"lungful" poems
Since you've been away
I've trailed the wake of the clouds
Just crumbling clay...
That lay in the shade that enshrouds
Depending on the ifs and mays.
Wake up, my love...
Since you haven't been here
The sky did nothing but only sang
Ambient translations of mocks and jeers
As the green blades of earth bared their fangs
Mischievous songs that I've held dear.
Wake up, my love...
Since you've been gone
I've realised that I'm not moving
And you too, haven't moved since last dawn
A reality all too disheartening
Bits of me all cut up and sawn.
Wake up my love...
Since you've been missing
I am never whole, and never will
A lifetime of endless chasing
Bottomless jar without a seal
Void clustered emptiness in need of filling.
Wake up, my love...
Since you've been absent
I could only hope for this lungful
To lead me to subsequent
Ones that taste like bitter pills encapsuled.
Mind full of drugs running rampant.
Wake up, my love...
Since you wouldn't have known
What these days are like...
Time induced tumours have grown
The hours impale with temporal spikes...
Inseminating malignant thoughts soon to be sown.
Wake up, my love...
Since you've been away
I'm a player hoping for a fair game
Nonetheless still crumbling clay...
That lay in the dark just the same
Choking on the what ifs and what mays.
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 12:16 PM UTC
Into a place far away but too familiar,
I push open the rusty purple gates,
Inhale a lungful of the province air,
Kick away blue pebbles on the dusty ground,
And then
Mano my lolo, my tito
Beso my lola, my tita
And give my cousins a nudge on the arm,
A pinch on the cheeks.
I squeeze between four people
In a rickety wooden bench and
Pass around plate after heavy plate.
I fill my banana leaf
With spaghetti too soft too sweet,
Almost like pudding,
With crispy chicken dripping with oil.
I wash it off with a cool glass of gulaman,
Chewy beads and gems in sugary water.
Fathers talk about basketball, boxing, billiards;
Mothers browse through photo albums and magazines;
While we children argue about Superman or Batman.
Our laughter fills the humid air
And goes up, up, up to the ears of the neighbors.
In celebration of the time we have together
And a nice sunny day
We devour our meals
And go ahead and
Climb trees and
Get our faces sticky with sweet fruits,
Lick chocolate ice popsicles,
Chase each other in the weedy playground,
Bike around town,
Pick colorful flowers,
Wrestle with each other,
Play badminton on a windy day,
Scare around chickens and guinea pigs,
And play patintero under the dull orange street lamps.
We nervously creep inside the back door,
All sweaty, bearing bruises and scratches
But still with wide smiles on our faces.
All is futile though.
An angry grandmother awaits,
Scolding us for
Coming home past sunset.
More and more stars glitter the sky
As the night gets deeper and deeper.
The gentle evening breeze whistles a note
As it enters through the window.
The karaoke blasts grating voices
Interrupted by hearty laughter.
Playing cards and corn chips litter the table.
We children exchange jokes and ghost stories.
And then,
We bid our goodbyes,
Sharing hugs and kisses
Stained with discontent and sadness.
Our hearts about to burst
In excitement for the next
Reunion.
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 3:56 AM UTC
With time
they dissipate
no harm
but some broken thought
ash-tray philosophies; you
have a lungful
of sorrows.
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 9:13 AM UTC
"Have you talked to dad,
since you've been at school?"
"Nope."
"Are you coming home
for thanksgiving?"
"I don't know."
Josephina
breathes in a crackle
over the phone.
New York,
a cacophony
in the background.
A background of cold,
and
people talking
while walking
while hailing a yellowcab with a left
and slow-rolling heads locked
onto the phones in their right.
These people enter taxis,
not knowing if they're ever
going to reach home,
or the airport,
or union square,
just going
on the promise
that they won't become
road-kill.
I can't feel it in my yellow apartment.
If anything,
my yellowcab
idles.
Through the receiver
A squad car
rings nervously,
then
after a lungful
of garbage-smelling air,
it becomes a full blare.
A pause
of
noise
always ensues,
just for a second,
the entire corner
becomes a silent silo
of human beings.
"How's new york?"
"you know,
dad called me
and asked about
how to get on a diet,
can you believe that?"
Yes,
I can
dad is a fat ****
a pink, white belly
of a man. And a few
sandbags for chins.
"That's good."
"So I'm not going to see you?"
"Probably not."
"Well, you should call dad,
talk to him,
he loves
you."
Some conversations,
acheive nothing.
The same
tired, dead things
get run over.
Road-kill.
Josephina believes she is the spatula
that will bring back
pancake squirrels
and
pancake relationships.
As much as you don't know
about me and dad's relationship,
I can give you a kodak moment.
A snapshot,
of a hovering man,
pointing at his son's neck,
searching for the misplaced vertebrae,
the lack
of fear for the world
--"the right kind of fear,
the fear a man
should have
of himself"--
and a son,
hunched,
small hands in fists,
a heavy haul of muscles
pulled into a dark brow
right over black eyes.
This picture
will suffice.
Nov 23, 2011
Nov 23, 2011 at 4:59 PM UTC
Boundless dusk above forsaken intuitions
Stones with ancient seeds
Yet the roots can breathe
The earthly exuberance
The naked secret of our song
That manipulates my tounge
Redden from you and I
The contact of our lips
Simulating my hunger for your groin
The nerves of my vertebrates harbor your weight
As my breast shudder from your touch
Primal delicious desires
I thirst for the fluids of your flesh
With nurture and greed
I moisten your fingers
Help you find my sensitive pearl
Relishing the trail of the garden of youth
Primal delicious desires explode in need
Delicate softness of my mystical place
Lifting my body with much response
As my fingers dance, pinch and **** at my peaks
Repeatedly as you ****** me
I gasp and beg for your caress
I shudder as I chase my wave
Reaching as I whimper into a ******
Simulating my hunger for your groin
Inflaming my pores
I enlarge you ever so slow
Working my hands holding you from behind
One swift lick of your rigid flesh
You pull in a lungful of air
Your hot flesh started to grow
I ease you into my mouth
Circling as you keep the pace
Against me you put me in deep
The sweet taste of you makes me weak
Intense intervals underneath
Between your thighs
Intoxicating the very layers of my juice
I enlarge you once again
Moist and ready
I open my sweetness just for you
As I arch down onto you
Your hands rest on my hips
I begin to feel my flower grow
A whispering rouse escapes from my lungs
We flow inside each another
Deeper in my heat
Your aggressive arousal
Provoking me to quiver
The barrier surrenders to you and I
Vivid blossoms of tranquil harmony
Through the gateway of my womanhood
As you nurish the nutrients you covet for
My protruding pale pink buds
Plump with need
I'd hollow out to place you inside
I'd linger in this universe to pave your delicious desire
As you surrender pushing me down
You penetrate my mouth once again
As you reclaim my mouth soft and pink
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 6:59 PM UTC
A One sided women
She walks, stands, and waits to see the radiation that captivates her heart which skips a beat every time.
As she wanders all she can do is look over what see desires but cannot have.
'The lust of the warmth around her arms and waist is just a dream.
Only the temporary sights and glances that passes her without a doubt captures the butterflies that flies around her stomach and mind.
Trying her best not to notice but every where she goes, when she closes her eyes all she sees is what was meant to be.
A visionary photo graph of what would be the sweetest future and wish she gravitates to have and to hold.
Isolated Nights longing for the touch and tastes of bitter sweet dreams.
For only two lungful arms to wrap around tightly as she sleeps soundly and shamelessly.
But only a mist of reality, bursting into a light that wakens her.
It had got to the over whelming point that boils her fearing heart of compassion that lies within her confusion of collapsing blocks that trembled to her feet.
Blushing flesh covered to hide her mask of longing affection.
She waits and waits until the dreadful days of days come quickly in her distance gasps of time.
Knowingly it comes to the end and what all seems to be hopeless she finds what gives her the ability to withstand her days of living this reality of a place that humans call a world to live onto.
A beauty undiscovered by others but only she notices such a treasure that is not worth all the money or air in the whole universe.
Her 2nd life.
As said before only she sees it. A one sided forbidden desire that only notices as an equal to humans.
What exactly is it that she sees so much depth of unrequited lust to go forth on such a useless task.
Blinding as it may seem it’s all she cares to fall or to stand up to her it’s worth the extra steps and painful regrets that takes her place.
Even the opposing forces of beings may disagree but are there really any wrong answers?
Just the thought counts and care that lingers away to words and quotes.
Tell me, will this be another mistake?
Dec 26, 2011
Dec 26, 2011 at 1:00 AM UTC
I breathe in deep.
And yet you keep
having me chase
the next as if a lungful
wasn’t enough.
Oct 19, 2022
Oct 19, 2022 at 9:11 AM UTC
A whirlpool of thoughts swirled
as I slowly jogged around the park.
Amid the futile struggle of light,
against the approaching dark.
To never let go of the strings of past,
as stubborn as a flickering flame.
The road ahead mirrors the bygones.
We needn't look far for the blame.
The crushing burden of modern life;
facing the music with his head unbowed.
He gets on his feet with wounded knees,
and smiles at the succumbing crowd.
Innumerable choices present themselves,
as many as the peppered stars, abundant.
Each with unfathomable potential, yet
the path chosen invariably redundant.
He walks about the infinite desert;
the scalding ache of complete isolation.
He covets the presence of a nearby soul,
whose essence is but a mere reflection.
I drew in a lungful of evening air;
the immediate difference, so stark!
Yielding to the juggernaut of conformity,
as I slowly jogged around the park.
Jul 13, 2010
Jul 13, 2010 at 8:59 AM UTC
IVs and a cannulas that bind you to a bed that isn’t yours,
we are twisted-sick, playing God, if only for a moment.
Your freckled hand barred tighter around mine,
drawing my eyes to the bruises that seemingly
seep through blood-flecked gauze.
Every breath a shiver,
every shiver, a heartbeat closer
and each lungful sharper than the last.
I can feel dwindling stars so impenetrably far away,
sweltering, boundless, shaking-free as they please.
With your waning smile,
that nearly masked your anguish, we are
taking on space now, just us,
we are the atoms that make up our universe, we are
unstable and we are
collapsing and we are,
expanding and growing and we are,
bursting with what
little life
we have left.
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 1:00 AM UTC
I’m tired of watching.
Gaping at this cinematic reality as it slowly sinks into my sensitive skin like hot rocks on a not-so-relaxing Sunday morning.
Disappointment after disappointment, I tap my foot with impatience, awaiting a ship that never docks, yet instead, tantalizes me as it nears the harbor but changes its course midway.
I’m limp, dangling over the wishing well in my bathroom that swallows as I heave; attempting to rid my body of all my pathetic hopes and expectations and watch as they are flushed down the toilet.
You are a dagger and I have closed my eyes, preparing myself to die; allowing my flesh to surround your malicious blade as you pierce agonizingly through my shattering heart.
I am (or was) a majestic sailboat and you are a bulwark placed dangerously in my path, resulting in a complete wreckage causing my sail to sink miserably to the bottom of the ocean.
Tired of seeing.
Watching each face blossom with happiness as my stems overflow with jealousy; I stare at the reflection of my forlorn face, painfully plucking each of my withering petals and allowing them to fall to the ground in defeat.
Feeling my chakras disintegrate as my large intestine absorbs my heart that melted at the sight of your hands entwined with ones that aren’t mine.
I’m suffocating, gasping for air as I hug myself until I am strangling my waist, searching for that comforting lungful of compassion.
Tired of noticing.
Releasing my last breath, I let go. Allowing my body to be consumed by the numbness that started at my heart as it froze.
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 7:10 AM UTC
I wrote your name on a cigarette.
And smoked it on my balcony.
Each lungful, thus ingested,
lets you reside in me.
Across the water
Allhallows gleams, unknowing.
Where, at some previous point
we were separated by simple geography.
If cigarettes were wishes
I'd have died soon death,
in rattling, emphysemic pursuit
of long-lost love.
Simple geography
can never trump
the complicated, honest reality
of time and place.
The cigarette glows in my hand
reminding me that, as love,
time veils promises
however potent.
There are only eight cigarettes left
in the whole world.
Perhaps I'll leave them, growing stale
in their hidden box.
Or, maybe, I'll smoke them all
today.
Then forget
what I ought to have forgot.
For sake of placid honesty
and goodwill, told in truth.
Time is a lying healer
and I'm on a liar's oath.
Aug 24, 2013
Aug 24, 2013 at 9:35 AM UTC
a moment ago:
I was born,
gasped my first
lungful of air.
a moment ago:
I took my first steps,
uttered my first words.
a moment ago:
I realised I could
disagree
with what I was told to know.
a moment ago:
I began to doubt
my own hypotheses.
a moment ago:
I loved you
with every sense
and every emotion.
a moment ago:
you rejected that love,
casting me to despair.
a moment ago:
I realised I could never trust
those who feigned to care.
a moment ago:
I left this life
to its bitter devices.
a moment ago:
you expressed regret.
now the moment has passed ...
Sep 23, 2012
Sep 23, 2012 at 11:40 AM UTC
*He built houses out of
Tiny twigs
Along the etched lines
On the palms of his
Rugged hands
To give me somewhere
To call home again*
They say most things are better,
When shared with another.
Well,
No one else comes to mind when I think of
The ideal and only person
I would be willing to share
All of my love with.
All of my life
My joy
My sorrow
My everything.
He is the ultimate answer
Love is the ultimate answer
He and love
They are the same
And they are
Everywhere
In everything
In every ounce of my boiling blood
And every fraction
Of every fiber
In my timid being.
He is overwhelming
In the same way in which it feels
To be in a beautiful foreign country
For the first time
He is addicting
Like the first three
(And next four)
Cigarettes you smoke
After telling everyone you have quit
He is irresistible
Just like that
One certain scent
The one that always brings
A flashflood of memories
And feelings
And beauty
And safety
Back up to surface until
Every inch of your skin
Is tingling
With raw sensation
A thirst explodes out of
the deepest part of you
As it brings you back
*To the very last time you ever
felt something so special*
Which is exactly the reason
You will do anything in your will
To get
One more lungful
Just to bring you back
To that beautifully indescribable place
One more time
*He crocheted me with kisses
And wooed me with words
Penetrating the years of fear and hurt
Built like a fortress around my heart
And sending every nerve in my body
Into a ****** tangent.
Under the right light,
It's as if I am adorned
With flowers*
Because of him.
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 12:40 PM UTC
Gunshots pierce the silence of the yawning night,
In the subterranean abyss of the subway
A young life ebbs into the filth strewn sewer,
It is a girl, fair and beautiful with black locks,
Her violator pockets the still smoking weapon and zips up,
He spits, looks over his shoulder and lights a cigarette,
He inhales deeply and in his nostrils he can taste her sweet perfume,
The memory orchestrates a smile
Which once again compels him to look down at her still warm body,
Upon her dress and glistening legs the blood is beginning to congeal,
Her eyes are sightless but they mirror his image in the dead sockets,
He takes another lungful of her succulent youth
And then slithers and melts into the anonymous jaws of the city,
His ***** are still encrusted with hunger
And the night is yet young and tender,
His teeth glint by the light of the neon signs.
©Rangzeb Hussain
Apr 13, 2010
Apr 13, 2010 at 4:15 PM UTC
The captain stood solemnly
recieving what he saw
with stark indifference
the dark clouds towered above his tiny ship
he drank deep in the danger
taking a lungful of air
he finally let himself see his crew
they were frightened
this invigorated him
but he did not want it to
he had always taken pleasure
in being "The Captain"
hoping when hope was lost to other men
lesser men
but he knew deep down
there was nothing lesser about
these particular men
he also knew they would all die
presently
he parted his lips to begin his final oration
Jul 9, 2010
Jul 9, 2010 at 10:17 AM UTC
Once again
the sound of magpies
hunting fills my head with
images of daylight
and picnics we took
under ash trees
on top of itchy
blankets
I know you only read
those books for me
to make me feel
safe in having something
to say when the conversations
turned to salaries and
mortgages
or maybe that's
unkind. Maybe you
just wanted to understand
me better
when the four ninety-nine
red wine reaches me
I taking about the poems
I'm writing
grape glazed eyes
stare, squinting through
the sun, trying not to
smile. They move on
when we are alone
again we still pretend
I lie about the friends
I met for coffee and
you tell me that I look
beautiful
I wonder if you know
the way we sleep
I hope not
and that you'll never ask
why I crawl out of the
sheets when sleep has
taken you
I sleep on the floor
and slip back beside you
just before you
wake
we never mention doctors or pills
and you know not to hug me
too tight
I make tea for both of us
even though we don't drink
it. It's hard to shake
off the words our mothers said
about a cup curing
everything
when the birds are
still, I open the window
and think of flying,
to have a body light enough
to break free of
the mind
I take my first
lungful of air
but you reach out
and hold me
where my wings
should be
(they're broken now)
and I realise I'm not the
only one who pretends
to be asleep
you wrap me up
like old glass
in soft blankets
slip another book
off my bedside table
into your bag
and don't cry
until you've
shut the door
Jul 20, 2013
Jul 20, 2013 at 5:01 AM UTC
Never shall I forget that day , the moment you stolen my heart instantly,
Which skipped a beat, every time.
I thought my intentions were simple and dull,
At first...
But as my days with you grew ,
my knees trembled with emotions,
my eyes glimmered with a desire so bright,
A sinful demand arose from within the unknown part of my shameful guilt,
A cascading wish,
Lingering thoughts hidden in the shadows,
My hidden feelings for you were bursting out uncontrollable,
Yearning for your heavenly voice and delicate touch just became unbearable,
It was an obsession,
A dose of drug that I needed daily,
The cure for it was your smile,
Infatuated with a smile that melted away my stress and replace it with
the unthinkable,
My heart was so fond and captivated by your presents',
without a doubt captured the butterflies that fluttered around my stomach and mind,
A visionary photograph of what would be the sweetest future and wish,
gravitating to have and to hold,
Isolated nights longing for a breath taking sensation and tastes of bitter sweet dreams,
For only two lungful arms to wrap around tightly while sleeping soundly and shamelessly,
Then bursting into a light that wakens one's sleep,
To start all over again,
Or not..
It was today,
It was different,
Everything stopped in it's steps,
We made a great escape from left to right,
To our secret base,
Our home,
It was a scene from a classic fairy tale,
You came to me in a different light,
Was it real?
An encounter of embrace that illuminates the clear sighs of happiness,
finally awoke me and into reality,
That was the moment I knew you had to be mine,
I realized,
I needed you in my life,
I wanted you to fall in love with me,
All I wish to see is your indication that you are happy as can be,
Most of all, a part of your heart,
which has has always belonged to you, my love.
These words will last forever.
To be continued....
Our story will never end.
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 2:39 PM UTC
fingers (and legs) lace tight together. i can
feel our time together seeping through the cracks.
and i know that once daylight breaks
and rose petals lead me all the way home,
existence will be just one lungful of air away.
(but you’ve left me breathless once again, darling.)
Dec 5, 2010
Dec 5, 2010 at 10:46 AM UTC
The carrion birds are circling overhead
and I’m dragging my half dead body
down a deserted street thinking to myself
this is when the credits roll for me
and I’m not so sure I’ve the energy to mind
but then there is the ghost of your hand
brushing against my cheek and oh
oh god I could cry for wanting you.
I breathe in a deep gasping lungful of air
I’d just convinced myself I wouldn’t miss
because someday someday maybe soon
I might be able to take that air from you
I might be able to turn my head and brush
my mouth with yours in a disbelieving caress
to touch your lips with just the tip of my tongue
in abject adoration of you.
And oh just the thought of it
just the force of my want
has frightened away the vultures again.
My body is still half dead but my heart bangs on
for you for you for you
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 11:52 PM UTC
You make me go back to the beach
The light breeze your caress
Sun as warm as your smile
Water icy like your words
And I try to float in this sea you made
Tumultuous, and salty as your are
But I'm choking down lungful's
Crying for help
And you let me drown
And it's almost calm down here
On the bottom where I can't breathe
Cause at least I'm out
Of the riptide's reach
Mar 20, 2019
Mar 20, 2019 at 2:42 PM UTC
Love is
Taking a long refreshing lungful of air
As though for the first time
Only when with them
Love is
Placing your heart in their caging hands
Only to give them the power to crush it
Love is
Sharing with them your sacred soul and brain
Only To have it shredded and butchered by them
Love is
Feeling them put you back together gently
With soothing words and gestures
So that they can rip you apart again sadistically
Love is
Watching them commit all these crimes
Yet not having the will or want to stop them
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 1:08 PM UTC
Mary Moran rolls a cigarette
between fingers and thumbs,
liberated tobacco and paper
from her da's pocket,
if he knew he'd belt her behind,
she licks the paper end
with her damp tongue,
rolls it thin and lights it up
with a Swan Vesta stole
from her ma's kitchen box,
Magdalene she'd met
at the coffee bar
had a laugh talked
of Sister Bridget and the priest
and some going ons,
sweet Mags gazed at her
placed a hand on her thigh
talked of her da,
the smoke rises
from the ciggie skyward
cloud like,
Martha sat sipping her coffee
********* her rosary
in the bar like Brian
fingers my bra strap
the loon,
Mary knows what
Brian is after
he's more chance
of the pox than that
she muses watching
the smoke twirl
as it touches the roof
of the greenhouse glass,
if Da found me now
he'd tan my ***
she muses inhaling
deeper lungful drag,
the priest in confessions
(the old boy)nigh on
had a heart attack
when she confessed
the weeks worth,
spluttering she heard
through the wire mesh
of the confessional,
Magdalene wants me
to go listen to LPs
on her record player
in her room away
from her da and ma
and their moans and groans,
Martha with her blue eyes
stared at the crucifix
on her rosary
like a lovesick cow
as they sipped their coffee
and yakked
of the priest and nun
and imagined fun.
Dec 29, 2015
Dec 29, 2015 at 10:18 AM UTC
I am nothing but embers
in the fire pit of
your heart
a Godless girl, kissing
with tongues, skin
burning at
the touch of a
weather beaten man
I fell for you, headfirst
into the abyss of desire
warmth rising from my
toes, through to my finger -
tips
inhaling the scent of you
by the lungful
my capacity is called
on, and I am a Phoenix
stunted, hatched too
soon, eternally shell -
less
Sep 8, 2016
Sep 8, 2016 at 5:02 PM UTC