drop freshly severed lashes that inspire wishes and sultry playlists.
Consecrated mien market of company meals. Underneath the cable cars the dye blunders sores in my eyes. Said I had to go, said I had to die. Said I had an itch but I couldn't get in front of all of this and unwind. Between all of the bees and buttered flies he made it hard for us all to survive, or service this state of our lives. I recall schoolyards where children paid to their dimes for us to see the spaces in the middle of lines, the circles on the circles we liked, stuck in bubble baths with crayon all on their hands. For the price of staying alive I deliver a bribe to sway eyes from the crimes of street dwelling inner-city sinners with stomach contents' upsetted by the rough ********* of heavy petting. She eats red licorice rope with
Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 2:00 PM UTC
3rd Ward, Houston, Texas; where the ancient layers
Exude the art of living. Living cheek to jowl,
Hand to mouth, foot to road, bullet to head, head to heart.
Under these paved streets beats a heart of history
Mortared with ground bones, and sweat, and blood.
I call to you Soil teeming with our mothers and our fathers.
There is no rejoicing when I meet you, face-down,
And I am pushed and shoved down by hands of any color.
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 3:30 PM UTC
He’d been close to the big time,
If not a god of the fight game, perhaps a demigod;
He’d been possessed of considerable brute strength
And the ability to shut out concern for the well-being of others,
But there had been the odd ***** in his armor:
An overhand right which announced itself too early,
And arrived just a smidgen too late,
Plus an unhappy tendency to lose focus,
To stray from those plans his corner had set up chapter and verse,
Choosing the forbidden fruit of the quick knockout.
He had, after losing a bout to a top-ranked fighter
(He was eighth in the world, he would chuckle ruefully,
And I fought him like I was eight years old.)
Decided to chuck it all in,
Enrolling in a scruffy little bible college
Sitting just off an interstate on-ramp,
Cheek-to-jowl with a Wendy’s and 7-11,
In order to facilitate the transition from mayhem to ministry.
He’d soured on the process in fairly short order;
He understood instinctually that he, like all men,
Was a sinner, and likely unworthy of salvation,
And the faculty accentuated the notion daily, if not hourly,
Like so many jabs to the midsection.
He’d inquired, gently, as to the approach one should take
To addressing the worrisome paradox
That all men were imperfect beings
Marooned on an imperfect world,
Yet their fallibility was all they had to build on,
(A rickety ladder to scramble upwards, for sure,
But the only way to reach that golden fruit
Held out for him, though just beyond his grasp.)
The responses varied, from sputtering and vague parries
To the suggestion that such notions were heresy,
And so he’d returned to the club-and-casino circuit
Makin’ the best use of the gifts I have, he would sigh,
Before heading out once more,
Hoping there was one more short right at least one more time.
Jul 5, 2018
Jul 5, 2018 at 4:11 PM UTC
Stolen warmth gone for now, followed by melancholic uneventful sounds. When I walk, I walk away from seeing. Everything I thought I might've been. This skin trying to fly away from me, like a misplaced shadow searching for a body to shrug off its grief. Bending, arcing, aching thumbs that have too much memory to allow them any fun. The old time might have agreed, with the girl lost for at least three weeks. Sugar and a can of milk condensed, heated up over campfire coals in the woods near Libereć.
Twice I'm too scared to talk. After a boxing match with a raging bull. Staleness lingers over these sweating hips, where half a moon quaffs down Verdi's Requiems. I told you I'm hiding in the jungle now. Through these cufflinks I speak through a startled jowl. First that dying tone, the startling sound of a fading D Minor song. The mines of the forest grieve, until the hours born sell the rights to sleep. Taken and away from grief, where wiggling children's fingers are seen. Only to find the child was not a realty.
Let your hands make amends to me, whether you're here for the pistachio ice cream or vanilla almond dream. Princess pleas for a pauper's being.
Looks like the child bit off half it's tongue, to ignore all inquiries into where its gone. Minute games and clauses of flesh, I tie her up using her own belt. Chasing The Rockies for a festive blue, then I gorge myself while she enrolled me too. Quiet bandits filled with starlight.
Sep 22, 2017
Sep 22, 2017 at 3:46 AM UTC
Pickaxe handles
jitters the species.
But cheek by jowl
there's an always ardour
in teak panelling
Can I follow her down
and love her for now ?
There's perfection
in preserved 1970's, Formica,
bubble wrap with squeak;
on a wholesome ligne roset tableaux
the height of sophistication
always the French language magazine
Paris Match,
as I plunge the Johnny Hallyday
fork deeper
hoping longer.
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 4:13 PM UTC
It was a dark and stormy night
The moon was like a ghost
New, it was a sliver
Misty. Foggy. Lost.
Lightning all around it
Dancing on the breeze
Thunder took it in its arms
To Tiptoe Through the Trees
Liquid glinted on its face
Flowed down to cheek and jowl
A madman's laugh arose from it
As the wind began to howl
Yes, if raindrops are as tears to him
They are tears of Mirth
For he looks down upon us fools
And laughs for all he's worth!
Aug 7, 2016
Aug 7, 2016 at 12:15 AM UTC
I guess it's
Been four years now
She turned up here homeless
She was old
Even then
Those used teats
The grey on her jowl
Lonely. So loving.
She's followed me
Like my shadow
Ever since
And don't believe
A dog can't smile
In my absences
She'll sit by the door
Until I come back
I'm 60 now.
Just had a birthday.
And this black Labrador
Beauty gave me the honor
Of crawling up next
To me as I went to sleep
She rarely has done before.
And it made me wonder
How I want to die before her
I don't think I could stand
Losing her
But thought
Of what would happen
To her
If I went before
And this isn't poetry
It's a love story
About two lonely orphans
Who found someone
Who loves them more
Than life itself
And how
Much love
Can mean
Jan 31, 2018
Jan 31, 2018 at 4:07 AM UTC
At night the time is ripe enough to mate:
In close proximity, we duly prowl
Thro’ slumb’ring streets advancing, cheek by jowl,
With caution like a tiger’s guarded gait.
For us, our claws convey both love and hate,
Into the sea, our songs we shriek and howl
Of treachery and longing hear us yowl;
Bewitching all with beauty is our fate.
For you, I am your ever-loving slave -
Upon your feline charms I’d happ’ly sup!
To have you by my side is all I crave,
Like cream tea we could lap each other up.
Oh! What loving phrases we could hiss
While resting by the hearth in endless bliss.
Jan 28, 2017
Jan 28, 2017 at 6:20 PM UTC
Face down in the mire, head weighs three tons.
Ants marching, he longs to be among their
shimmering ebony ranks.
No morality, no war of will.
Only repetition, only eye and jowl, red and black,
simplistic nature.
Love lacking, spiritless life, bearer of the stone
always East of Eden.
Outcast.
Cyst of society,
unknown.
City walls crumbling, tears crushing their noble courts.
Ten thousand limbs pressing new earth, as the innocent scream at the sun.
Beautiful this unseen inside,
the coursing lifeblood below sand skin.
Steady chaos, as drones rise about carnage,
unscathed on whipping wings.
Jan 18, 2013
Jan 18, 2013 at 11:55 PM UTC
Down her cheek there rolls a tear
Lowered eyes reflect the fear
She feels that others see the pain
She tries to hide to mask the shame.
Shame of what she has become
Despite her efforts to succumb
To good intentioned, sound advice
Delivered at preposterous price.
Shame at how the mind deplores
Those temperamental personal flaws,
Of slights inferred and insults hurled
At friend and foe with flag unfurled.
Friend and foe who tried to help,
Who lowered guard to feel the welt
Of verbal horsewhip to the jowl,
To violently recoil with howl.
Betrayal in its basest form
All sympathetic help withdrawn.
She furiously stands distraught
In isolation’s cold white thought.
Down her cheek there rolls a tear
Of distain for the eyes that jeer,
Direction of the darts of blame
From whence no help will come again.
Marshalg
Collateral damage
4 February 2012
Feb 3, 2012
Feb 3, 2012 at 7:45 PM UTC
Time runs through her promises
and discounts them
one by one
for such are these cart wheels
made to unravel the stony path
and yonder the Ash
jowl to cheek
their longevity snaps
soiled by the wood-colliers
we tread pebbles
that fornicate with the dead
laying haphazardly
to unburden their endeavour,
de-fragmented
a Memory of un-feasibility
proclaims the broken Path
and purchased here for eternity
May 10, 2012
May 10, 2012 at 3:40 PM UTC
He enters. A stiff morning jowl
can be heard clicking.
And, in early grievance,
the second man’s clock speeds its ticking.
He lies lulling himself (lamenting)
while lockjaw bends down,
knees cracking.
Behind the fold that blinds the floored man
a “D” engrained from cigarette ads,
After smell of the first’s wafts over.
An emphysemic growl is left ringing
on the ground; tumultuous hacking
kicks in like the cops that reside down in Brixton.
Wheeze, hack, and cough, and cough. And cough.
(Silence) bearing down from the **** erectus
leads Remington to the Clark of the floored man’s
pounding chest.
Rest, rest; he tries to protest, but the cavalry
can’t hear his signs of duress.
And now slitting wrists, from inside the veins;
the invisible smoker never could be restrained.
Jul 17, 2013
Jul 17, 2013 at 11:41 AM UTC
Jesus Christ I was made with a monster inside of me.
It’s an enemy.
An uninvited guest, closer than my shadow; a “scientist gone mad” concoction settling and putting roots into every inch of me.
It’s a home wrecking unkempt roommate who defaces your property, ***** your man, then shows up to fist fight at four in the morning.
It’s something that's created a bed in my chest and a toilet in my brain.
Lounged back in its moth-eaten recliner, flipping eagerly through all of my channels while sipping its drink; it is something that is always with me.
It shares what I touch and what I eat; speaking literally, it goes fifty-fifty on every diminutive measly thing.
Cheek by jowl in front of the mirror and dressed in the same outfit, my villainous lowdown twin sister, right there next to me.
It has earmarks of a mother who I am to take orders from or else I can't laugh with my friends or play Nintendo for six weeks, where she tells me to change my clothes three times before breakfast, where I am unable to act appropriately.
Awaken daily by that specific detrimental type of early morning sickness, where the cold-hearted ***** is always with me.
Able to hold a candle to a man that makes you cry and gazes at your best friends, where he makes you feel dejected and ever short.
Where he purloins your spirit and hawks on the fire in your belly; forcing you to allow him to make you feel that way and it's that specific muddy stain on a white T-shirt.
Wash after wash, he is always ******* with me.
It’s the fog that glazes over the roads and hides the trees at four o’clock in the morning during your drive through Pennsylvania.
Whenever the birds sleep until the woods are illuminated by sunlight.
It’s the reason for the high beams that are always on and always bright.
And they are always with me.
Jul 22, 2015
Jul 22, 2015 at 12:02 PM UTC
There once was a poem
Of which was spoken
Then taken away
Never to be heard of again
Jowl pressed against
Oven rack
Eyes placid
as a holy cow
Breathing whispered line
Giving
Taking life
Incantatory orbs sworn
Coursing forming
transfixing
The torpid
Into tor
One last time
One more
Poem
Hers
And hers alone
Conjured up rungs of rack
Her impromptu ledger
Bowed
By the weight the weight
Of galloping mouthed axes
Running full speed past
The rush the crush
Into the margins
A clever trick!
Gone from us
Handful of whitened knuckles
Inside usurped fist ******
******* no more
Open to the magnificence
She had had
All there ever was to be
For a time
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 6:32 PM UTC
I have been wandering how mommy
Sweet did come by such a tommy
Big, enquired the pretty darling
Of her dear dad. It's the Lord's doing.
A boon so marvellous to behold, that's true
And priceless. I can't take thee now thru'
The episode whole. But it did wilfully happen
Tween me and her, said more the pop, when
We blithely together laid for a marital affair,
Cheek and jowl, that we might perfectly pair
And have in unison our amorous-laced passion,
Melting them into one inseparable fermented fusion.
From that act of affection came her womb large,
From which a life precious like thou will emerge--
God willing--soon; after nine-seemingly-slow months of
Steady evolvement and care, it will be time enough
To bring forth. It might be twins or more, or a boy
Or a girl only; but when a scan is employ-
Ed, you can confirm the very gender and number prior
To the hour of parturition of that gift of honour.
Thou wilt be wise, pray i, my peering daughter,
As thou by age by and by dost begin to muster
In life empirical knowledge and understanding
To unravel the mystery behind a protruding
Belly of a woman firsthand thyself. In school
And everywhere prithee, my child, be nobody's fool.
May 3, 2012
May 3, 2012 at 3:36 AM UTC
How Marjorie dances
cheek by jowl,
we could never be strangers-
her face countenances
with comely candle light .
Parfait Oysters and Rose -
a double diamond of moonlight.
Only in France's nord pas de calais
could we rejoice,
redolent in vintage Boulonge
our hearts aching for one another.
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 8:06 PM UTC
with hog jowl
and mole eye
he sentenced all
that I loved
to die.
without thought
of what we’d built,
who we were,
or why we did the
work;
he burned it
to the ground,
squinting in the
haze of his lack
of forethought or
the aftermath
wrought.
those that we serve
think that we know,
because we do.
we know.
yet,
as these changes,
these Trumperies,
these budget cuts
that slice and sear
the most vulnerable
among us…
these things cause
the unforgivable
“I don’t know.”
to escape our
collective lips.
but,
he knows.
with hog jowl,
mole eye,
and horse's ***
he sits upon
his liar’s throne
and
knows,
but won’t
say.
***
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications
May 30, 2017
May 30, 2017 at 5:13 PM UTC
lips part, two strings, the puppet master yanks
in eager yearning to see her smile,
he laughs at the blood spilling down her cheeks
she laughs back. spitting and swallowing in turn
biting on hooks. shift to point; she spins.
wires tense straining at any held purpose.
gritted and mounted to station wires
cut deep into flesh, fat through bone
until cracking free to fly with severed
manipulators and flowing blood.
the stage set slippery. sanguine
Bambi skids and falls. Disney
without the artifice. The mother seen
to die the exhilaration of death vivid
in the killers eyes.
the final cut. hooks join chummed
with jowl and tongue.
as one the audience stand.
****** silent.
faces lit with praise are but stitched arcs
applause a vacancy of hands.
............................
The writers Iniquity and MrQuipty
collaborate again
©
Aug 8, 2016
Aug 8, 2016 at 5:28 PM UTC
This charity now
from a bored wolf
gorged on habit
unmoved by thy flaunt and flight
little rabbit
it is of no track
nor concern to hunt thee-
even thy tears, dear rabbit
are only tasted when pranced about
And always;
Always, of the 'morrow
at pitiable pace and slack
of silent bark and jowl
gnaws the trap 'round thy leg
fitful of thy freedom, lo rabbit
'ware this bored wolf of habit
Mar 1, 2021
Mar 1, 2021 at 4:46 PM UTC