"jowls" poems
Gentlemen of Courage and Ladies of Excellence,
Toast to stolen prayers with rarer player’s hands;
Soft in defiant laughter,
when drinking their wine from the bowels of brines
Sing along the Ballads of Heritage with Melodies of Exception;
Boast, not a breathe,
though sullen heirs ghost to fairer wearer’s air(s) of land—
A settlement of Rapture and Resurrection, arid, amid dirt and sand
and King and thy Kingdom sprout flowering tomb, and rosebud temple reach to the sky during the showers of spring
Devours the crescent Moon
in big pink petals of bloom;
A garden so fertile
it could look pretty in wartime—
with Gardeners of Courage and Laborers of Excellence;
(Lapse, not into digressions of Being and Essence
but hands in the soil and planting the actions of kingdom come,
patient building of Spring Reign sure
as the flame, the architect of rising Sun is
(Daughters and Sons of kingdom came,
the soldier in a land been conquered and named; abandoned
for the greenness of hope.
)May it never come, Be All The Same; (
be gentle, though whispering wind)
Seeds of Nextyear and the spores of Awhile,
carried by the Wasps and the Clouds
To the Gentlemen of Excellence and Ladies of Courage,
illuminated, eyes from the flora of stars faraway forest floor of foreign
fears,
as the hungry Owls of Time prepare a final feast—
Consume the years between Here and Now;
Watching from blank perch, among
the Trees of Afterall; a place beyond expectance.
Sing the branches of experience, to wake
in Siren’s cipher; inelegant forms
of waking,
ugly sleep on rocks of seabed; once was aboard a marooned skyline—
Those Who Are Will Be
again, again a serf in a wave of Time’s refraction. Neverending neverbeginning;
Those Gentlemen of Courage and Ladies of Excellence,
on the Day That Is, arrays of seers sayers doers displayers
optimists and pessimists, toast to them
and their rarer player’s hands,
Boast they, not a breathe, though sullen heirs ghost
to fairer wearer’s air and land;
Laugh and howl and dine, they drink their wine
from disemboweled gourds
of their own divine—
Warped, in jowls of hungry fix,
no feast they fear, for they prey to the Owls of Time.
Apr 30, 2018
Apr 30, 2018 at 5:28 PM UTC
Botox on the high street
A jab for flabby jowls.
Is it any wonder people
Exist only in their heads?
Social media selfies taken
From above in unnatural light.
Is it still shocking people
Hate the boring everyday?
It's not easy to like yourself
In a world obsessed with image.
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 10:38 AM UTC
Her arms semaphore fat triangles,
Pudgy HANDS bunched on layered hips
Where bones idle under years of fatback
And lima beans.
Her jowls shiver in accusation
Of crimes cliched by Repetition.
Her children, strangers
To childhood's TOYS, play
Best the games of darkened doorways,
Rooftop tag, and know the slick feel of
Other people's property.
Too fat to *****
Too mad to work,
Searches her dreams for the
Lucky sign and walks bare-handed
Into a den of bereaucrats for her portion.
'They don't give me welfare.
I take it.'
6.5k
The devil's speech say they:
Rolling, clattering, frolicking, hungry.
Billows of charred skeletons embrace the air
Black soot pumped straight from the pyres of Hades
Congealing to clouds of evil intent wherever it roam.
That charred old shell so terse,
Black as sadness and dead as a hearse,
Darling to death as he brings on the rain:
The dry rolling thunder of the funeral train.
In the coughing desert
Not a thing dares roam
Neither wind nor creature
And neither stick nor stone.
But then the silence disturbed by a horrible shriek -
The railway screams in horror and the train itself speaks, saying
"Tell me, thou innocent,
Why feel you special and best?
For when all is done I take you
And return you to my nest;
Your world is bright and happy
Full of high spirits and song,
Though soon you too shall step aboard
And join my faceless throng."
Hot saliva on the heaving engines:
Weeping, groaning, ghostly, parched.
Rusted joints spewed onwards grinding resisting
Movement spat out like a violently beaded string of curses
Sloppily uttered as incantations of a malformed mouth!
From that charred old shell so terse,
Black as sadness and dead as a hearse,
Darling to death as he brings on the rain:
The dry rolling thunder of the funeral train.
That dark train cries out and all around
A mourning whimper rises like slumbering fog-
Bleak and yellow it obscures the land
Seeping out insidious in strange locales all:
The old lonely fisherman
Sleeping on his wharf,
The frustrated hawker's
Windblown barefaced booth,
Silent streets crying for attention,
Dark places hidden at the corner of every eye.
That solemn train cries out and all around
Her mourning whimper rises like harrowing fog
Calling all to upright attention and fear.
Looming like a spectre but a breath-span from your window
Slowly closing cold dread claws-
Naked numbness dumb as ice-
Cold dread claws upon thy waist.
And you,
You poor old thing,
Shivering in your pitiful shack of bones,
You never had any chance!
You were only human.
You were only human, you poor old thing.
Barreling on with brimstone slang:
Clang clang! Dang dang! Beelz Bub!
Sputtering an ocean of curses from turgid goat-flesh
Born of sadness to cause even more, yawning great maw
Jowls clanking with fresh hot oil drool steaming stark and lewd, and yet
That charred old shell so terse,
Blacker than sadness and slain like a hearse,
Is all that gives meaning to our every gain:
The dry rolling thunder of the funeral train.
Oct 4, 2011
Oct 4, 2011 at 12:10 AM UTC
To say the darkness
Does indeed
Dwell inside of me
Becomes the pride of me
Would underscore
The fact
That the madman’s eyes
Loosens my lunatic tongue
The scowling beast
His drooling jowls
The anguished cries
How he howls
The hunger
Left unsated
The feast
For which he waited
The beast will have his
Ways with
Life and all of her bounties
And then what lies within
Will settle once again
The foaming mouth will pass
The hunger is not meant to last
And I will be me
Once more
May 31, 2015
May 31, 2015 at 3:31 PM UTC
His flabbered jowls were hung aghast
Beneath his slobbered liver lips
His bulbous eyes were overcast
By burly brows of stewardship
An overbearing egotist
He stood apart from infidels
Compassion dealt with belt and fist
Disdainful with no parallels
And there upon his lofty dais
In garments fit to drape a throne
He glared with bulbous eyes ablaze
Upon a ragged danger zone
A misbegotten anarchist
Audacious with his sweet implore
To strike a flaming catalyst
Emboldened by his quest for more
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 7:36 AM UTC
Sitting in this dusty old attic
listening to the shingles flapping in the wind
I flip through a dog-eared book from my childhood.
As I skip through the pages,
I look up and notice the fine inlaid
carpentry work of an old chest.
Going over, leaving prints on the dusty floor,
I lift the lid. With reptilian slowness
a lazy fat spider edges away.
Inside this trove of ancient treasure,
magnificent finds of days gone by.
Mementos of a honeymoon, a parachute jump.
Gramma's best biscuit recipe. A photo of
Sam the hound with spittle running down his jowls.
A picture of a babe at his mother's ******
A permutation of these tucked away articles
give meaning to a life well and truly lived.
Closing the pages of these treasures I
wander away to watch my grandchildren
make memories of their own.
Sep 20, 2011
Sep 20, 2011 at 8:49 PM UTC
Alice and I were fudged fruiting inside Falstaffian freakish fleur–de–lys:
She inside a quack–aztec–tattooed tank,
Me inside a pendulous magenta harness with polydactyl–perverted plumes bespattered into it.
In the ****** **** of that kaput flophouse
We creosoted our conks all the cockatrices of the gorge–de–pigeon,
Inside crotches, Jacuzzis and homocentric Action Men.
Alice, with the pornographic bend sinisters in the teeth of her poltergeistish fajita crocodile,
Smacked of the plug–ugly poofter of a south–south–west by south sackful sandbank.
I cemented the jaundiced dangler of an ostrich to my prick.
With that and my uncut fiddlestick of knobs
I was the idiosyncratic and wholehogging sadomasochistic slapper!
We banged the bush streaming proboscis in tentacle
Through smorgasbords of hermaphrodites and high muck–a–mucks
While Ravi Shankar’s idioglossias and cockchafers juddered our titbits.
Our Moonies were classically cracked flabelliform by the time we disinterred them.
Alice managed to fornicate incognito white elephant on behalf of myself
And we were passionately on the back of the dingdong, naked as our Moonies.
We kept one’s pecker up wrapped up in the shadowgraph
Athwart ever-strangling girdles of formaldehyde, ozone, fomenter and widow’s weeds,
Athwart polytetrafluoroethylene–pricked precipices and then down to the butts
Where we both came to a sticky end on our jockstraps and leered at the ballet dancers
That we then penetrated rhythmically by elongating tumescent our gang banging tentacles.
Through comfortable French knickers I burped, “Thank you for ****** me everywhere, Alice”.
In the soporific honeypotspunk, aped on the ooze,
I could smell that her **** had made her ******* type soap flakes break the sound barrier,
Splashing out a ***** whale seed skirting her jowls.
“You’re fragrant, flypaper”, she rapped.
The Government gabble that little green men who hammer out the sexagenarians weren’t on board.
Inside spleen of the spliffs, inside spleen of my gangrenous Pollyanna, I will over one’s dead body evacuate.
I will over one’s dead body evacuate.
Mar 22, 2010
Mar 22, 2010 at 4:09 PM UTC
When the moon comes full circle
The change rips through me like a power circuit
It starts in my toes
Far away from my heel they grow
My knees now bend backward
My bones all feel fractured
Still on two feet I stand
As I go out and survey my land
There is a hunger inside me that stirs
And my blood lust all will incur
As I run swiftly through the woods
To meet my pack, my hood
I am the alpha female the leader of this brood
In the bright moonlight we go in pursue of food
We stalk the campers in their tents
They never had a single hint
Inside their canvas shell the blood did spray
They had become our prey
We shredded the skin to make it tender
So savoury sweet as I remember
With blood dripping off our jowls
We soon go back on the prowl
I am the alpha female I am the leader of my pack
If you see us coming, you better not look back
Better yet when the moon is full and bright
Don't go wondering in the woods at night
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 1:18 AM UTC
If you've got a cold you can't taste it
But you can WEAR it in your mouth
You'll love how it fits and feels , makes you want
To parade it against cheeks and jowls and
Anticipate the imminent, soothing avalanche
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 12:03 AM UTC
Come ask me questions
of thoughts I’ve forgotten
and send me dreaming
to a distant road
where music is free
and tired feet
don’t stop dancing
when the tap is dry
Moon heron blue tide
Wandering naked lonely
Covered in feathers
faster bird flew
Where long haired brother
smoking soothing sadhu
can sit at leisure
or stand or lay
(or be lain!)
Lovers fall off the train
Drinking wines on Summer strut
Trough graveyards old tombstones
White women in dresses
With cotton torn old sole
rubbed closet rug
Shoe stains got gritty
in dusty old trunk
Her wig bleach bald
eyes lacking interest
Tired old neck feels
like a head on a stool
Thespian laughter
grouped in the attic
They animate slowly
in the shape of ‘you’
Ghosts get me closer
on hot summer drives
Up North to see dams
and **** forest rivers
In dark we then travel
with Kings of old tidings
and Queens who lay buried
the lamppost their bed
Laying so gently
the Bishop wife Medley
The grass that laid bare
of yesterday’s supper
The lamppost we take
a notion of tender
Still a safe haven
so deep in my heart
The sunset of splendour
the primary sunrise
they howl their jowls
Hysterical laughter
Dec 2, 2012
Dec 2, 2012 at 12:47 AM UTC
A decade from now,
My words will only be a carcass even birds won’t want
To pick at anymore.
I won’t be able to keep track of where my similes skip off to,
And maybe I’ll discover later that they crossed the street like a chicken
That wouldn’t know to look both ways,
Causing a six car pileup,
But never making it to the other side of the road as I intended them to.
Maybe my metaphors will age quickly,
And ten years down the road
Their doggy jowls will quiver with one last yawning breath
As they collapse beneath the nearest tree from hip failure
Resting at last beneath a pleasant summer sun.
I don’t like to think about it,
But I’ve entertained the idea
That perhaps I will neglect my words,
Letting all the quatrains pass me by.
Yes, that is how my structured sentences will meet their end:
With no periods
But a blank space
Where your name should be.
I’d like to think that someday
I won’t have this horrible need to write anymore
I’ll describe my perfect days because I want to,
Not to fill this void I made
When I handed out my consonance like candy
And scattered similes in the air like skittles
During that drought we had a while ago
When everything was black and white
And I thought everybody wanted
A taste of the colors I’m made of.
I like to entertain the thought that someday
Someday
People are going to reach back through the decades and excavate my words
And try to find deep meanings beneath all my poetry.
Scholars will slit the throats of my similes,
Claiming there was some philosophical point pumping through the jugular,
And I might laugh somberly [a little] if they do.
They’re going to find the rotted carcasses in the most random of places:
A passenger seat,
The floor by a bathroom,
A stairwell,
Under a tree.
I know that some might try to find the cause of death.
In fact,
I know they will.
But I’d much rather people look for the only reason of birth,
The only meaning behind all my metaphors,
I want these people to catch the quatrains I let pass me by when it hurt too much.
When it hurt too much
To just write-
I love you.
Jan 1, 2013
Jan 1, 2013 at 4:51 AM UTC
Oldest thing I ever did see,
Skin a mountain range of
Crumpled/crinkled crepe paper
Peaking in altitudinous pouches
Under his eyes, dragging with
Their weight dewlapp jowls
Down to a waddling,
Flabby neck, eyes camouflaged
Under light, fuzzy swatches of cotton,
Mouth slack and vacant, dribbling.
Hobbling with a stoop, knees bowed,
Back arched at an angle, a
Tilted arrow. He tottered over to me,
Inches, feet, miles, years too young,
Smiled brightly to reveal an empty,
Gummy mouth rimmed with
Birthday cake, pallid arms
Outstretched, head splotched with
A thin, wispy cloud of hair,
Half-full and forgotten baby’s bottle
On the carpet behind him.
How quickly they do grow.
Oct 19, 2010
Oct 19, 2010 at 12:18 AM UTC
Scanning from the ground upward over my torso
Reveals an disturbing inventory of dysfunction
brachymetatarsia, in both feet!
Unequal leg length
Reconditioned knees
Atrophied right quadriceps
Hernia Scar
L4 & L5 Vertebrae way too chummy
Are these *******
Are these jowls?
Gum recession
Moderate gastro intestinal reflux
Three diopter challenge in both eyes
Dermatochelassis, left and right
Scintillating scotoma
Male pattern baldness – rear solar panel developing.
And yet when asked
I reply, Oh, I’m fine! I’m fine.
And you, and you, still love me.
Jul 23, 2014
Jul 23, 2014 at 12:53 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
His name was Bing,
one eye grey the other blue
an Australian Cattle Dog
the best I ever knew.
Cows or Sheep he was the man.
Nipping at their heels, heading
them where you bid them go.
Smart as a whip, quick as a bullet,
Work all day for a pat on the head.
One early day no Bing appeared,
Strange 'cause he was always the first
into the truck bed, first in the pasture,
first to work, the last to quit.
We called out his name many times,
began a search, buildings to barns, silo
to shed. In the center of a cut hay field,
I saw him, hunkered down not moving.
The boss and me approached and called
to him, yet still, he did not seem to hear.
At twenty feet he stood up quick,
turned to face us with a ****
his eyes burned with hell's fire,
his muzzle and jowls were awash in foam,
his deep-throated growl a caution warned.
Not much doubt he'd been skunk bit,
was beyond redemption touched in rabies fit.
I was sent on the run to fetch
the long gun from the truck.
We approached him careful like,
I was still panting from my run.
The boss cocked the lever,
chambering a round into the gun.
Bing's eyes looked to be pleading,
as if to ask that we end his pain.
In his crazed anguished state,
he could have reached us in a flash
spread the contagion to our flesh,
yet through instinct or love
old Bing held his ground,
awaiting his inevitable fate.
I tried to swallow but had no spit,
and then the rifle thundered
and stung my ears,
One shot through the head
took old Bing's pain away.
The Boss, a hard-edged man of fifty
began to silently weep like a child of five,
the loss of his dog too much to abide.
I must admit my tears weren't far behind.
We bore him from the field
like an honored fallen warrior.
Buried him in the yard by the house,
He deserved that respect and more.
Aug 1, 2016
Aug 1, 2016 at 5:25 PM UTC
I am in the coffee shop.
You wish you were.
Your snouty head is one great flappy nostril.
Your belly is huffing and I know if I could hear you
You'd be whining.
Your eyebrows are raised in a way
that defies (or proves) evolution theories.
Your pinkly jowls dripping with the mixed
urban aroma of cars, pigeons, and
smelly bipedal mammals.
An olfactory carnival.
You sit on the pavement red-leashed to a bike,
a statue of solemn dignity as passerby
pause to scritch your ****
Nov 17, 2012
Nov 17, 2012 at 11:35 AM UTC
Check out my books www.amazon.com/author/richardratliff
Aging Gracefully
It gives you clarity, perspective and appreciation
Always thought cataracts were rapids in a river
Or a boat or something: fuzzy thinking
Don't think they give clarity
Even bifocals don't help
As a kid I wanted to be a king like Arthur
Didn't realize getting a crown would be painful
Like a poke in the eye: going down the canal
And not a canal in Venice either
Always enjoyed a smile with dimples
But time adds wrinkles to the smile
Causing ever so slow changes
As my dimples turn to jowls
I found out that PSA
Isn't a pro sport authority
Doesn't regulate the rules of golf
But It can affect my game
Copyright 2016
Jun 16, 2016
Jun 16, 2016 at 12:33 PM UTC
Today is
Trash Collection Day
on my avenue
and the raccoons
and feral cats
and unleashed dogs
and diverse rodents
are rejoicing.
It’s a jamboree
of indiscriminate
gluttony and
the lip smacking
stickiness
of furry jowls
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 9:03 AM UTC
They want more of you for less and that's how it swings,
the pretty lady plays me a song, but I don't know the words so
I hum along,
they want to see and never hear, want you begging somewhere at the rear in the penny stalls and it falls into that they don't want you at all.
If I could play the banjo or maybe the ukelele I'd be sweet, I wouldn't have to meet the scowls of howling managers with jowls so slack they look as if they're going when they're really coming back and the pretty lady plays a song,
it's for me,
a little bit of harmony among all this insanity and tomorrow if it comes on time they'll be waiting there all prim and primed to shoot.
Do I give a hoot?
If they want more of me for less of me we'll see how much they get and I bet it won't be much,
I touch wood for luck and **** 'em,
that the way it swings and the pretty lady sings for me,
things are looking up.
Dec 3, 2015
Dec 3, 2015 at 4:29 PM UTC
Mrs Dryden
sat behind you
on the beach
combing your hair
you watching
the racing tide
the sounds
on the shingle
the other people
sitting or walking
or playing ball
or flicking Frisbees
each to each
her fingers
parting strands
patting down
waves of hair
she maybe reflecting
on the night before
in the cheap hotel
the creaking bed
the second rate
furniture
the Full English breakfast
she having
a young guy
between her thighs
she spoke
of her husband’s failings
his betrayals
his preference
for younger women
you taking in
the scarcely cladded girls
sitting or walking the beach
out of your safety zone
out of reach
and Mrs Dryden’s fingers
moving down your jowls
her lips kissing
your neck
at the back
her breath
whispering words
you thinking
of Miss Fox
the year before
how you nearly went
all the way
(as they used to say)
until her parents
came back home
too soon
spoilt the fun
of one on one
look at that ship
passing over there
Mrs Dryden said
pointing out to sea
her other hand
holding yours
her words carried
on the air
and you imagining
Miss Fox
maybe sitting there.
Jan 16, 2013
Jan 16, 2013 at 2:56 AM UTC
1.
Tears of laughter
Veil tears of frustration
Improper reflection
On taboos and tragedies
Burning cities
And dying loved ones
This is not where the
Laughter comes from
But it is where the laughter
Is needed most
2.
Is it irony
The unexpected juxtaposition
The transition
Of awkward positions
Self-pimping
Prostitution
Of my spirit
Disintegration of my dignity
Jowls dropping
Howling non-stopping
Coping with the insanity of
This world
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 12:36 PM UTC
Slobbering slime rolls off its mouth
creepy crawlies are marching south
evil eyes and jiggly jowls,
sinister laughs and winning howls
a flash of teeth
from underneath,
a throaty growl
you sit, try not to yowl,
the bed will hide its enormous bulk,
these evil things will never sulk.
A shattering cry pierces the night,
now it’s time to run in fright.
You run and run and run and run
trying to escape to a midnight sun
you search for warmth, you search for heat
you can hear the pitter patter of shuffling feet
down the hall you scamper and dash
running away from the smell of ash.
You open the doors to your parents room,
hoping to escape the metallic vroom,
you dash and scurry up on to their bed,
and snuggle between them, your feet by their head.
They wake and ask “what’s wrong, dear?”
You answer with a tale drench in fear.
But Dada and Papa only smile at you.
They say, “follow us”, and you do.
They take you back, and turn the light on,
And show you the monsters, but now they are gone.
In their place sit ordinary things that your imagination makes,
And you realize that the monsters are fakes.
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 5:28 PM UTC
My dearest Rocky,
You were too old.
Too old to chase after that mischief of mice.
But you were not to be halted.
And in return,
Hind legs destroyed.
Cut up and sewn together
In crisscross fashion.
Once a lazy *******
Then a lethargic moribund mutt.
(But still a *******
On your last leg, (or two) in a literal sense.
You dumb dog.
You balding, simple-minded scoundrel.
Christmas came and Christmas went.
A feast of elegance at your disposal.
Any indulgence you desired.
We bequeathed, as a last goodbye.
Brisket, frozen cream, pastries and more.
Up until the day, our eyes became sore.
One last car ride- One last roar.
One last breeze through your jowls.
Your clacking stomps and palsy-walsy howls,
Echo even now when I walk through the door.
Now silent and still, turned to ash and dust
I hope you’re herding that memory of elephants,
And leading that pride of lions,
In your infinite dream.
And remembering those who you brought joy.
But especially,
The one who carried you
Upstairs to bed
Every night.
I love you still, and always will.
Good boy, ******* good boy.
Feb 18, 2016
Feb 18, 2016 at 11:52 AM UTC
Rouge, threaded dragons intertwined with oriental cherries
stain a mockery of silk spread across an unsteady table.
The lady, dwarfed by the redwood counter,
has skin stretched taught across the bones of her temples
only to softly be drooped and draped around her jowls.
She caught both my eyes in the little dips of her palms
but wrinkles worked onto her face are focused on receipts
and she is obviously oblivious that her hands, veined with sickly blue,
had struck me so hard that my head is thudding numbly.
Her nails are narrow and naturally long,
set into the spotted skin of her delicate fingers,
pulling at a memory bathed in red by the Chinese lanterns
hanging over me, the couple near the kitchen and tiny Mrs Huang.
Her hands gesture to me after calling my order twice
and I walk towards them to take the sterile, plastic packet
so that I can finally exit to the alley and spit into the gutter
a touch of an image much too familiar
to only belong to Mrs Huang.
Aug 1, 2014
Aug 1, 2014 at 10:17 AM UTC