"liver" poems
I am loud,
Demanding attention.
I know when I am being charming
Because I try.
I put on my impressing face
And do my impressing hair
And speak my impressing words.
I tell you my embarrassing drinking stories
And everything else about me
That you probably shouldn’t know.
I am not good at being quiet
Because that’s not who I am.
I am not the sweet girl
Who will leave you with a smile
And a touch
And a glance
Or a single word.
There is nothing of this fashion of romance
About me.
I am the girl who will point out your flaws,
And take you outside to see the stars,
And remind you how human you are,
And what a wonderful thing that is.
I am the girl who will talk about science,
And music and theology and history,
And point out constellations, laughing,
When you don’t know the big dipper’s name.
I am the girl who will make witty references,
To classic literature and science fiction,
And will tell you stories of how I once,
Made a gingerbread replica of a lighthouse.
I am the girl who will stand on a table,
And sing at the top of my lungs on the highway,
And act like a chicken or quail or velociraptor,
Or nuzzle your face like a lion to make a point.
I am the girl who takes too many shots
And then coaxes you to bed on a Russian liver,
And knows all the right places to bite, and tease,
And follows with exceptionally coherent pillow-talk.
I am not a thin silk scarf on the wind.
I am not a thing hard to capture.
You would not spend a perilous journey
Through a wild, perfumed jungle,
Searching for my slender garments
Hung beside a pool
As I wail to the breeze.
Rather, I am the bird who flies overhead
Making too much noise
Distracting from the trail ahead.
A bird whose plumage proves
What an interesting life it must be…
What a colorful life for me…
Perpetually strange
The lone comic relief.
I am many things.
But I am not quiet.
Of this I am sure.
Sep 7, 2012
Sep 7, 2012 at 6:27 AM UTC
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"
We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.
Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.
Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.
146.4k
To all the goodbyes
I say goodnight
To everyone that dies
I hope it's bright
To everyone;
With a razor
Hand of pills
Tied rope
Dangling keys
Extreme height below
Finger over a light trigger
Electricity at hand
Open propane tank
Empty plate, with full glass
Stop, think about who you're leaving behind
I know my words aren't going to stop you, but just read
Did you bother to write and leave a note?
Is it worth it then?
Saying you're sorry, knowing you'll leave someone behind?
Stop. Think about why you're doing it
Do you have nobody?
Think about your opportunities that'll fly past
The chance of ever meeting someone?
Did you lose someone?
Think about if you'll actually see them again?
Being bullied?
Fight back, with whatever you have
Life shoved you down?
No, I'm not asking you to get up!
I'm telling you to get your *** into a nap
Think about all the possibilities that might not be
Think of all the opportunities and people in the future
Think of your legacy
Think of anything except the pain
Now balance the pain and everything else
Want to jump? Skyfall
Want to shoot? Paintball and games
Want to hang? Bungee
Want to overdose? Take 10% of it and party
Suffocate in propane gas, or blow up? Cook a nice meal, invite a friend or family. Surround yourself. No friends and family? Find a friend, build a family.
Want to speed wrong side of the road? Speed on the right side of the road and get carried with the wind, do it over again
Want to cut yourself? Cut off the pain and wrong influences
Electrocute yourself? Rather save electricity and watch a good movie with friends or family. Have none? Watch a movie alone, play a game online. Make friends, build a family
Want to starve yourself so you can get drunker and finally forget it all, when your liver gives in? Eat a lot more, blow off some steam at the gym and build a body that girls/guys would like, attract them and make new friends. Drink with friends.
I've tried many things, some of them didn't work out, or I couldn't stay awake longer. Create new dreams if the old ones died. Work hard for them. Achieve something
"At least leave a ******* legacy behind" is what my bestfriend, Steph used to say
"You can get out of this alive, but maybe a little ****** up, but anything damaged can be repaired" My bestfriend Josh used to say
"Life can carry you away without what you thought you needed" my bestfriend Divene used to say
Even more quotes from people I've lost in my life, so I ask you just think about it all
Still going through with it? Remember it's a one way ticket
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 7:16 AM UTC
Bees build around red liver,
Ants build around black bone.
It has begun: the tearing, the trampling on silks,
It has begun: the breaking of glass, wood, copper, nickel, silver, foam
Of gypsum, iron sheets, violin strings, trumpets, leaves, ***** crystals.
**** Phosphorescent fire from yellow walls
Engulfs animal and human hair.
Bees build around the honeycomb of lungs,
Ants build around white bone.
Torn is paper, rubber, linen, leather, flax,
Fiber, fabrics, cellulose, snakeskin, wire.
The roof and the wall collapse in flame and heat seizes the foundations.
Now there is only the earth, sandy, trodden down,
With one leafless tree.
Slowly, boring a tunnel, a guardian mole makes his way,
With a small red lamp fastened to his forehead.
He touches buried bodies, counts them, pushes on,
He distinguishes human ashes by their luminous vapor,
The ashes of each man by a different part of the spectrum.
Bees build around a red trace.
Ants build around the place left by my body.
I am afraid, so afraid of the guardian mole.
He has swollen eyelids, like a Patriarch
Who has sat much in the light of candles
Reading the great book of the species.
What will I tell him, I, a Jew of the New Testament,
Waiting two thousand years for the second coming of Jesus?
My broken body will deliver me to his sight
And he will count me among the helpers of death:
The uncircumcised.
21.5k
the doctor said i have a fatty liver
so i started drinking straight *****
to cut down on carbs
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 6:40 PM UTC
god I got the sad blue blues,
this woman sat there and she
said
are you really Charles
Bukowski?
and I said
forget that
I do not feel good
I've got the sad sads
all I want to do is
**** you
and she laughed
she thought I was being
clever
and O I just looked up her long slim legs of heaven
I saw her liver and her quivering intestine
I saw Christ in there
jumping to a folk-rock
all the long lines of starvation within me
rose
and I walked over
and grabbed her on the couch
ripped her dress up around her face
and I didn't care
**** or the end of the earth
one more time
to be there
anywhere
real
yes
her ******* were on the
floor
and my **** went in
my **** my god my **** went in
I was Charles
Somebody.
16.2k
Some women marry houses.
It's another kind of skin; it has a heart,
a mouth, a liver and bowel movements.
The walls are permanent and pink.
See how she sits on her knees all day,
faithfully washing herself down.
Men enter by force, drawn back like Jonah
into their fleshy mothers.
A woman is her mother.
That's the main thing.
14.7k
See, you hear this word and shiver
While some of us get problems of the liver
yup! Exams are what I'm talking about
The reason pupils start howling about
Oh exams! What do we do with you
As it approaches, students be like
A reaction no one ever seen like
In our dreams like a monster sneaks up
Within our soul like Death creaps up
Oh exams! What do we do with you
That one night before exam burden
Reminds me of the war of verdun
Only if had books borrowed or lend
All night were the eyes to suspend
Oh exams! What do we do with you
That, to be murdered day arrived
Of peaceful sleep were we deprived
When the exam hall were we to enter
Shot a bullet shrapnel in the center
Dead were we when we turned the paper
Those questions turned us into vapor
Students like us had two or three attempted
Handed over those 2 sheets and left all exempted
Oh exams! What do we do with you
You're welcome, now to hell with you
Sep 17, 2017
Sep 17, 2017 at 3:49 AM UTC
Born a boy...
Baseball, music, skateboards...
Puberty comes and goes...
Suicidal thoughts...
The only answer to stop the pain...
Too scared to follow through...
18 and life, my body is a prison...
My body breaks mirrors...
Dysphoria, a word never heard...
Lost, never knowing why...
Alcohol finds me...
The perfect medication...
I laugh, I live...
It hides all the pain...
Year after year...
It's all i know..
There's still something inside...
Something pushing...
Calling, wanting to get out...
It got to be too much...
Then eighteen months ago...
The pain got too much...
My liver was destroyed...
I thought it was the end...
I met a person...
Heard the word transgender...
Some others took me...
Taught me, cared for me...
One day the light came on...
After all these years of tears...
The answer was so simple...
All the pieces fit perfectly...
I was transgender, and never knew...
Now I'm free...
Im so happy for the first time to be me...
I'm transgender..!
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 11:54 PM UTC
There is a body floating in the water of Lake Michigan again, but no one is willing to fish it out. There is a body floating in the pond near my subdivision again, but everyone already knew that anyway.
I am sitting eighty miles away, overlooking a city that is not mine, thinking about how the moon outside my window is the same moon that you can see from down below in your partially frozen-over dirt bed. I am thinking about the vampire that sits in his apartment, chugging two-to-three bottles of blood a week, and wondering if he is haunted by the same ghosts as I am.
It’s taken me eighteen years to realize that I was infected with a different variation of his curse all along—I am less human and more lycanthrope than I would like to admit. I am not like you, I am not like him, I am my own breed and that terrifies me. (There are black cats prowling in my heart and fragments of mirrors in my liver and salt that bleeds from my heels when I walk.)
No matter how many rabbits’ feet I tie to my keys, how many dreamcatchers I put above my bed, how many cloves of garlic I hang over my door, I am never able to rid myself of the chill that goes hand in hand with the phantom you left here.
Mother, I think I killed a man two full moons ago and I haven’t been the same since. I threw his body into the lake and watched him drift out into the unknown, watched the kraken drag him down, watched the water spew him back up like a cork. And now I need you to make your way back to the land of the living to sit by my side. I want you to cut off my head and make me a trophy animal. Create a rug from my fur. Eat my organs and freeze the rest for winter. Use me for your own survival. I just want to be helpful.
I want to be everything the vampire was not but my fingers are breaking from holding on too tight.
I should let go.
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 2:06 AM UTC
Today at the train station
A stranger came up to me
And asked for directions.
I had the sudden urge to give him the wrong ones
Or take him behind the stairwell and
Gut him
And let his family watch as stomach and liver
Flobber out over slipping intestines, or simply
Grab him and throw him onto the train tracks
As the half five train approaches.
It would give people a reason to
Remove their sunglasses,
And possibly even their iPods,
Headphones dangling uncomfortably
As they fumble to save a pointless
(As well as futile) situation.
Maybe they would film it with their phones.
Maybe I'd be famous.
Instead I just sigh and give him the right directions,
Tell him the correct train to travel on,
And slowly smile as he waddles off
And doesn't believe me.
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 11:51 AM UTC
Olives, figs, dates and mastic, wyrd or oracles, fates and magic, wars and loves and all that’s tragic.
A Father’s lust, an Uncle’s hate, a puzzling labyrinth, through the gate,
A Cretan born, another covered, a starry symbol, placed in the cupboard,
Special place, where heroes meet him, mindless creature, murderous ******
South in winter, man below with a bull above, placed in the heavens by two father's love,
A strangeness here, the seat of trade, in forbidden tryst, a beast was made,
Man of blood, tortured soul, stalks the maze, that stalks the pole,
"Stranger still, this wild pattern, revolving Seventh, Circle of Saturn?"
Unholy corridors made of granites, trace out the movements of the planets!
Life of horror, a soul of pain, terrorizing, with no refrain,
Smells their fear, scents of sin, raging actions, threshing men;
“They call me Moloch! They call me Baal! Tear your body, festoon my hall!”
In trepidation, to gatekeeper sent, a ****** start, for your punishment;
“I collect the hearts, I eat the eyes, I eat the liver, before he dies!”
Olives, figs, dates and mastic, wyrd or oracles, fates and magic, life and death and all that’s tragic.
Jun 9, 2016
Jun 9, 2016 at 11:48 PM UTC
Homework, oh homework,
I hate you! You Stink!
I wish I could wash you away in the sink.
If only a bomb would explode you to bits.
Homework, oh homework,
You're giving me fits!
I'd rather take baths with a man eating shark,
Or wrestle a lion alone in the dark.
Eat spinach and liver, pet ten porcupines,
Then tackle the homework my teacher assigns.
I get more and more angry as I turn the next page,
Homework, oh homework,
You fill me with rage!
Homework, oh homework,
You're last on my list,
I simply can't see why you even exist.
If you just disappeared, it would tickle me pink.
Homework, oh homework,
I hate you! You stink!
Sep 4, 2017
Sep 4, 2017 at 5:28 PM UTC
She sees herself as a machine,
Something that can be fixed
By a brilliant engineer, as herself
She's aware that she needs help
Yet she refuses every offer she gets
Cause she believes the broken ones
Can be fixed by brilliant engineers, like her
A day came when she doesn’t know herself no more,
So she tried to know herself once more
And rebuilt it like she used to rebuild a broken machine
Yes, she was slowly destroying herself
Like a mechanic engineer destroying
A broken machine
To know what’s wrong with it
Drugs for her brain
Toxic pills for her liver
Cigarettes for her lungs
Blades for her skin
She finally knew what’s wrong with her
And tried to fix herself once more
But none of her attempts worked
Instead, her attempts destroyed herself even more
She came to a realisation
That humans are no machines
Once broken, no one can fix them,
Not even themselves
Jun 30, 2013
Jun 30, 2013 at 10:06 PM UTC
Melting down, crossing barriers, breaking out, stepping round.
Pieces fragmenting, character isolating. Green-acid, hair follicles, white is the blank slate, painting blues with reds.
Freaks from a sideshow, muscles in the sea, six-packs in a grog-shop, dancing improperly.
Beguiled by your bounce, sleep-walking this town. Fine is the white wine, poisoning the liver, spining on a sixpence, ********** follows dinner.
Oct 6, 2018
Oct 6, 2018 at 12:53 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
Coffee makes my day,
Blood just pumping all the way.
I love my liver!
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 11:41 AM UTC
Last night I saw the fear in your eyes
the vulnerability seeping in.
I made you vulnerable and you hated me for that
you hated that I was the only one
who actually made you feel something
so you had to go and cheat
but I was the **** all though your inbox
says different
A flirty message with a heart faced attached
it doesn't mean anything I tell myself
he loves me.
But I never truly believed. Us girls caught
up in our heads is he thinking of me too.
you broke my heart and I want to break your spine
my therapist says letting anger out is healthy
but I actually want you to die
I want you to feel the pain I felt when I saw you with not the first but the third girl. But I was the idiot for going back.
I want you to not be able to sleep at night
Having panic attack after panic attack
wondering why you were never good enough
I want you to die
because I see in colors and you shut your blue eyes and now all I see is black.
because you said you loved me
and her
and her
my liver trying to accommodate all the alcohol just to get a weakened smile
my veins screaming for me to stop
bleeding them dry my head spiraling trying to get me to think of anything else but you
your manipulative blue eyes and your sinful lips but I am my own worst enemy
Jul 20, 2018
Jul 20, 2018 at 7:21 PM UTC
Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
and how the wind doth ramm,
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,
So ‘gainst the winter’s balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.
7.2k
Hey there Delilah,
What's it like in your ******
I'm a thousand miles away,
But girl, I smell that **** from China.
Yes, I can.
I've got a nice white mini-van,
Lemme tie them hands.
Hey there Delilah,
Don't you worry about the distance,
I will be there in a jiffy,
Give this song another listen,
I'm by your side,
I came fast and now I'll slap your thighs,
And cover your eyes.
Oh, you've got some nice tiddies.
Oh, I'll give you STD's.
Oh, I'll tie you to a tree.
Oh, I'll **** you till' you bleed.
**** you till' you bleed.
Hey there Delilah,
You know my **** is getting hard,
But just believe me, girl
Someday I'll let you out of this here car,
We'll have it good,
I'll have your life, you'll have my wood,
Just like you should.
Hey there Delilah,
I've got so much **** to say,
Why write you ten thousand songs,
When I could rub your **** all day,
I'd rub it hard,
From house, to school, to pool, to plane, to yard,
I'll leave some scars.
Oh, you've got some nice tiddies.
Oh, I'll give you STD's.
Oh, I'll tie you to a tree.
Oh, I'll **** you till' you bleed.
**** you till' you bleed.
I wish upon a summer star,
****** strings for my guitar,
I think that's gross so I must be gay,
My friends will all make fun of you,
Degrading lies like, "You're a Jew",
You'll try to run but I will make you stay,
Delilah, I can promise you,
That one and one always makes two,
And two people create the greatest games,
Great ***** games!
Hey there Delilah,
You be good, and don't you diss me,
Cause, you're the sub and I'm the dom,
And you will be history if you do,
You'll end up in some cannibal stew,
The liver to swallow and the skin to chew,
Doing like cannibals do,
Like cannibals do.
Oh, you've got some nice tiddies.
Oh, I'll give you STD's.
Oh, I'll tie you to a tree.
Oh, I'll **** you till' you bleed.
**** you till' you bleed.
Mar 29, 2019
Mar 29, 2019 at 11:37 AM UTC
Funny the things we recall.
Images that flash through our brain.
Some most vivid for me were of an old man.
Skin like creased parchment paper,
Lined and yellowed with age.
The veins visible just below the surface,
of a thin nearly transparent veneer.
Liver spotted flecks of red,
Charted paths from the toil of many years,
Palms callused forever from a life time of labor.
Big fingers knotted and misshapen,
The two inch tip of one gone missing,
Saw taken, at age sixteen.
Looking at those old hands, one could hardly guess
That still there remained gentleness in their caress.
For an old dog, or a little grandson in need of some
Companionable affection or parental love.
Those aged hands could also make things,
Toy sailboats, and wooden trains,
complete with caboose,
And guard cow catcher.
A cool flute whistle that actually worked,
He said it was like the Indian’s made,
Out Oklahoma way.
And he would know,
He cowboyed there.
His hands taught me to tie my shoes,
Open and close my first pocketknife.
Those same hands could become birds,
rabbits, butterfly's, all sorts of things.
When projected up on the wall,
Silhouetted by a naked back light.
His hands knew magic too,
Pluck silver coins right out of my ears.
His tired face matched his hands,
visual weathered, creased and
wrinkled road maps,
Of 89 years of rugged roads traveled.
Yet, his lively pale green eyes remained
forever fraudulently youthful prisms,
Eyes and spirit of a much younger man within.
But it is his hands most of all I shall remember,
Their imposing look and their reassuring
touches of tenderness.
I shall never forget my grandfather’s hands.
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 3:12 PM UTC
there's a marital dispute
between squirrels
in my chest, stomach and head.
she flings lamp and liver
while he slings obscenities
about her barrenness.
by midnight
they'll **** then sleep
and then I can watch John Oliver.
but their problems aren't resolved.
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 10:13 PM UTC
As they walked along after the matinee, the older brother teased his sister, “Hey, guess what, Frankenstein lives in the attic and he’s goin’ get you.” With a flushed face the little sister responded, "Nah-ah, besides the attic door is locked." And her brother smirked, “Think Frankenstein cares about locked doors?"
Throughout their childhood, the brother jumped out behind closed doors, terrifying his little sister, and with each fright he gave his own fear seemed to lessen. After a startle the sister thought, ‘Does my brother love me, like I love him?’, and she concluded, “He must, why else would he try to scare me to death?’
Within the decade, a sudden brain hemorrhage took their dearly loved mother. Now, untethered in their mother’s love, the siblings changed, tightened, within, While their father, a traumatized, war veteran, swiftly fell off the wagon, and the brother and sister cast off, rudderless, uprooted into troubled waters.
And with their hearts snapped shut, immersed in relentless grief, they parted ways. Some years later, their father died, bequeathed them both his unhealed pain. The brother, the sister, slid secretively into alcoholism, conceded the family custom, invested deeply in their despair, the two went on, married, raised families, conformed.
And time went by, as alcohol soothed the pain until the brother breathed his last, his belly taut with fluid, his liver destroyed, a life sentence ended. While she, the lone survivor, mysteriously yielded unto Grace and was pardoned, recovered, she finally understood, she knew deep inside; everyone did the best they could, even her.
…and within a circle of one; I loved them all forever and ever.
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 11:53 AM UTC
bowling pin serenity
white and controlled
everyone loves the separatism
as it is encouraged and propagated
revolution as a fad
for ****
right to buy, die, fry, and try
skin-color guarantee
Paul Mooney, “complection for protection”
meaning my pigment protects me
from what….
I experience the loss of loved ones to cancer and illness
I suffer years of addiction and the lasting effects of liver damage
I am poor, was raised in poverty
my skin means nothing to the bill collectors
or the tax man
or the capitalist system
do I not suffer the slow poisoning
of industrialization
of globalization
infection
rejection
……
We all sit as slaves in this new America
I just happen to be in the front of the bus
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 12:32 PM UTC
Call yourself a friend of mine,
Forcing me to “neck” beer and wine?
Lovingly mixed with ***** and gin,
And dash of ketchup added in,
Wasabi for that extra kick -
The whole thing just makes me sick!
It’s not fun or cool or clever,
But a study in peer pressure,
Present in the world we live in,
Where for a guy or girl to “give in”,
Is expected for their reputation.
But what kind of expectation,
Is encouraged sado-masochism?
A concept likely to cause a schism,
For those who didn’t use their head,
And unsurprisingly now are dead.
I am sure as you will surely see,
And the poet Dylan would agree,
That as long as you ignore
The deaths of one, two three and four
How many, many, many more,
Are needed til we scream and cry?
“We caused too many youths to die!”
And for what cause? Acceptance.
Whose loss is needed for our repentance?
It’s all well acting free and wild,
But each of us is someone’s child -
Whose loss would surely cause sadness,
Hurt and pain and grief and madness?
And stomaching death is much harder
Than soap or dirt or grease or lard or
Whatever miscellaneous things
This activity inevitably brings.
Just saying “no” might make you quiver
But trust me; it’s better for your liver -
And living x years sans hurt or maim
Is worth > than 15 minutes of fame.
So do the maths before you do it -
Or else I bet you’ll likely rue it!
Feb 6, 2014
Feb 6, 2014 at 10:34 AM UTC