"lopped" poems
Picasso
you give us things
which
bulge:grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind
you make us shrill
presents always
shut in the sumptuous screech of
simplicity
(out of the
black unbunged
Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes
or
between squeals of
Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness
solid screams whispers.)
Lumberman of the Distinct
your brain’s
axe only chops hugest inherent
Trees of Ego,from
whose living and biggest
bodies lopped
of every
prettiness
you hew form truly
28.6k
He loved her and she loved him
His kisses ****** out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she ******
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and Sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains
Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Or everlasting or whatever there was
Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy place
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His word were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assasin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
Her glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall
Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop
In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage
In the morning they wore each other's face
17.6k
Our last connection with the mythic.
My mother remembers the day as a girl
she jumped across a little spruce
that now overtops the sandstone house
where still she lives; her face delights
at the thought of her years translated
into wood so tall, into so mighty
a peer of the birds and the wind.
Too, the old farmer still stout of step
treads through the orchard he has outlasted
but for some hollow-trunked much-lopped
apples and Bartlett pears. The dogwood
planted to mark my birth flowers each April,
a soundless explosion. We tell its story
time after time: the drizzling day,
the fragile sapling that had to be staked.
At the back of our acre here, my wife and I,
freshly moved in, freshly together,
transplanted two hemlocks that guarded our door
gloomily, green gnomes a meter high.
One died, gray as sagebrush next spring.
The other lives on and some day will dominate
this view no longer mine, its great
lazy feathery hemlock limbs down-drooping,
its tent-shaped caverns resinous and deep.
Then may I return, an old man, a trespasser,
and remember and marvel to see
our small deed, that hurried day,
so amplified, like a story through layers of air
told over and over, spreading.
9.5k
If I might only love my God and die!
But now He bids me love Him and live on,
Now when the bloom of all my life is gone,
The pleasant half of life has quite gone by.
My tree of hope is lopped that spread so high,
And I forget how summer glowed and shone,
While autumn grips me with its fingers wan,
And frets me with its fitful windy sigh.
When autumn passes then must winter numb,
And winter may not pass a weary while,
But when it passes spring shall flower again:
And in that spring who weepeth now shall smile,
Yea, they shall wax who now are on the wane,
Yea, they shall sing for love when Christ shall come.
4.4k
vampiric ***** house
a fearful symmetry
of cleavers for something to love
***** addicted
pearly satin's copulate
a continent of curves
ovoid rectums and raw mouths
in a ritual of sadistic etiquette
drenching phallus tongued spit
like gales of flames
at a masochists invitation
for foot blooded kisses
and heated lopped breast
eager haunches thunder
in a malignant lust
********* utopias **** cyclops
spreading winkling's dribbling
night operas
in a red cathedral of flicker hives
squealing euphoria's hemic arcade
with greased ******* that break backs
fluting throats ***** chromatic fizz
and shrilling wombs flutter like bat wings pandemonium
in the museum of the moon
Mar 9, 2019
Mar 9, 2019 at 1:39 PM UTC
Oh, Andy-
speak to me in paints:
red, yellow, blue
When I told you I wouldn't be good at this,
an inability to sketch hands that punched at everything leaving me weak.
Keane's sorrow filled eyes upon oil made more sense to me.
I was never angry or mean, just sad and hopeless.
Lichtenstein was more your speed with obscene images of ******* women
and dialogue of broken hearts.
Van Gogh never made sense, but his attention to detail caught my eye.
To not know what goes on in your own head is identifiable so,
my head is art crafted by Picasso.
they hospitalize you once you've lopped your ear off
when giving a part of themselves to a lover.
I'm not cut out for this- the starving artist,
the tragic sketcher,
or the natural- born painter.
I've calloused my hands,
shed tears on pages of sketchbooks
put paint that looks childlike
and nothing worthwhile,
in all the time spent learning,
I've never learned how to be an artist.
I thought it was the mantra to be pained and miserable,
but you accounted for bold choices and vivid primary shades.
I feel betrayed, that my art alone, isn't enough to be good.
They will never frame my name,
or immortalize flaws in which could never be erased.
Like our conversation in my dream:
"I can't be mean." -Me
"Killing yourself isn't much different" -You
So Andy, what is the color I'm feeling? If it isn't blue?
—V.H.
Mar 6, 2018
Mar 6, 2018 at 2:20 PM UTC
Goliath never
Praised his wife,
Never said
He loved her.
He came up short
Of his intent,
She felt more worthy,
Had to vent,
So stole off from
The Philistine camp,
Crossed the sands
Like a vamp,
To join Israelites
Preparing
For the final fight.
A challenge
Came
From the Giant,
To send out one
To die defiant.
David rose
In shepherd's clothes,
Goliath's wife
Lay near.
When David reached
For shield and spear,
She handed him
A bra.
Her over the shoulder
Boulder holder
Had Philistines guffaw.
Her Double D's,
Once there to please,
Brought Goliath
Grovelling
To his knees.
He lopped off
Goliath's head,
Enjoyed the same
Back in bed.
The lesson taught?
It doesn't matter,
Tall or not,
Be sure to
Tell your wife
She's hot!
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 10:16 AM UTC
Burning, he walks in the stream of flickering letters, clarinets,
machines throbbing quicker than the heart, lopped-off heads, silk
canvases, and he stops under the sky
and raises toward it his joined clenched fists.
Believers fall on their bellies, they suppose it is a monstrance that
shines,
but those are knuckles, sharp knuckles shine that way, my friends.
He cuts the glowing, yellow buildings in two, breaks the walls into
motley halves;
pensive, he looks at the honey seeping from those huge honeycombs:
throbs of pianos, children's cries, the thud of a head banging against
the floor.
This is the only landscape able to make him feel.
He wonders at his brother's skull shaped like an egg,
every day he shoves back his black hair from his brow,
then one day he plants a big load of dynamite
and is surprised that afterward everything spouts up in the explosion.
Agape, he observes the clouds and what is hanging in them:
globes, penal codes, dead cats floating on their backs, locomotives.
They turn in the skeins of white clouds like trash in a puddle.
While below on the earth a banner, the color of a romantic rose,
flutters,
and a long row of military trains crawls on the weed-covered tracks.
2k
A massive sea beast came to die.
It lumbered up and lopped down
on the docks of a grey castled city.
It’s arc heaved as it breathed
the damp sea vapors.
A final groan echoed from
the core of its heaped flesh.
One bulbous eye peered dead
deep into the wet night sky.
The gulls found it first.
Then the fishermen,
while making morning rounds.
Then the young,
then the curious,
even the lords came
to mend the unsevered.
The beast lay still.
The gulls were scattered by
the fishermen’s discipline.
The young found new spectacle around them.
The curious began to plan.
Some saw the meat.
Some saw their signs.
Others wanted it destroyed,
burnt immediately.
“Let’s be done with it!”
they said.
The lords quoted and pointed,
like they do.
The beast did not move.
A merchant arrived.
He owned the docks.
He had dominion.
“It is mine!”
he declared
“Go home!”
Embarrassed, the lords cowered and mumbled.
The curious shouted and bared their teeth.
The fishermen took sides,
the young stayed quiet,
and the gulls watched
the flames from afar.
A rain came.
The merchant,
the lords,
the curious,
the fishermen,
the young,
and even the gulls
all sprinted for shelter.
But the beast . . .
Rain became storm.
The horizon was hazed
by the mighty torrent.
But the beast . . .
Storm became tempest.
The sea swelled and smashed
against the city’s north wall.
But the beast . . .
Tempest became wrath.
Scythes of lightning set ablaze
the flags atop the tallest towers.
But the beast . . .
And wrath became the toothed face of a new god.
But still the beast . . .
remained where it was.
Nothing was said, nothing was heard
as the rain beat down on the oily carcass,
washing it clean.
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 4:52 PM UTC
I’d thought that they were extinct until
I found one in the coop,
A genuine Jersey Giant, strutting
Up on the henhouse roof,
Twice the size of the other hens
As I said to my sister, Faye,
‘Where did it come from?’ She replied,
‘Not there yesterday!’
‘I go to collect the eggs each day,
Do you think that could be missed?
That bird is a giant,’ she declared,
‘So don’t blame me, desist!’
I calmed her down, for she used to flare
At the slightest hint of crit.,
‘Whatever it is, it’s here to stay,
Perhaps we can breed from it?’
There wasn’t a cockerel near the size
Of this random Jersey Black,
‘It must have come visiting overnight,
I joked, ‘from a neighbour’s shack.’
She wandered into the henhouse and
From behind an empty keg,
She said, ‘You’d better come look at this,’
And showed me a giant egg.
An egg so big that you wouldn’t think
That a chicken could let it pass,
Tall and brown with a pointed crown
And a shell as thick as glass,
‘Are we going to let it hatch it out,’
Said Faye, ‘or crack it yet?
I wonder how many that would feed
As a giant omelette?’
‘We’ll leave her be, and we’ll wait and see
If a monster’s there inside,
We might as well, if a cockerel
It can be the henhouse pride.’
So we let her sit on the giant egg
For a week, or maybe more,
Then Faye came running inside one day,
‘You’ve not seen this before!’
The egg emitted a humming noise
And rocked a bit on its base,
While through the shell there were coloured lights
That would fade then grow apace,
And as we stood it began to crack
Then pieces would fall away,
It almost gave me a heart attack
For what I saw that day.
For spinning inside the egg we saw
A tiny universe,
With a sun-like star at the centre and
Our planets, in reverse,
And as we watched it began to grow
To float out the henhouse door,
Swelling constantly as it rose
To the skies, with a mighty roar.
I don’t know what it has done to us,
The sky doesn’t look the same,
There are three moons now in the evening sky
Since the Jersey rooster came,
I lopped the chicken that laid the egg
And I wait for the slightest sight,
With an axe for the Jersey cockerel
That Faye prays to at night.
David Lewis Paget
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 3:45 PM UTC
Have not pity for the puppy
in the box by the street;
his purpose yet to be determined.
I took him home as chosen last among others,
but first in my heart,
and my stomach.
I took the poor puppy
into the kitchen
where I lopped off his head
drank his blood
and cooked him for dinner.
So dear children
do not pity the poor puppy
whose flesh still fills my belly.
Allow us to applaud him
for complementing good jelly.
Feb 13, 2010
Feb 13, 2010 at 1:40 PM UTC
My words are translated Aramaic
to your tender divinity,
a slurred expression of
time immemorial.
Satan visited me profusely
under the guise of
mistrodden eloquence.
(i can't breathe in this.)
There was a time when
constraints defied my
powers like kryptonite,
when my head was lopped
and guarded with gold eyes.
(i don't like wearing your mask.)
(Have you seen mine lately?)
Some days distant on the cold
snow banks, laughing
breezily at easy disjuncture
and spending the better part
of this existence trying to
bleed my fingers dry,
(We are the finest musicians
you have never heard of.)
a disheartening side project
placed upon a stone altar.
(Did you know i was an Aztec slave?)
Complacent and supple we have
lined up longingly for our visions,
but i am next, i am the
lamb, the ambrosia-slicked
path to zen.
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 9:12 AM UTC
Amputation (the final word)
Who thought…? Who knew?
Now it’s you
And fingers gone
To amputation.
You’ve seen programs. Said, “How brave!”
Thought about limbs saved and strengthened.
Training every second hour,
Power growing,
Phantom aches and pains still gnawing:
They’re a marvel!
Now you know!
For that’s the way the cookie crumbles,
And it humbles one, for sure.
There’s no cure for amputation.
Something gone is gone.
The answer is to go on
Taking pleasure, having fun,
Taking sun and making merry ‘fore the sun goes down,
The gone-ness mostly in the brain.
Strong and proud:
Join the crowd!
Amputation 6.6.2020 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin
Amputate; To cut off (a limb) by surgical operation.
Origin: mid 16th century: from Latin amputat- ‘lopped off’, from amputare, from am- (for amb- ‘about’) + putare ‘to prune’.
Note: “Amputation” was aimed at anyone who is amputated and happens to read it. It’s not aimed at the world. I saw this impressive documentary about a group of men and women sorely handicapped in one other way, taking a group trip to and through Vietnam, and was so moved I just had to write something.
They went through rivers, caves, highways, narrow wooden bridges, taking turns at driving, some never having driven, trusting one another, exhorting one another...
That’s what inspired this poem.
Jun 8, 2020
Jun 8, 2020 at 3:56 PM UTC
I lopped up an orange
and let the juice run down my throat
the way you drink fire
and breathe into me.
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 12:50 AM UTC
Outside the crop has wintered,
tall husks of green lopped over
and fumbling for sunlight.
There are rules to the arrangement.
The limits of energy and
abundance, lost somewhere in
a fray of hot sound, cold
Frame for the crop to weather.
Let it slip away. Humble yet
whorish for warmth, bare skeleton
of being from which to frame the
Praying, hand scraping concrete.
Find that voice. Put it in a box.
Punt that box into oblivion, a fire
of sunlight, warmth, a burning skeleton
Begging for life; hollow shell.
Mar 31, 2017
Mar 31, 2017 at 12:59 AM UTC
Decided to run with him today.
Have the windpipe burned.
Which it has, though didn’t think
my tongue would grasp the air this way—
reach out further than the dog’s.
Should’ve been just a wet towel
hung red over a balcony for the sun.
Instead I’ve discovered
mine is thickly wanting.
A bloodied wormhead.
Collapsed and writhing in a drain.
Sore, it’s been lopped. Beaten—cut.
By words which, kept crammed,
find their sharpness—my not-knowing-how
to listen to them heard.
So forms my residue of jilted buds.
Their shrivel in the mouth.
On a dead tongue.
While his, it seems, lives. Always kindly out.
Not only on the run. And his thoughts
are surely just as strong.
Being outrun, I’ll try to imitate.
On the way back—lap air by the wind
of my breath. Keep cool by releasing
from my tongue. Only heat.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 7:54 PM UTC
An old crow does not fly;
dark, lopped wings un-sing.
His straw men long’d fought,
are now with stuffing wring.
A lone branch holds his feet,
claws scratching at its folds.
His caws now echo hoarse,
his weak legs too grow cold.
His wings yearn but to spread,
but spread yearn they to die;
To straws he cannot cling,
hence trust put he to sky.
Oct 11, 2015
Oct 11, 2015 at 7:46 AM UTC
you think I don’t live
hip hop
in my drop top
boy, I’ll slap a cop
for messin wit my
organic crop
I got’s hogs to slop
fruit is starting to drop
rabbits ears are lopped
still, I got time to rock
see I
write rhymes all the time
mostly in my mind
helps me to unwind
when I smoke the kind
like a real balla
dog don’t need a
shock colla
he listens when I holla
I like to gives the bums a dolla
that **** makes me feel bangin
while my ball sack swangin
Am I entertaining? –
Cause I‘ll never be mainstream
never learned to silk screen
5th wheel, Slipstream
Pajamas on, a wet dream
I’ll never be mainstream –
See I
don’t own a gun
shoot my mouth off
just for fun
never eat a wheat bun
not a celiac,
just don’t want none
***** come undone
solar flare
from the sun
life weighin like a ton
smashed flat on the ground, son
but I
get back up ya’ll
no time to fall
harvest in the Fall
watch the water-fall
like the politicians ya’ll –
I will never be mainstream
wont listen to yo kids scream
buy those ******* ice cream
all up in the sun beam
I’m never bein mainstream –
Ya’ll, I cant wait to own
acreage and a home
space for my dogs to roam
hide those muthafukka’s bones
or maybe I will buy a cow
work with a horse and plow
homeboy’s, the time is now
gotta get a loan somehow
so I pay off all my back debt
save some cash for
a down pay-ment
so I don’t got’s to pay no rent
life will be so different --
and I will never be mainstream
create power with my own stream
use my cow to get milk and cream
this **** isn’t just a dream
boy, I will never be mainstream --
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 2:47 PM UTC
The white flowers
will not arrive
by stallion, nor
by lightning.
The stolid courier
will knock, a door
swinging; a suitable
place prepared.
In the cold district,
the exploded heads
of trees look back at me:
why didn't I save them?
Even the sun seems lopped.
But in the face of it
I will stand, have coffee,
& be reminded of you.
It's 6:30, and the sky
turns a spoiled milk shade
before tripping
in its hurry to arrive.
Jan 15, 2021
Jan 15, 2021 at 7:27 AM UTC
He cut off his feet...
But still wandered and strayed
Then gouged out his eyes...
But still burned for the maid
Then lopped off one hand...
But then saw an issue:
He could not complete
Sev'ring sin from his tissue
.
Oct 22, 2020
Oct 22, 2020 at 9:24 AM UTC
I bought a perfect pineapple
It screamed of being sweet.
It’s burnt orange blush,
It pale green spiked leaves.
To try and preserve such beauty,
Would bear sour fruit.
To fight for its posterity when it will not fight too.
So I lopped off it’s head
Carefully removed its fruit and
Casually discarded its core
And satisfied my craving
Done before you begin. Safe.
Jun 7, 2018
Jun 7, 2018 at 11:25 PM UTC
In museums you can see fabulous collections
of beautiful things. Plenty of paintings
and sculptures and artifacts and such.
These are placed here by public consensus,
not by the critics, because people
know what speaks to their souls.
Humans respond to beauty time and again;
it is never tiresome! And if you pay attention
to yourself, you will discover particular
pieces of art **** you in, draw you back,
until you stand before them
transfixed and marveling.
I like landscapes and portraits of people
and sculptures in marble, especially sculptures
ill-used by time, with missing limbs
and lopped-off ears. These are the ones
which retain their beauty and become something
more, precious, guarded, and loved.
These are the ones that remain in museums
to prove that beauty and perfection
are not the same thing. These are
the ones that aren't thrown away,
but are cherished and protected
because they inspire!
And sometimes some humans will be
more fortunate than most because
into their lives will step a living
work of art, flawed and beautiful
all at once, endlessly illustrating
the Grace of God, imperfectly.
Oct 8, 2013
Oct 8, 2013 at 11:39 AM UTC
Get off your soapbox
Feeling far too hot
Modestly boxed in, by each scoff
Folding up my arms as my tongue is lopped off
I know its funny
I'm laughing inside
The same arguments
Humanity is so blind
They all start coming, at the same time
They keep on running up
Flagpole ****
I think I've had enough
Am I anything without this?
Feeling fragile, breaking cycles
Left myself out of the carnage
You'll have your day
Then when that day is done, you'll know what you've become
This is my day
To make that ******* change, the whole world is a stage
----------------------------------
Started with hatred, flowing through the air
Wheres my forgiveness?
Incessant, bound and scared
You seem quite passive, for the way you play
****** body submissive
Power to subvert the enemy
And this is the ending of a waste
The life once gifted has been thrown the **** away
It was left up to you
Now you've got it made
But with nothing more to lose
And nothing left to prove
Aug 10, 2017
Aug 10, 2017 at 1:16 AM UTC
The phone had only been on a day
When the cranky calls began,
‘Nobody knows we’re on,’ I said,
When at first the **** thing rang.
I had to run up the passageway
To catch it before it stopped,
Then there was just an awesome hush
Like a tree before it’s lopped.
The line dropped out at the first ‘hello’
As if they would wait for me
To run the length of the passageway,
Expend all that energy,
I’m sure they laughed as they cut me off
Though of course, I couldn’t hear,
‘It’s dead again,’ I would rage and froth
‘Though it must be someone near.’
‘It better not be your stupid friend,’
I said to my wife, Diane,
‘The one that’s such a comedienne
Who annoys me when she can.’
‘It isn’t her,’ was Diane’s reply
In her testy, haughty tone,
‘She wouldn’t ring when she knows I’m here,
But wait till you’re home alone.’
But the phone rang every evening,
At the high point of our show,
Just as they named the villain, and
I nodded to her to go.
‘You go,’ she’d say, ‘I’ve worked all day,
And it really is your phone,’
I’d grit my teeth up the passageway
And rage at it on my own.
I finally let it ring and ring
And refused to pick it up,
‘I’ll teach them never to mess with me,’
As I drank a second cup,
A truck arrived in the morning and
It dumped a ton of twine
Blocking all of the driveway while
Some clown said it was mine!
‘I never ordered this blasted twine,
You should have come to the door,
Confirmed the order you say you had,
What would I want it for?’
‘We got the order over the phone
So we rang, with no reply,
Somebody said you don’t pick up
You’re such an eccentric guy.’
I always answered it after that,
And after the pig dung treat,
Fifteen tons, and the smell had hung
The length of our angry street,
We tried to tell them it wasn’t us
We said it must be the phone,
I know that I would have picked it up
If only I had been home.
We never did get a proper call,
One where somebody spoke,
I don’t think anyone likes me, and
That phone’s a pig in a poke,
I went outside and I cut the cord
To the world who scorned our line,
Then went inside where the blasted phone
Still rang, one final time.
I picked it up and I snapped, ‘Who’s that!’
And a voice came on the line,
It wasn’t a voice I knew, it spat
And it gruffly asked the time,
‘You’ve cut us off from the Internet,
I hope you’re feeling spry,
We live in your rhododendrons, and
You’ve made the fairies cry!’
David Lewis Paget
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 8:33 AM UTC