"kidneys" poems
The Heart is Selfless.
Literally.
When the human body gets hurt,
And life seems to be bleeding out,
It knows.
It pumps out more blood,
Stops itself from taking any of it.
Just to keep our brain, lungs, and kidneys working.
It doesn't think really think of itself,
It thinks of the needs of others.
Shouldn't love be like that too?
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 9:42 PM UTC
drunk again at 3 a.m. at the end of my 2nd bottle
of wine, I have typed from a dozen to 15 pages of
poesy
an old man
maddened for the flesh of young girls in this
dwindling twilight
liver gone
kidneys going
pancrea pooped
top-floor blood pressure
while all the fear of the wasted years
laughs between my toes
no woman will live with me
no Florence Nightingale to watch the
Johnny Carson show with
if I have a stroke I will lay here for six
days, my three cats hungrily ripping the flesh
from my elbows, wrists, head
the radio playing classical music ...
I promised myself never to write old man poems
but this one's funny, you see, excusable, be-
cause I've long gone past using myself and there's
still more left
here at 3 a.m. I am going to take this sheet from
the typer
pour another glass and
insert
make love to the fresh new whiteness
maybe get lucky
again
first for
me
later
for you.
from "All's Normal Here" - 1985
7.9k
I am that wounded dear, humbled
Stumbling ‘round
Rabbit holes of you, under—Brush
The I’s from my mist
The kidneys from my stones.
Elaborate mumbles deerly missed,
By habit, eye drowned in tones
Siren singing seas, under—Blush
Something subtle: easily kissed.
A human homophone.
Nov 25, 2013
Nov 25, 2013 at 11:38 PM UTC
Don’t read this if you’re squeamish,
Or if you’re eating food at the present,
Since some of the subjects discussed in this poem,
Are let’s just say rather unpleasant,
On the subject of donating organs,
Or the subject of organs at all,
It’s not unusual for my claims to leave,
Some subjects feeling pretty appalled,
Now I’d say that most people die,
In fact I’d vouch that it happens quite often,
But when my time comes, set has my sun,
I want all of me in that coffin,
Now I get it, I’d save lives if I donated,
And I don’t mean to sound like a **** (yes I do),
But the unmissable flaw, the foot in the door,
Is that not all of my parts seem to work,
My eyes are screwy, my heart’s far too cold,
The state of my lungs’ll make you shiver,
My kidneys too small, I'm not sure I have a pancreas,
And don’t get me started on my liver,
And let me tell you with a face like mine,
Not showcasing this beauty’s a sin,
But it’s awfully hard to have an open casket,
If I’m not sporting any of my skin
It’s selfish and weird I know that,
But my eyes are where my soul is exposed!
…Yeah actually my soul’s pretty tainted,
Can someone make sure that my eyes are closed?
I only want those I love to have a part of me,
So if I’m forced, if I’m forced, to partake,
-
-
-
They’ll be frying up my organs,
For refreshments at my wake.
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 3:22 PM UTC
Now that you're older
It's not about hair,
Consider the here and now;
There's no fooling with the passage of time,
Birthdays now greeted with whimpers and whines.
If you stay out til quarter to nine
You've missed your Red Rose pour.
Should we commit you,
Or simply omit you,
Man, you're sixty-four.
....................................................
We're getting older too,
But if the truth be told,
Never as old as you.
Now you can't frolic,
Or party til two,
You aches and pains own you.
Scan your body daily for foreign lumps,
By mid-afternoon you still haven't dumped.
Bladder in turmoil,
Kidneys are weak,
I could mention more:
All your joints creaking,
I think that's you leaking,
Man, you're sixty-four.
Always depend upon your diaper to conceal and not reveal
What you drank and ate.
We'll leave that with you.
And carry ID, Jake,
You'll forget you're you.
Make use of posties,
And Mary-Jo too,
What's old may now seem new;
Indicate precisely what you'll do and say,
Memory's surely slipping away.
You're still an alpha, thanks to ******
Don't expect much more.
Should we just boot you,
Or simply just shoot you,
Man, you're sixty-four.
Seventy-four's at the door.
A thousand weeks til eighty-four.
At ninety-four get ten more....
In good health.
May 25, 2017
May 25, 2017 at 11:47 AM UTC
1. She’ll be lovely. There will be spaces for you between her ribs. Your left lung is smaller than you right lung to make room for your heart, but there’s all kinds of room in her body. Her kidneys and liver are failing and soon enough they’ll be gone to make room for your love.
2. She won’t ever be expensive on dates because all she’ll order is a salad. You’ll never have to worry about not having enough money (for dinner at least). You’ll have to worry about emergency room bills when she passes out, but she’ll never ask for anything else. All she’ll want is ***** and sleeping pills.
3. She will always put you first. She’ll love you with all the love she should have kept for herself. She’ll make you hot chocolate and stay up until 3 AM while you’re crying over her. When she makes you cry because you just want her to see herself the way you see her, she’ll be there with cold hands and tired eyes. She’s dead, she’s exhausted, all she wants is a good night’s rest. But you can count on her to be there.
4. She will tell you that you are perfect. She’ll believe it, too. Everyone around her seems to be perfect and she’s drowning under the weight of mediocrity but it’s okay. She’s okay. She won’t understand that all of us are swimming and most of us are drowning.
5. She’ll always have scissors and pencil sharpeners on hand. The knives in her kitchen are always sharpened to perfection and if you forget your razor at home, it’s ok. She has extras in her closet.
6. She’ll **** you any time you want. As long as you don’t look at her while she’s getting undressed. She’ll be used to the sensation of knives but it’s a different kind of pain when you look at her. She will want to be beautiful for you. She’ll love you until she can’t breathe anymore. You’ll make her feel beautiful for the night but when she wakes up she’ll still think she wasn’t worth it.
7. Date a girl who hates herself because she’ll love you.
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 7:41 PM UTC
inside me are organs
inside my cells are organelles
inside me are organelles
they are mine
they are me
they are composed of atoms
they are composed of protons, neutrons, electrons
protons are mine
they are me
neutrons are mine
they are me
electrons are mine
they too are me
electrons and mitochondria and kidneys
are me
I am me
bone comprises skeleton
marrow comprises bone
bone and skeleton are me
marrow too is me
I feel this in my self
I feel this in my bones
bone feels this in my marrow
bone and I share marrow
Nov 27, 2016
Nov 27, 2016 at 4:23 PM UTC
I ran my life around karma
karma ran around me
throwing sucker punches
right in my kidneys
right in my ribs
right in my heart
I still run my life around karma
karma still runs around me
throwing left hooks
right in my eyes
right in my gut
right in my face
Nov 13, 2012
Nov 13, 2012 at 3:26 AM UTC
This small green bear,
your name embroidered on its chest,
was never yours. It would have been
our Christmas gift to you,
had you lived a month longer.
The ones you would give
you had already bought,
wrapped, labelled -
thoughtful, organised
to the end,
to the bitter end.
We unwrapped them on the day,
smiled at your kindness,
wept at our loss.
Early Christmas gifts
that you had not organised,
that nobody could have anticipated,
went to strangers: your pancreas,
a life free from daily injections;
your kidneys, two lives free from dialysis;
your liver, divided, to a young girl
and an older lady, who would
quite simply have a life
they had almost given up hoping for.
Your heart, damaged by extended life-support,
not suitable for transplantation,
yielded its valves
to repair the damaged hearts of others.
Even bone and skin were harvested
for people you never knew.
That Christmas you gave hope
to so many people,
and to us the consolation
that they live on because of you,
and that you live on in them.
May 22, 2016
May 22, 2016 at 9:15 AM UTC
Fig Newton Vanilla Wafers
Like sand through an hourglass
The smell of Doublemint Wrigley’s
Gum that lingers in the air like
Your poltergeist hanging on a string
Chicken and dumplings
Christmas at your place
There were so many pictures and
Do you remember me anymore?
Quicksand neurons coughing up
Phlegm and congestive heart failure
Diabetic membranes hooked up to pacemakers
You’re kidneys were caustic waste bins
And you ****** yourself
Cancer Cancer
Don’t shut your eyes
***** and hypertension
Hyperventilation
My mother is crying
I’m crying
Don’t die
Please don't die
"She’s not responding"
"Somebody say something"
Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace
Sep 25, 2013
Sep 25, 2013 at 2:00 PM UTC
Mirror, mirror
Said the queen
Self-conscious,
Not wanting to be seen
Mirror, mirror
Every day
Urging wrinkles
Not to stay
Mirror, mirror
She was taught
If she was ugly
She was naught
Mirror, mirror
She cannot feel
Emotions ruin
Her appeal
Mirror, mirror
She feels dead
To the husband
In her bed
Mirror, mirror
Her heart is failing
Her lungs are gasping
Her kidneys wailing
Mirror, mirror
The doctor said
She has a growth
In her head
Mirror, mirror
She cannot stand
But she's still the most
Beautiful in the land
Mirror, mirror
But not anymore
Her place taken
By the child of a *****
Mirror, mirror
She needs a heart
The child has one
There's a start
Mirror, mirror
She's in so much pain
She doesn't know
How to be humane
Mirror, mirror
The child is dead
The heart is weak
But she has fed
Mirror, mirror
The heart has failed
There is no other
That ship has sailed
Mirror, mirror
She is desperate to live
She finds a corrupt magicker
And gives all she can give
Mirror, mirror
She feeds on death
Each soul she takes
Lies in every breath
Mirror, mirror
She carves words in her skin
EVIL, VAMPYR
DEMON, SIN
Mirror, mirror
She moans in the night
Her husband sleeps in a separate bed
Yet still quakes in fright
Mirror, mirror
The child is not dead
All the lives she has taken
When she could have taken one instead
Mirror, mirror
Look at her now
Twisted and broken
Macabre magick on her brow
Mirror, mirror
The child must pay
Perhaps her soul will be redeemed
It is the only way
Aug 20, 2015
Aug 20, 2015 at 12:40 PM UTC
Brother Bear (your name in English)
once again we meet in joy.
Soon our laughter rolls across the fields
and plains and forests, boy.
My best friend, my twin although
you're twin years younger than I am.
Still in many ways superior to this
rough and rugged man.
*Hark, I feel my stomach shiver.
I can hear my liver sigh.
I can sense my brain's uneasiness,
I hear my kidneys cry.
I can feel my long intestine curling up
and screaming WHY!?
I can smell the smoke from meat ablaze
across the summer sky.*
May 17, 2014
May 17, 2014 at 9:55 AM UTC
I replay
the uproarious sound of your kidneys
at 4 AM; you tucked in a comfortable quilted bed,
and the curve of your glistening elbow
resembling the crescent moon
that my eyes averted from
because they fixated on you
instead.
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 8:01 AM UTC
A drugstore pallid in waning light, always illuminated in halogen halos.
I am earless with music.
Black metal loud in clanging sets and blows-
foreshadowing the smell of cleaning solution,
air freshener and the outside
sweet at my back
all steeped deep in the rip roaring undertone torrent of cigarette smoke
blended with cheap perfume until I cannot tell the difference.
There is a limp familiarity to the underlying odor
born partially of personal encounter and-
nestled in the hive mind of social experience.
A distillation of regret and remorse,
of lonely,
of irrelevance;
this black hole swallows my voice the way of my ears,
eaten by rust.
Four cans of beans,
kidneys,
in cans squeezed without any power against sagging swells
melting into other curves
and I swerve close and around guiltily,
noting you only as the source of this pungent spring.
You are smiling apologies
ignorant of my apparent inhumanity-
blind to my selfish hands..
Pinioning belly flesh,
flattening,
reaching
and gaining attendance from a better man
retrieving every dropped can.
I’m retreating,
shaken,
tense to alternatively slacken.
My sweat slippery palms with whitened red sharp fingers feel foreign
and I am surrounded by razors then shaving cream,
moving from shampoo to conditioner,
the whole store is infected with smell.
Staring at nail clippers/snipers clipping touch smooth sooth my tense mind-
don’t look
**don’t
look**
I can sense little else but dread
drawing closer
you are now crouched so close I’m gagging,
taken forcefully-swept away in an olfactory flood
roiling in rot,
currents of solitude exude from your smiling sullen appearance when I turn to you
fumbling
with my electric ears,
surfacing
in a breath of Amish silence
broken with simple request
and I want to scream at you that I am not a man to ask opinions of
that it does not matter what fake nails she glues to her body
that she is excluded and I don’t know why.
I choose swirls of cream suspended within watery milk,
over childish lady bugs framed by yellow
or dots of red alternating to black,
an epitaph to a lifelike effigy.
Dec 10, 2010
Dec 10, 2010 at 1:42 AM UTC
Yeah guys, just back from the doctor’s
Turns out he’s worked at Apple
and Samsung and such –
he’s really into technology and all that,
you know
the latest stuff, really
“The heart,” he pronounced,
“is really a technology”
anyway, he’s given me
a pacemaker for me heart
and the doc, he said also
it’s state-of-the-art technology
so I can also download apps for my liver,
kidneys and my bowels
if needs be
yeah, I really feel good
inside out and all the way down
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 4:21 AM UTC
My Uncle Dec
was really a ***** old man
and I loved him for it
Overweight, but you'd better believe
he ate whatever the hell he wanted
bad liver bad kidneys
but he really loved drinking
almost as much as he loved the horse racing
putting pennies on the ponies
and it didn't matter if he won
he just liked going to the bookie's
a lover of beautiful women
but a loving faithful husband
He died in the shower
and I was sad at first
but I realized he loved his life
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 10:12 AM UTC
I.
AM.
A.
Piece of ****
Here's how i roll.
I plop the excrement, directly in the pool.
I **** on chairs,
This is where i place stool.
Plip plob drop loads,
Crenated blood cells and lymphatic drool.
Hurt my kidneys in a fight with truth the other night.
7 brutal, flooring uppercuts to the Latisimus dorsi....
I am > "this girl"
That one that's taken more hits in the face than Tyson.
The one that makes Jenna and Sunni Leone look like pre-school dropouts of ****
Guys say.
"She"
"got the,"
"best head."
She has nothing in it though.
Her brain's finished by the time words leave her lips whole.
thats as far as it gets
the words pass her **** then she falls, grab her hips.
Prepare the sword for the stone.
The one with the baby whole in her dome.
She's not good, much else.
Her black hair and wisdom lines go bout as deep as her shirt.
Depending on the day.
Pervert.
Lets do ANOTHER line.
"Oh My GOD!" "We did so much *******
Coke in cans.
Filled with whiskey flask-hand.
"This night's gunna be one to remember",
if his member is inside, that's my gender,
Blend it with all the worst intentions,
Use the worst intentions.
Stab the heart of conviction.
Tear it to tethers with tension.
Rip the strings of friendship.
Tease the knots of frayed linen,
Like its the only thing ya got.
"I am so high right now."
I forgot what earth looks like.
Probably like my town.
Only place I've been.
I'm 17 ya see.
Its the only thing you got.
You don't deserve roses, flowers, Laurels.
No trees.
No dime bags, no speed, no crying hag.
I can sure **** 25 yearolds.
Saying your better never sounded more like a lie.
Worst thing is you have that prevarication internalized.
I have a god complex...
Wanna save em all...
Can't save a ******* one...
I did lie once...
It was...
When I told you that you weren't...
A piece of ****
Apr 13, 2013
Apr 13, 2013 at 12:58 AM UTC
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
The smoking and drinking and snorting and fighting and drinking and crashes and drinking were not good for him.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
One summer, when he was 16, everyday he would take a bottle of wine from his mother's liquor cabinet, buy a pack of cigarettes at the corner store, meet up with his friend Mario, who also stole a bottle of wine, and together they would ride down to the river and smoke and drink and swim. Everyday, for a full 1970's summer they did this.
And now he tells me, that at the time they were having fun and they were not worried about money or addictions or the future.
They were just having fun.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
One day, in the dead of fall 1981, he and his friends Mario, Mark, ****** and John all got together at Mark's apartment on the corner of 51st and Diablo boulevard. They hit the town, drank, snuck into movie theatres, harassed girls and had a good time. They returned to Mark's apartment at 2 am and thought it a good idea to steal Mark's mom's new car. They decided to go to Reno.
Driving, as my dad put it, well above the speed limit on Highway 49, they collided head on with a big rig. There were no fatalities but my dad broke his shoulder and suffered a minor concussion. Mark's mom chose to not press charges nor did the driver of the big rig. The next day my father was back at work, refusing to adhere to the doctor's orders of taking it easy and wearing a soft cast, entrapping his left arm against his chest, climbing under cars, changing oil, and repairing engines.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
One cold winter's day, in December of '82, my father's ever faithful companion, Mario, picked my father and his dog, Wimpy, up and they drove over to a small burger joint named Big A's. My father ordered two bacon cheeseburgers and a large rootbeer. Mario got the same, only with a single bacon cheeseburger. My father father gave his second bacon cheeseburger to his pitbull Wimpy.
My father was better to his dog than he was to his own body.
Now, my father coughs himself to sleep every night, and has chronic bronchitis. His liver and kidneys are shot and he plans to not live passed sixty. He will be turning fifty in two weeks.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
Feb 27, 2013
Feb 27, 2013 at 12:04 AM UTC
Babe you are worse than late night ****
Sinful like fried chocolate cake
Ironic like chicken and waffles with a diet coke
Or using lard based dressing on a salad
You bad
Like menudo without lime
Like hot cheetos to my kidneys
My desire for you is like:
That nostalgia you feel like a lump in your chest
The first time you smoked ****
The first time you came
The first time you fell in love
I’m sad cuz you ain’t here
And glad you’re far away.
Jan 21, 2014
Jan 21, 2014 at 11:48 AM UTC
She hides in pockets of flesh in my gums
I can taste her in the morning when I spit
at night I can feel her swimming in an ocean of mouthwash
In sleep she oozes onto my pillow
moistening the dusty fabric under my cheek
When shes really playful
she will wiggle herself into my cerebellum
and dance furiously with my dreams
or gently sing lullabies when my heart wont let me sleep
when the world and its filth have commandeered my hope
she is there to brush away the dirt with untarnished hands
she is my religion she is my ******
without her I am sick
a smoldering heat of black matter and fungi
she is antibacterial soap on my soul
Lysol wipes to my tarred lungs
with one whiff I am cleansed of debris
she saturates the oxygen in my blood
she resides in my abdomen
I can feel her in my kidneys.
Oct 8, 2011
Oct 8, 2011 at 5:08 PM UTC
I look at you on the sofa.
Lying there all young, healthy
And warm, and I don't just want you
In the obvious sense; I want your
Liver, kidneys, flat stomach, strong,
Long, young legs.
Frankenstein's parts-storage
I want your youth.
I can't have it. I can't take it
And have it. Angry. I want to
Kick your *** but not really.
I want your mouth to
Expell something
Other than this
Teenage girl
Chatter.
I want to hit your pretty face
With all of my one-third-life-crisis-
Frustration behind it
With a pillow.
Eat feather, child!
Chew cotton!
Munch goose!
Straight left-straight right.
I have fought men
Twice my size,
I'll beat you up
Until you
Suffocate
And surrender
From
Laughing
So
Hard.
May 25, 2014
May 25, 2014 at 5:09 AM UTC
I was sad for a long time,
12 long months ticking by,
not sad all the time of course,
but the hue of my first year was definitely
tinged blue
I fell in love, carelessly,
but I couldn't quite let him in,
amongst the tears and the other boy kisses;
he just wasn't welcome in my heart
my head had overruled it.
And they say to you,
when you least expect it, it will happen
and it did
someone else came and kissed me better,
patched me up and
made my kidneys shiver
And now, I'm not sad anymore,
I am still lost and misguided for sure
but I have all of these lovely feelings
hanging above me like a starry night
And I am riddled with cliche,
I want him and only him;
this is an ode to sadness,
for it treated me well;
it taught me to let people in,
whilst maintaining a cynics heart and
a fickle brain.
this is an ode to sadness,
I am just sorry to the boy I loved at the wrong time.
Nov 2, 2016
Nov 2, 2016 at 9:20 PM UTC
The demon fly hath landed now intent upon it's task
**** Demon in its valedictory explorations grasp.
Embedded deep in kidneys, to cause me some concern.
A painful path to endgame and a Hellish lesson learned.
I pause a moment, think it out, it's one way or the other
I lost a mate the other day and last month, lost another.
Seems it is the season for the cataclysmic time
I'd rather it be elsewhere but I fear this one... is mine.
I've run a rough and winding track these rugged years of yore
Pulled the Dragons tail in jest and sought, yet, for more.
Rafted mighty rivers and flew the heavens high
And lifted my perception winging vaulting, clear blue sky.
I've known the velvet touch of love, the softness of her lips
The crash of waves on sandy shore caressing fingertips.
The swelling joy of childbirth, the pledge of mothers milk
And rock like bonds of marriage binding all within its ilk.
With thoughts a million miles away I've trudged this country lane
Pondered why, with voids approach, it engenders me no pain?
Wondering why it matters that the children shed a tear
When saddened, glancing passing eyes, are never really near.
Regret I'll never get to see my grove of rhodos bloom
Or sip the soothing whisky as I tap my toe in tune.
Or launch into the crazy surf and splash out to the rock
Nor lie in sun on baking sand admiring talent flock.
Meat pies with sauce at football with a cold beer in the hand
And the repartee with kindred minds in poetry unplanned,
That flash of inspirations' alliteration sprung
Brings the joy to mind of comradeship in Shakespeare's realm, unsung.
.....And then there's all that's left undone, the words, now, left unsaid
The notes of tragic violin hang in the air...unbled
And you there with the swimming eyes, what do I say to you?
It's all been grand, I kiss your hand....Adieu , my friend.... Adieu!
M.
Foxglove, Taranaki
New Zealand
20 October 2020
Oct 20, 2020
Oct 20, 2020 at 12:21 AM UTC
In grass of deception, the snake lies waiting,
With venom'd fangs, 'n jaws dilating,
Salivating, watching, baiting,
Sure to pounce, mutilating.
With forked tongue, she paints my heart black,
Sinks sharp talons into flesh o' bare back,
Drips her poison into my kidneys,
Cuts my innocence in myriad pieces.
My name is Silence; my job to suffer,
To make no sound, nor word to utter,
For though the dragon spits forth fire,
George'll guard himself from ire.
Oct 8, 2018
Oct 8, 2018 at 1:07 PM UTC