"knuckled" poems
i think how we need to be loved as adults stems from our childhood (or lack thereof).
if you were abandoned, you need to be smothered, to know every second that you're adored. but as a child you were always alone, so the very love you crave makes you feel suffocated and crawling white knuckled to get out.
and so this war rages inside of us, until we have exhausted ourselves & perhaps those who were brave enough to extend their hands.
©raine cooper
Oct 24, 2015
Oct 24, 2015 at 5:40 PM UTC
Lift it to your lips
& let what falls adrift in the form of ash
dissolve in the wind
as dried bone thrashing,
bashing against dust & grit.
Pull; take a long hit.
Dregs to be kept until last in the bottom
of your broken lungs,
taken as deep as breaths:
to rattle against your teeth.
"O", takes the lewd shape
of your chapped mouth as you break free
from your caged-in chest,
skeletons left sat, to wallow
as ashen bones & yellow teeth.
Hold your knuckled joints
against tenderest flesh of your upper lip
& sniff, as if a try to void
all signs of violent backslides
to clandestine nicotine meetings.
Flick blanked eyes to lit but
dying embers ground between sole & soil,
& morosely swear never
another, not one more; after
this next one, this last one, never.
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 5:35 AM UTC
i want to be the reason there is light inside your eyes again. the reason you worship the sunrise, instead of clinging red knuckled to the end of each dying day.
Mar 12, 2016
Mar 12, 2016 at 9:05 PM UTC
I slept with her, my rapacious pen, took me in quiet vengeance in
full on conjugation
raken and taken, me,
her overlording me now, her authorship, so long held
in my maledom abeyance,
a kept imprisonment, unleashing at last, a tongue lashing~leashing,
de-spite my un-desirous craven lying supplications,
excuses of innocence and accident, coincidence and conflation,
ashes, ashes, denials incinerated, all fall down
she wrote/stabbed upon my heartless chest,
in the cheap crudités colors of a prisoner’s inking,
“user of words mine, all mine”
gathered up my innards of loose words,
speculative notes & titles yet to be,
born and kept hid in password protected silent back labor files,
now hers, leaving me sputtering, unable to create,
a homeless mute citizen, possession-less,
helplessly hoping her hovering harlequin might relent,
without any shelter, even a glimmering, a single aleph or bet
she celebratory cackled and clawed,
professed her reclamation ownership of all my poems predecessors,
zola j’accusing that I, ripped from her forcibly,
with no granted permission, her womanly touché of my scribing,
warning of no more global warming for my unprivileged hands,
daren’t try for pretenses of stolen legal guardianship,
warning of a new, forced caining inscription,
a tattooing of “thief” upon my 5 knuckled right ******
“plagiarist” boldly inked in back & blue upon my left palm
I, predator,
she, victim,
of my now self-professed, admitted confess,
she, my single victim,
of a decade long serializing criminal coverup
her parting poem a threatening,
herein issued in this very verse,
damning all who would falsely credit themselves,
to suffer shame and an unimaginable curse,
this, the newborn eleventh of ten commandments
parting, she kissing my lips, even my emptied apertures,
with warning bitings,
she knew all my
my numerous noms de guerre,
no dead scrolls caves to hid in, and to be discovered some future day,
and if ever marked as copyrighted,
’twas no tunneling escape,
the exposed truth to be over-stamped
upon all, upon each, in every language,
”copied right from the tongue of a woman!”
and she would be wright...
May 23, 2019
May 23, 2019 at 10:10 AM UTC
One day, I found myself falling like Alice
But without a white rabbit
Just me
Alone
Abruptly tumbling down
The floor having been decidedly yanked from beneath me
I found plummeting both terrifying and boring
The same panic over and over
Gets old after a time
Yet the bottom was little better
Devoid of a fluffy tail to follow
I have no guide in this empty place
Walled in with my thoughts
Hoping for a path to Wonderland
"Drink Me"
I'm not sure how I got here
Searching endlessly for answers
To questions that I have not even posed
Gazing helplessly at the chasm
Wondering if I can back out
"Someday you'll be Queen of Wonderland
Drink Me"
I was certain I could play the long game
Persevere to be better off in the end
Yet I lay here bloody-knuckled
Having beaten solid rock
Hoping it would turn into
A Door
"You'll never leave if you don't hurry
Drink Me"
I hear tic-tock-ing through the walls
And I'm sure it's just the pressure now
I'm never getting out of here
No amount of wracking my brain
Will produce an escape plan
And it does not seem as though any creature
Will be appearing to assist
I am never getting out of here
"Don't be frustrated
Drink Me"
"Feeling stuck?
Drink Me"
"Drink Me"
"Drink Me"
"Drink Me"
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 11:29 PM UTC
These words are a sock, soft and warm from the dryer
butterknife
palpable
lullabye
maroon
These words are bits of glass, attacking my ears:
Yaw
Ketch
Blurt
Epizeuxis
Jactation and
Mauve
These words are brass-knuckled fists to the face
Mogadishu
Rwanda
Desert One
My Lai
And
Nine One One
These words are a sneaky cat, slithering here and there
Mystery
Secretive
Lurking
Sly
Shadowy
These words are unknown to everyone but me. Private words for private thoughts.
Uiyak
Jackassdom
Nothingofanyvalue
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 4:26 PM UTC
There, she is there. She moves in the cold September morning
it's hours yet till dawn but she knows neither light nor dark
nor scarcely where she is. A light, a door, stone steps. She walks
straight up them, eyes ahead; her body rigid as she jerks
forward towards the door, the handle, and suddenly the man
behind the desk. He looks up, his breath stops
he sees her tragic bright eyes, he sees the blood, and
how she holds those small white-knuckled hands; he watches
her terrible face. He knows without asking, but he asks.
They are locked already into an unspeakable knowledge,
only yesterday she was here, distraught and pleading,
it was his chance for brilliance — or at least for goodness —
and he missed it. He has become her jailer now, who
could have been her saviour. He wholly understands,
and it is too late. No one else will ever come to him and say
'Help me, take me, please, before I do this thing . . .'
He will be haunted now for ever by his trial, deceptive
as it was, and he found wanting. No one will accuse him
and he can never be forgiven. His uniform rustles slightly
as he rises, his single offer a cup of institution coffee,
potion for the ****** 'Your jacket's all ****** take it off.'
Oh cry for the breaking day, the sleeping pillows shocked
by phone calls, messages, alarms, weep now and every morning
for the Janus faces, back to back, of guilt and innocence.
3.3k
Three thousand miles
navigating a storm
without drop of bad weather
Abacus odometer clicks
rotating forward ―
spinning with the
world go round
Circling back down
a long and winding road;
where unforgotten memories
were once searchingly explored,
untrodden pathways
coursing way up north of alone
on the low highway
Now an aging shepherd
wonders without a compass ;
a vagabond deprived of light
from an ever blurring north star
Heart empty as a gas tank
with a broke down gauge,
running on fumes of hope
for unpromised tomorrows
Running from loneliness
just to be on the run
The gales of silence bellow
No feelings I can see ― lay me low
Wild-eyed daydreams
of Full sails billow out
through the windshield,
only hearing the unspoken
moments sigh restlessly ―
The dull droning road rumble
re-sighs renunciatively,
a tired monotone voice
mimicking the loathe silent echo
wallowing in an
omnipresent hollow void
deriding unspoken chaos
between the passing centerlines ―
A frost heave pothole erupts,
with a leaf-spring rattling thud,
as a fleeting cloud of dust arises,
set adrift with the draught
headed off the east side
of the Alcan highway:
blown way outside the lines,
towards the Alberta prairie
White knuckled steering wheel
held sway, rolling down
a beckoning wilderness
reincarnation;
default reset button paused ―
stuck in a moment ― until another jaw rattling
frost-heave pothole in the highway,
jars it free
Leaving it all behind
like a sigh breathed
in a silence a heart has outgrown;
just a fleeting cloud of dissipating dust,..
a paling whisper
the past seems to send forth
like a fading last breath
Letting it all unfold to become what it is
harlon rivers ... May 2018
... travelogue 2 of some
May 18, 2018
May 18, 2018 at 11:34 AM UTC
Have you forgotten?
The Iron
The Fire
The hammer and anvil of it all
The pile of **** and scrap metal
The dirt ore heap in the corner of your soul
The useless heavy burden
On your shoulders, and in the heart of you
Have you forgotten the forging and the beating
The sweating and the bleeding
The swing and the crash,
And the pain and the smash;
The heat from the fires that purify
And the hiss from the waters that solidify
Have you missed the bending and folding
and the way that you're constantly molding?
Have you forgotten
You are the hammer
You are the anvil
You are the iron and the forge fire
That creates the steel of your character
The sharp sweeping sword of your soul
For no one else can change you
Except for you
So slam the hammer down!
Swing it without flinching
Tense yourself, your muscles your nerves and sinews
Grit your teeth and clench your jaw
Grip the metal like a white knuckled vice of certainty
Focus on the spot and
Slam the Hammer Down!
Beat it into something useful
Beat if into something beautiful
Beat it with meaning for it is meaningful!
Did you forget that!
No, You did not forget
You dreamed of throwing it off,
You dreamed of being rid of it
You hoped to wake one day
And find that it had melted away
But
“You cannot dream yourself into a character:
you must hammer and forge yourself into one.”
― Henry David Thoreau
Jun 9, 2012
Jun 9, 2012 at 11:22 PM UTC
in the clay *** by the window
the arthritic orchid
unsticks its tongue
and with fat-knuckled roots
pokes the dust for water
the crayon sun emerges from the clouds
and draws the water from the garden
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 4:46 PM UTC
a knuckled skull
with no where to go
made of mud and blood
took a needle to sew
made her
during a blood moon
her parts for pleasure
some one to spoon
did it in shadows
so angels couldn't see
fashioned detritus
scraped a dead tree
gave her toes
and a small chin
played a samba
and shaped her thin
after I wove her
from spiritous mist
she called me god
i did insist
i wanted her ****
incantations and ****
made to do the who-la
resurrection did come
in barbarous tongue
enshrined truth on her head
she animated
and got out of bed
who am I
she begged to see
my lover always
i said with glee
what is love
she did inquire
its feelings of warmth
that do inspire
where are they, where is it
is it in this room
i have nothing in me
where does it loom
i pulled down my pants
she looked up with shock
oh my god she cried
what a beautiful ****
she came at me
unbridled and mad
grabbed me and broke me
and called me dad
she starved for a stuffing
and ****** like a pig
huffing and puffing
my **** got so big
we lived together
till I dropped dead
she lives forever
still waiting in bed
Apr 25, 2017
Apr 25, 2017 at 8:40 AM UTC
The Lung.
The broken bone branches hang heavy off knuckled tree. As cold and uninviting as wrapped meat in cellophane prison cells and those sweating milk bottles left on doorsteps. Women cry with the blackbirds as day breaks, rousing their reluctant nests.
As the shadows trawl in from chicken farms and slaughterhouses, across the squalid estates and past a debt collectors party. A ***** drinks his soot like coffee and waits for another years tide to retreat. Holding pith less ambitions and unmentionable qualifications, stewardess pass, uniformed thoughts and averting faces..
The rusty playgrounds sink into the fermenting wood chips, and a plastic bag runs through the scene; only to commit suicide in the oil ribbon canal. The chemical clouds thicken into a duvet of sky whilst arrows of a natural sun run home with tears of fear on their hot faces.
Down here the street lights flicker, and the patched uniforms drape off children sick with the flu that hit the school like a plague. Herding like cattle into the classrooms, to learn about the natural world
that is most unearthly to there reason.
Lunch bells ring from factories and the sky has drained to a sick -off white. The chip shop sells butties with no sauce nor bun, which machine like men guzzle and slurp.
The car parks lay stagnant in the distance and pigeons too fat to fly lay droppings on the bronze statue of a crying hero. As the roaring stops from the factories and high visibility coats are hung, the sky bruises and the men fill the pubs, until wives with children hung on washing lines drag there sweat soaked frames to the table, only to indulge them in a row.
Night creeps in, bringing with it the hooded figures that flutter along the streets. Music plays from a vacant building and seems to brighten the night.
A silhouette is seen standing on the edge, watching the busses bellow run like migrating snails, filled with the elderly and too young.
Cigarettes infest the streets creating a carpet of ash and litter. The city survives, remaining grey, never blinking, never heard.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 6:20 AM UTC
I've stopped caring if people call me Mr.
I'm resigned sometimes to fade away
like a moldy apple rotting quietly in the bin
it was only a taste of me that ever counted
but I'm not done yet
(sigh)
babies...this is the rowdy bus ride
on the long windy island road
shouting holy ****
as the driver power swerves around the sunday driving couple
in a flash, white knuckled eye to eye with the semi driver
not even surprised
that we are colliding
no-one else seems to notice
this ride ends too,
a red house on a hillside over looking the pacific
monkey toucan sloth
a private pool
infinity style, ends at the edge and tumbles into what
nothing to signify
no goals met
I'm just alive,
perhaps underachieving,
this number on my check is a third of last years take
maybe I'm not charging enough
maybe I'm working too hard or not eating
I've gained no weight since college
and I barely seem to care
I learn night moves, sometimes I can sing
fearless full throated belts
a sign in some ohio river town
in front of some church
that some people still go to
and maybe get charged at the door
says
pray ceaselessly
they say
yoga is a way of being
a person goes to the gym for an hour
but what about the other 23
I keep my back straight and my breath full
and count a days labor
for ******* in my *****
and keeping my triangles engaged
just like Bomchew and Paul taught me
an old lady smiles at me in a white stair case, calls me cowboy
she said she saw me standing in court
a judge threatening to throw me in jail
and said to herself
now theres a man
Jan 28, 2019
Jan 28, 2019 at 4:03 PM UTC
a toast to the gods of self preservation
twenty one with plenty coming
allowing to pound sounds within
the crown aroused voided a founders of it’s bruises
spells hold the fold, I’m coasting with the best
resting in the east so I sleep with blinds low
the comfort zone is far from solitude
my molecules have aptitude to channel Jupiter
seatbelts are useless wastes of matter, excuse me
just a minute so you can miss me with that individuality
your calloused grip on reality impairs the singularity
old school, gold noose, silver lined diamonds
Jesus pieces reaped the seeds that teach your blind lids
came back with scabbed knuckled and heart scars
hustled the portal of pretension ever so ethereally
inner synthesis purged the day the plague hit
on the courts or the graves, you name the slaves
the game slayed the day the chains changed hands
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 2:20 PM UTC
Two people lurk in everyone
the star and the scar
born from building high citadels of power
and cascading into smithereens
when the switch is tripped.
Maybe the voltage ran low
or the circuit breaker was poorly constructed?
I dont know.
I operate on a three phase armour
of emotional stabilisers
that spark and twitch when overheated
with too much energy. But I return
with black faced integrity
collars up and smoking
to fight on another electrifying moment.
'Thats life' I hear
the rollercoaster ride
built into the system
going around in circles
always facing the sunrise
and sunset. We scream and tumble
into the guts of the incline
the switch and roll of events
swerving around corners
holding on tight white knuckled
until it finishes its rumble
and we walk out wobbly and vomity
until the better side takes over.
The darker side recedes
into an unknown pocket.
Author Notes
Thanks to Cinderley13 who wrote about Catfish and Lydia and Lyda and made me wonder what the hell was being alluded to? It now makes a bit more sense.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 6:41 PM UTC
The color of death is not black, is not white.
Not red, not gold.
Think: ashen skin.
Think: where did the blood go?
Think: pale, so ******* pale.
Bruise again. He’s going to bruise again.
Mottled red and purple and blue and green and yellow.
That’s what the body does after death. Blood runs down
to the lowest bend of the body and bruises the skin.
The rust of cerebrospinal fluid as it sloshes
back and forth
in the bag hanging above the bed.
My mother’s hands:
white knuckled and gripping down on washcloths
to prevent her from breaking the skin of her palms.
The constant hum of telemetry,
the soft whoosh of the ventilator.
The human body has roughly 7% of its weight in blood.
The human body has no ******* idea what to do when
there is too much or too little of really anything.
Think: blood vessel bursting.
Think: cells mutating.
Think: proned patient coding after intubation.
Bruised. His hands were bruised from all the needle-sticks,
from his lack of platelets. And a single transfusion only goes so long.
Goes three weeks long.
The hands on the belly, laid so gently, so carefully are
covered in makeup. The hair is parted wrong with a cowlick.
I know how they created that soft smile on his closed mouth.
I’ve read the books.
I’ve heard the talks from morticians.
They’ve made my grandfather tan, but
I know what’s underneath the foundation:
grey.
May 9, 2021
May 9, 2021 at 10:55 PM UTC
For years, longing long years
I mourned my smooth, young honey-hued, freckle-filled summers.
My tears, pander-eyed tears
Trickled down the furtive, long-sleeved, camouflaged decades.
I hoped hopeless hopes
That the pallid,white-lashed jig-saw stranger in the mirror should leave.
My fears, shadowy fears
Multiplied, forming stark splashes across the carefree canvas of my psyche.
Resigned, and re-designed
The pattern of my life became cheery-faced denial-by-self-tan.
And there, just where despair
Had me in its mottled, stubborn, white-knuckled, piebald grip
The long, long, longed-for thing
Occurred – showering my bleached body and soul with golden shards of joy.
The white, bright white
Which blighted my confidence and leached the tones from my being
Is going, going, gone
And I am once again becoming who I always so secretly and subcutaneously was.
I’m me… I’m free
And blissfully, gratefully, ecstatically aware that the final letters of my life’s curse are…
... "I GO"
Vitiligo © October 2011 Vitiligo Protocol
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 2:11 PM UTC
I've read that people re-write their memory repeatedly,
until we've floated down so far from the moment
we can only think of our pruning hands.
Tiny hills of flesh soaked through from a river of touching
and going.
I am still here.
I kept you whole by building theme parks over
bad decisions.
A carousel of nights where we'd slip away
to try each other on.
Some sudden frisson
roller coaster rolling me closer to
knuckled blood, white bone, holding your hand
during the free fall we were too embarrassed to be afraid of,
but rode it three times just to be sure we had a grip.
I cannot hold it all so I thought to carry just the goodness.
Me a hungry thief with my arms full in an orchard of peaches,
that you gave
like someone who had never been kissed.
Your eyes were so bright and new I swear sailors must have seen you coming
over the horizon at dawn on the last day at sea.
Their skin wet with the voyage as they slide down
to find earth underfoot and look back over an ocean
only to whisper under a hushed northwesterly,
"Finally."
Sep 25, 2013
Sep 25, 2013 at 5:56 AM UTC
You insisted you were not one for violence
but every kiss was a knuckled fist.
Its been years, but my teeth
are still reeling from
the knockout.
At night, they vibrate
in their white skins- a little
earthquake of you in my mouth.
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 1:02 AM UTC
little lights, flame flickers
pale skinned lip lickers
red blood, warm flood
gold crown, made of mud
heart rippers, teeth gritters
white knuckled blood givers
i am a fist clenching, teeth wrenching
ear splitting, muscle tensing
junkyard liver, death giver
pale skinned lip licker
Dec 25, 2010
Dec 25, 2010 at 3:41 PM UTC
pacify my mouth with a white-knuckled fist
and kiss my scars with a tongue void of emotion
squeeze my knees together with hands too bruised to hold
with my shaking fingers
will the knots around my neck
squeeze me like you do
and leave bruises like you do
the ends of your hairs tickle me
along the sides of my neck
and tell me to scream
tell me to scream
scream when you leave me alone after dark
scream when the burn of alcohol no longer stings my lips
scream when the bags under your eyes turn into luggage
stationed next to the front door
your hands around my neck tightens like the knots never could
and the luggage looks like heaven
and somehow i find myself in the inside of your suitcase
Jan 2, 2015
Jan 2, 2015 at 11:15 PM UTC
The engine's warm now that we're finally off all the main streets,
and sitting in the polished seats of our smooth white metal stallion
we strolled down the slickened scenic highway, silhouetted by the sun beams turned silver
bouncing off the cold bold face of a spherical moon.
The radio licks its numbered teeth back and forth with its spike red tongue
as the knobs are turned to tune and turn up high to hear,
those greats croon
"don't worry babe, we'll be there soon".
My foot falls heavy like a rejected lover when we hit the strait aways
and the wind cant move my whop slick hair on this bright night
can't move it for a **** thing
even with the top down and the whole world spinning against us.
I race to stay within the nights dark complexion
watching out for the only man who can slow me down
pink faced clown lookin to shout "bookim"
"Bookim danno".
My hands wrap white knuckled around the steering wheel
and I chuckle at the frightened look that begins to build up in your gorgeous hazel eyes
when adrenaline filled i swing wide left
to pass the only other car
on this rickety two lane highway.
Back on our side of those magical golden lines
I reach over to settle your shaking thighs
and you grab my arm like it alone could save you.
I picture us
hydroplaning off into a deadly roll through that golden field of wheat
the last thing I would smell would be dirt, dew, fresh spring ground
I smile at the thought
whatever makes you feel better I say
and so you squeeze tighter.
I slip my hand down and off your leg,
up onto the dash
to find and twist the radio **** blasting out that sweet silky serenade of sleep walking.
I look over and blow a kiss,
but the wind ***** it out the back before it ever reaches your loving lips
and with eyes back on the road I keep on till morning.
Till I can stop with you at sunrise,
and we can rest
and hold hands
and share lips
and tell empty promises, as day breaks on the horizon
and light floods over us
in this stolen drop top caddilac.
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 11:39 PM UTC
“What makes a star?” he asks
knowing that everybody has a plan
until they get punched in the face.
So hit me again,
ruin my body for
the pleasure of others.
Knock me unconscious with
a sucker punch I won’t
remember having thrown
…and then come round
in a yellowing delete and
the close-eyed,
bruised acceptance
that the kid I once knew
who was up for the fight,
is now composing himself,
broken knuckled,
ready to be captured
by the camera’s empty promise.
The body I once owned
giving itself up to the star
I thought it might become.
May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015 at 5:53 PM UTC