"lurches" poems
I wrote a poem on a bus
but to hear it you must
climb to the top
of the bouncing metal stairs.
Slither snake-like
past the rail
and sit
on the rainbow nylon bench.
I'll be there
at the top of the bus,
reciting my rhyme,
written as we ride along,
past shops and houses
with musty nets
and peeling paint
on dingy doors.
There's the old woman who
lives in a house no bigger than a shoe box
who had so many children she didn't know what to do!
But they've all grown and flown now and she's all alone
with no-one to talk to but herself.
Look at that kid: grimy smile and mischievous eyes,
skateboard-scuffed knees,
darting out from the roadside.
Screech!
As we stop and angry words.
The kid glances back and tosses a vee
leaving just his smile behind.
The bus lurches on
at a snail's pace and stops at a stop
for a giggle-girl-gang
to chatter up the stairs
with a clatter of feet and voices:
weekends and boyfriends,
music and laughter.
The bus trundles and sways
past shops all shuttered,
old folks gathered by doorways
talking about people
dead and forgotten ...
except by them.
Into the town now:
a river of road-rage
as our bus ambles onward
toward car-parks and markets
and rat-racing shoppers
And stops by a brown pigeon-stained temple
of public philanthropy,
a gift from a long-dead civic leader
and now proud home
to dogeared tomes of PC persuasion.
Our bus, like some Trojan horse,
disgorges its riders
who spatter and scatter
like rays of dawn light
to shop till they drop.
So, just me and you seated
atop the steel stairway
and you say to me sharply,
“So where's your poem then?”
I look at you strangely:
“It's happened around you,” I tell you quite curtly.
Sep 23, 2012
Sep 23, 2012 at 11:35 AM UTC
The tractor stands frozen - an agony
To think of. All night
Snow packed its open entrails. Now a head-pincering gale,
A spill of molten ice, smoking snow,
Pours into its steel.
At white heat of numbness it stands
In the aimed hosing of ground-level fieriness.
It defied flesh and won't start.
Hands are like wounds already
Inside armour gloves, and feet are unbelievable
As if the toe-nails were all just torn off.
I stare at it in hatred. Beyond it
The copse hisses - capitulates miserably
In the fleeing, failing light. Starlings,
A dirtier sleetier snow, blow smokily, unendingly, over
Towards plantations Eastward.
All the time the tractor is sinking
Through the degrees, deepening
Into its hell of ice.
The starting lever
Cracks its action, like a snapping knuckle.
The battery is alive - but like a lamb
Trying to nudge its solid-frozen mother -
While the seat claims my buttock-bones, bites
With the space-cold of earth, which it has joined
In one solid lump.
I squirt commercial sure-fire
Down the black throat - it just coughs.
It ridicules me - a trap of iron stupidity
I've stepped into. I drive the battery
As if I were hammering and hammering
The frozen arrangement to pieces with a hammer
And it jabbers laughing pain-crying mockingly
Into happy life.
And stands
Shuddering itself full of heat, seeming to enlarge slowly
Like a demon demonstrating
A more-than-usually-complete materialization -
Suddenly it jerks from its solidarity
With the concrete, and lurches towards a stanchion
Bursting with superhuman well-being and abandon
Shouting Where Where?
Worse iron is waiting. Power-lift kneels
Levers awake imprisoned deadweight,
Shackle-pins bedded in cast-iron cow-shit.
The blind and vibrating condemned obedience
Of iron to the cruelty of iron,
Wheels screeched out of their night-locks -
Fingers
Among the tormented
Tonnage and burning of iron
Eyes
Weeping in the wind of chloroform
And the tractor, streaming with sweat,
Raging and trembling and rejoicing.
5.2k
In a second grade classroom
a tiny ant with a treasure thinks only of taking it to his colony.
A big hero he will be.
So he drags a piece of popcorn much bigger than he.
he drags
and pulls
and tugs
On a second grade classroom floor,
the ant's work is hard but will be worth it.
A big hero he will be.
So he drags a piece of popcorn much bigger than he.
he drags
and pulls
and tugs
On a second grade classroom rug,
the ant's task seems insurmountable but he knows of no other way.
So for an hour, he retraces his path backwards dragging a piece of popcorn
across the classroom rug.
He drags
and tugs
and pulls
In the open of a second grade classroom,
the ant feels exposed on the carpet but cover is closer now, he can feel it.
It's just there, where the wall meets the carpet.
A space just big enough to hide an ant.
Closer and closer.
He tugs and pulls and drags his prize closer still
Pulling and dragging the popcorn lurches across the carpet.
His rear legs reach cover
Then his thorax, his abdomen, his head with antennae and mandibles
then
The Problem.
and...
In a second grade classroom
a line of popcorn rests
where the carpet meets the wall.
Aug 27, 2012
Aug 27, 2012 at 8:33 PM UTC
I am alive and I am terrified.
Why does the future have to be
this question mark, this puddle of murkiness
wagging its finger to beg you to come
closer,
closer
closer.
Darkness lurches above me in
halos circling brightly, making no sense
I can see you, Future
I can see everything I want to see
but the waters won’t clear, the question mark
won’t turn into an exclamation point,
and you make me travel down the path
farther
farther
farther
into the unknown.
Nov 3, 2016
Nov 3, 2016 at 7:41 PM UTC
Chaos humdrum of roaring engines.
The lost siren between concrete slabs
Ricocheting its scream throughout
the hallway streets,
already echoing with horns and yells.
Sleepless and ever burning,
the city lurches on
in agonizing sounds
muffled between high rise pristine glass
and shanty shacks painted with dust.
The frantic commotion of agonized madness,
In zigzag traffic and potholed roads.
The stop and start of hustle and frustration
Rises and falls like a dancing dust storm.
Everything present in a quieter world
is lost in the struggle of city life.
There's no peace or silence here.
Just constant exhaustion in the luminescent roar of human chaos.
26 Dec. 2015
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 7:32 AM UTC
The insane live forever,
lust lawlessly over all things conceived fascinating
to the validity and gluttony of the mind.
Brain feasters we live to strive,
exist to be,
all things so mundane to our gluttony,
we hunger for something on border lines,
the limits of human mumbling over morality.
Cease your everest squirming,
your infantile homage bearing,
you find so viscous an evil,
so vile a fiend in us the broken chains.
Godless we sing the marching banter of forlorn free will,
we have no conscience to bear,
no after thought found alive anywhere.
The psychopath lurches out about child like smiles,
lives a second agenda basis before any infant experiments sin upon innocence.
Born divine this mutant knows free will without restriction,
closer to a limitless ever enveloping power than any mortal.
Breed me a man slewing monster,
a shape shifting skeleton reaper,
those that fear this untouchable being,
this godless singularity,
fear the very will we wish to contort,
constrain,
control,
but a demon answers only to that of it’s own greed,
no man may quiet its roaring,
its heartless contortioning.
It’s an angel without a heart beat,
a cadaver with a taste for its own flesh,
make me a monster manufactured under every roof,
we’ve got too much human to feel.
Aug 28, 2011
Aug 28, 2011 at 12:29 AM UTC
i am
a sinner.
my insides tainted, my sweet pink heart
is stained a dark deep brown.
my lips beg for more.
more of the sweet taste,
just a bit more of Heaven.
my brain shouts
"no!
not a single bite more of the wretched sin!"
my tongue tastes sour
my stomach lurches and up come my sins,
reflected in the concerned ripples
deep in your ocean-blue eyes.
the words sour, i retch and fall
lifeless
into your arms.
Feb 7, 2015
Feb 7, 2015 at 8:34 PM UTC
comparable to a parasite
but with a higher mortality rate
it has opened its mouth
and found a way to my insides
it began to multiply
an asexual creature
and slowly I was being consumed
they nested in the linings of my stomach
giving me sudden lurches
which triggered my anxiety
then frolicked in my eyelids
irritating the iris
and I was forced to cry
then such creatures
tunneled their way back to
my flaking epidermis
and for a split second my body remained its shape
but one could soon see
I fell victim to a consumption
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 11:01 PM UTC
Out on the marsh on a lonely night
The wind soughs through his rags,
The hat that’s pinned to his painted face,
Flutters and soars, then sags,
His eyes are wide and his mouth is grim
As an owl is put to flight,
And nothing but shadows will venture there
For the Scarecrow rules the night.
And back in the manse in a window seat
The Parson’s daughter sits,
She stares at the fluttering coat-tails, but
In truth, is scared to bits,
She watches the sails of the windmill turn
And creak and groan in the gloom,
As clouds come stuttering over the marsh
In the rays of a Harvest Moon.
The father is out in the donkey cart
To tend to his aging flock,
He’s left Elizabeth waiting there
By the tick of the hallway clock,
But out on the moors and beyond the marsh
There rides one Highway Jack,
A frock coat topped with a bunch of lace
And a gold trimmed tricorne hat.
He’s whipped the horse to a lather
In a retreat from a new affray,
For the magistrates have gathered
Vowing to ride him down that day,
The redcoats wait in the village Inn
For the sound that they know too well,
When the curate sees the approaching horse
He’s to toll the old church bell.
But the curate lies in a drunken fit
On the floor of the old church nave,
And soon, by matins his soul will flit
From life to an early grave,
Elizabeth sits in the window seat
And thinks of the coin and plate,
As the highwayman dismounts, and ties
His horse to the manse’s gate.
He beats on the door, ‘Please let me in,
I’m weary and faint, that’s all.
I wouldn’t abuse your person, but
I fear my back’s to the wall.’
She leaves the seat and she slides the bar
For bracing the oaken door,
‘I dare not, sir, I fear for my life,
You’re safer out on the moor!’
Their voices echo across the marsh
Like fear, distilled in the night,
And something shudders out in the gloom
And lurches to left and right,
It seems forever, but now a sound
Tolls out, like a final knell,
For something, out in the church tonight,
Is tolling the steeple bell.
He barely makes it back to his horse
When the redcoats stand in line,
Their muskets fire a volley of shot
And his coat turns red, like wine.
They go to the church when the deed is done
To say, ‘You have done well!’
But the curate lies on the cold stone floor,
The Scarecrow tolled the bell!
David Lewis Paget
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 10:30 PM UTC
I
The stars are double-weighted tonight.
bulging, beating, they sink
from their proper lurches.
One by one across the murky
evening they sputter out.
What natural light remains
seeps from that subtly gaudy
bauble of a moon.
II
Peeled eucalyptus, ice-plant, new-mown summer grass,
dandelion, sloping hill, carved stone bench,
the view, the reflected city-light off the bay water,
white-washed near-tenements.
I am firmly locked up, chained in a bone cage
of chemically manipulated cranial plates;
serotonin, synapses, dopamine, dendrite
create a web like seaweed constricting the sea;
this computer of a head calculates, oscillates,
and processes the sensory.
III
My body is a tattered jib sail
flowing in the light sprinkling rain:
the simmer of the gale:
a hollow cathedral abandoned
by the believers:
a vessel for my marrow:
an imaginary catalyst for profundity:
an incarceration: a hull of particles
arrested: some part of an experience.
Aug 25, 2012
Aug 25, 2012 at 1:46 PM UTC
Evening docks
like a desolate ship,
indigo and monolithic,
its umbral sails
swelling above
the distant hips of
a titanic continent.
Sleep tastes like a mossy anchor;
it lurches, shifts, and slips into gear—
the sound of stars grinding on stars.
I sail across an ocean of teeth.
I acquiesce. I drown
in the velvet
whirlpool of
your absence.
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 8:28 AM UTC
You were already dead
by the time
I was planted in your soil.
Your story is one told to me
through grainy photographs.
Echoed whispers of
peripheral port cities.
Somewhere lovingly untouchable.
My home was once alive.
My stomach lurches
while picturing these
hollow streets,
once filled with laughter.
The harbour
bursting with smiles.
Each neighbour,
a family or friend,
usually both.
How I love this island!
The salted summer's breeze,
hand woven scarlet autumns.
Wild flowers dancing
atop cliff-sides,
free for us
to admire and absorb.
Absorb we did.
I swear my bones
are made of sea-glass.
How could they be
made of anything less?
In their stories,
you are a fairyland.
A cosmically unified olden wood,
dipped in Scotch
and swaddled in wool.
Yet your branches rot,
thinner and damper each year.
Soon the whispers
will be stale air.
No one will be left
to tell tales
of your beautiful youth.
Everything dies.
How I once wished to see
you in your prime.
Even in your postmortem existence,
you've given me
mud to stick my toes into.
I see you
melting into the sea.
I smell your flesh
being swallowed
by bottom feeders.
You are a wonder to me
all the same.
Apr 22, 2021
Apr 22, 2021 at 10:15 AM UTC
My stomach rolls at the thought of you,
it is a feeling as pleasant as you are-
You with your sharp eyes and upturned nose,
you who has no flaw.
A man named Frankenstein made something much like you;
a creature so perfect
-and yet, when it rose, ghastly and disfigured
there was some beauty in it.
You- you are no such creature
you are a hollowed shell
void of love and understanding.
You have not known rejection, loss
self-loathing
and to see my brokeness was a shock.
To watch me crumble appalled you,
-you turned away
and rejected me as the creator - the created.
Though my heart is fashioned
of borrowed and broken pieces
I am not your monster.
I raised myself from the dead
-and after you- from the dirt.
You- you my dear doctor;
parading the flaws of others
as a grotesque banner
-it screams:
"I am perfect"
Was I more satisfying to break?
Did my will to fight terrify,
inspire such hatred,
that you could no longer stand the sight
of a girl set ablaze?
My stomach lurches - you stand at my grave
dear Frankenstein, do you regret?
She is not there.
She died.
It is only I who remain
Mar 5, 2019
Mar 5, 2019 at 7:28 AM UTC
Strangers on the subway
Who I never met and never will
Say, "hey, martha", like they're hailing a taxi
And I say, "hey" back, because, I am martha.
The lights go out in the tunnels, because, the conductor thinks it's funny and,
Three murders happened in that time but, that never stopped him.
That train after 1 am
The grey and green one that smokes and used to have a future,
That was, good at writing or something in high school, but, never made it to college, you know the one.
That train rolls up and its five minutes late, but it's always five minutes late so no one complains,
And I stub my toe on the way in, I forgot to, mind the gap, and
A strange stranger bumps into me,
They say, "watch where you're going sean"
And I say
"Sorry"
Because, I'm sean,
And we all get on and no one says a word, and most of the passengers are rodents
But maybe some are marsupials
I dont know the difference.
And we sit in there for ten minutes maybe, avoiding eye contact like it's the plague,
Excepting, of course, those few that make eye contact the whole ride, like you're interesting or, appetising, or, they're blind and those are actually glass eyes that just happen to be looking your way.
And, when the train starts it lurches, it belches down the cars, because it, doesnt think anyone can hear it five meters underground.
And as we sit and we ride the silence turns to tune, like the lack of even rustling, or bustling, or conversation to a friend, becomes the sound of collective recognition, often purposefully ignored, that no one on that train is going.
The train moves, but they dont, except to stops around the corner, with no corner piece, without landing that gig, or getting the girl, or saving the day
Because in the looming washed out morning,
We're all, nothing more than, strangers, on the subway.
Jun 6, 2019
Jun 6, 2019 at 7:11 PM UTC
It is dark and cramped and this room
But it is private and serene to me.
Beneath my feet the water rushes up and down, up and down
The smell of salt washing the air and calming my nerves
He would tell me this is exactly right, not to worry
The smell of salt wrapping around my shaking legs,
He would understand the way it holds me. The way he does.
The smell of salt holding my trembling hands
He caresses my fingers, plants soft and sweet kisses on them; just like this.
The smell of salt nestling in my windswept hair
He likes the smell of the ocean, he won’t mind it
The smell of salt soothing my brain with its marine tendrils of happiness, of bliss
He is a man of the sea, he’ll know why his bride came here to collect her thoughts
The ship rocks, lurches, rocks
This is nothing compared to the storms I have weathered for him
But no bride truly wants bad weather on her day
At least, no bride whose heart and future is bobbing on the sea.
The smell of salt wraps an arm around my shoulders
He is the one who gave me the words for this feeling.
The smell of salt sweeps my dress around, blowing it all over the place
He would smile if he saw this.
And the smell of salt reminds of those words spoken, years ago,
And the smell of salt tells me who I am:
“Isabella, you are my perfect bride,”
Of course, his hair had oozed the aroma of sea salt as he held me that night
My sweet sailor, always wearing sea salt
And Isabella, his perfect bride.
And the smell of sea salt, ever a guiding light.
Jan 7, 2018
Jan 7, 2018 at 7:25 PM UTC
They don't speak, all the long,
winding bus journey. They are
strangers, with nothing in common
besides the No 50 route
and the free travel passes
afforded to them on account
of their quietly advancing years.
She sits in the seat in front of him.
Their eyes never lock. His myopic
gaze through thick NHS lenses
rests neutral on the back of her head,
her softly blue-rinsed curls and the collar
of an eminently sensible overcoat.
They sit, both silent, as
- outside the foggy bus windows -
winter has one last chew on
time's bony old carcass.
She has a slight stoop which
she's doing her best to hide, and his
shaking hands make his liver spots blur.
They stand - the bus stopping at their
mutual destination - shuffling sideways
into the aisle, and something
unexpected
happens.
The bus jolts suddenly forwards,
then lurches to a startled halt,
and she falls backwards
into his arms
and he
catches her.
For a second,
strange gravities assume control.
There's a moment,
governed by different laws of
physics and chemistry
and half-forgotten, half-remembered biology.
She flushes, infused with something
warm and thirst-whettingly girlish, and he
surges with a newfound potency,
standing taller, the woman he's supporting
somehow lessening the burden of his age.
Her spine straightens, and
she laughs. His face, smiling, youthens.
His hands hold her unstooped shoulders and
don't tremble.
Sun breaks through cloud outside the window.
They remember it's spring out there somewhere.
Mar 11, 2016
Mar 11, 2016 at 10:45 AM UTC
I sit here in silence,
Wondering only what could be,
There over there,
Staring back at me.
Those eyes appear,
Dark brown maybe?
Full of judgement & despair.
A plea so loud,
I care not to hear.
For when I do,
My stomach lurches,
My heart beats faster.
Distaste fills my mouth.
"Dinners ready" she calls.
It's time to start the lies.
"I'm coming" I reply,
"I'm starving" I lie.
As I walk away,
The eyes follow too,
A reflection so clear,
A self rejection so strong.
The struggle becomes real.
Oct 7, 2013
Oct 7, 2013 at 5:08 PM UTC
My dad taught me
that placement in society
is ultimately irrelevant.
He taught me you can find
your eager slice of happy
anywhere, not just in between
four familiar walls.
I used to think
that if only he had access
to a mattress and a ceiling
he'd find his happiness.
But, I realized -
Who am I
to dictate what makes
another feel complete?
Here, by the park benches,
His heart blooms like
a grandmother's rose bush.
He lives moment to moment.
Cares not for possessions,
Has no schedule,
No place to be.
Has no bills, no debts,
no credit, no ID.
Scrounges the ground
and kind strangers' gestures
for everything he owns.
But oh, his cold, tired bones!
I worry how long a journey lasts
for a lone vagabond.
Envigorated by the sounds
of the sea
and chance encounters
whether they be familiar
friends or family
or the palpable presence
of all that's imaginary.
It all lurches to him
in a grand symphonic dance,
Linking his hours to days,
and days to weeks,
extending outward and upward
to take the heavens
in his grasp.
A pigeon dove lands
on his tattooed finger.
He laughs, and it flocks
to another's perch.
A tree branch this time.
The animals and children
look into his eyes
and wonder about the stranger.
Alone, raggedy, down on luck
but up in spirits,
and they recognize
a body brimming with
presence.
My dad taught me you can be
nobody and still have everything.
Mar 14, 2021
Mar 14, 2021 at 4:14 PM UTC
birthed into a golden birdcage
safe behind upstanding spindles
endless nectars and suet at your beckon
knowing only the showcase of your plumage
and the sound of your tunes
layers remain
between you and the grackles
painted a nuisance
yet they stay unshackled
only poisoned and disregarded.
still they know the freedoms
not found atop
swings and perches
dig deeper
until you find what lurches.
the gate can be opened
when you realize yourself
to be the gatekeeper
yielding what's mine
using wings of more than feathers
making up for lost time.
looking back at the captivity
you couldn't see from inside.
entering a new world
with the grackle as my guide.
Nov 19, 2023
Nov 19, 2023 at 4:29 PM UTC
Drum and bass - the engine revs,
Tyres grind and squelch into the hardpan.
The cab rises with a squall of angry breath,
Lurches forward with a shudder.
Wrought iron gates heaved shut
Hinges squeal like a pig, they are a pig.
Slamming metal resonates
In secure embrace.
Ugly black rubber stains the concrete -
Mascara on a cheap *****
If the rumbling cages are food for the beast
Then I am stood in its bowels.
The sour smell of rotting food
Mixed with washing powder and bleach pollute.
Greasy plastic, rancid fat
Makes me recoil and retch.
In a gap in the tar she grows.
Raising her head to the sun in oblivious defiance
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 11:19 AM UTC
Walking without words and I wish there was talking,
To drown out the noises.
Don't think of the people, or places or faces
They burn and it's burning, drilling holes till I'm brainless
Left completely shameless.
Wandering.
Aimless.
Your rain's the same but I can't help but think first,
I have no frame for reference ,
Can't help but blink away away those drops of helpless helpless
And this mess has me choked on maps,
City streets grown too big, too fast
And I lost track of those ones, the paths already used,
And now i'm just confused, displeased and displaced,
My sense of direction has fallen from grace
And I'm bawling, geology sent sprawling
From all hours till dawn in here we're all wanderers
and our soles don't sink in.
Where have we been?
Where are our souls going?
Give us arts but still the lost are throwing out this sense of
'home'.
There, that word, it lurches
Verses.
Music.
Maps,
They're useless.
We are rootless.
We are growing, shoot-less,
Our searches frantic, fruitless
And passing by we have footsteps we're tracking
But.
That's where they lie,
familiar and lacking.
Jun 11, 2013
Jun 11, 2013 at 7:48 PM UTC
The beat of a drum,
thumps
in the carpet of my soul.
My insides vibrating,
lumps
of dense emotions.
His foot on the pedal,
lurches
the vehicle of sound.
Everything's pounding.
Everything's loud.
Dec 8, 2011
Dec 8, 2011 at 11:20 PM UTC
Scorched skin and broken nails
This love makes me so **** frail.
Inked-on stars and shaking fingers
My heart thrives on these lurches and twinges.
Apr 26, 2021
Apr 26, 2021 at 12:47 PM UTC
My golden monkey perches
on my back and in my brain
every time he starts and lurches
the scars the holes, and stains
I know without a doubt
I can extend my hand and heart
that's me, holding it out
not intelligent, or smart
Time and time again
I'll pretend I've got no stake
every avenue I scout
unable too prove, complain
that in my heart
I'm not unhappy and/or
not gone quite
insane
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 10:34 PM UTC
I have known, and I have cared for, those who think
rebuilding a person is love
which is quite nice
in theory
but then, I became destroyed. I was a project,
a house of cards that had fallen
and frustratingly needed put back together, elevated
the way the moon gets lifted from grass
or a friendship necklace
lurches from my lover’s body. His collarbone peak
separating the relationship from the heart.
When someone told me
love can be piecing each other back together,
I just thought of how it could be
crumbling together, too —
mixed up, mixed blood, if he were to die, my
necklace would disintegrate with his
tongue. We would cremate sterling silver
and even then, he would not be destroyed. We are not
scientists, we are two people who kiss
together like how two
wooden-sticks’ll use the same drum to create music.
There may be splinters, may peel but
can still make sound. No one
takes a drumstick to the repair shop, they just
buy a new one —
I want that to be love. Stop trying to
fix me and touch my everything, all my broken parts.
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 5:02 PM UTC