"membranes" poems
the cosmos
a web of plantary oppositions squares and triangulations
curses and blessings
demons, humans and gods
friends and enemies
each a constituent
a revolving carousel of heavens and hells
the macro, an umbrella of spilling stars
like shattered glass in flames
outer and inner stone & gas planets
wandering infinitely
like strays
others in tight gravitational ellipses and eclipses
the elements of fire air earth and water
from the most subtle formless
to rocks flames oceans and the air we breathe
disjuncture
in a
a mix-meister
a gruesome churning mouth swallowing our delicate membranes
and we wonder
why
we are in pain
why
we are nourished by flesh
as we ourselves are consumed
filled with blood and nothing
and deadened by marking time
all hungry shells
and why
we wither to dust
as do suns and moons
and gods themselves
all of us children of monsters
and corpse eaters
born of magnitudes
episodic collisions
and harrowing creative destructions
the dead living and the living dead
with eyes that flicker only on half a landscape at a time
a holloween
of pyramids and bones
always running from wolves
because we are meant to be eaten
okay my darlings
now
lets try
focused breathing,
and boundless light
lets try
being Hindu
Sep 16, 2018
Sep 16, 2018 at 2:23 PM UTC
Single cells no organelles
with membranes permeable
respond with will to live
Prokaryote so simple
no nucleus no lack
nearing food evading harm
Membrane assures survival
expanding one to two
Membranes of the human
process mystery
When shall we admit
our brains do not direct
our intricate survival
Jun 15, 2013
Jun 15, 2013 at 10:23 PM UTC
There is nothing here
Not the façade of a façade
Can’t you see our idea fading?
We thought we were Hobbes’ Leviathan
The modern alchemists of state
We’re nothing more than rodents!
Scurrilous, maladapted membranes
Spewing from democracy forth
Ought they to encapsulate us?
They must needs encapsulate the naïve!
Whiling away at the trough as though livestock
I’m to be ground on the wheel regardless;
Nay, stretched on the rack of modernity!
By the comforts of progress and superficiality
Sought after as if vital
By the people, “We the people!”
Rallying cry for throngs, imprisoning themselves
With society, a subtle hocus pocus
The trite, aged argument
Of those who’d force you build your very tenement
Paying rent to breathe,
Countless yet believe
Tripartite consumer, greed and slavery
Surrounding you and me
Separating ignorance from squalor
In a ghetto of the mind
You're right, we're alright
Jul 28, 2010
Jul 28, 2010 at 9:11 PM UTC
The smallest microbes cause a fit,
in misery it dwells.
It starts with sniffs and then a sneeze
then sinus membranes swell.
My head begins to throb
and soon my eyes begin to water.
I feel the clammy chills but soon
I find I'm getting hotter.
I cannot rest my head because
I think that I might drown.
You'd think they'd have a cure by now
but colds are still around.
Sep 26, 2017
Sep 26, 2017 at 10:45 AM UTC
Stretching and shouldering night away a sun crouches
to birth black's ousting
by one more empty circle of dark's hollowed pouches
then outs in sparkling showers.
Spangled with myriad star-labour unfolding membranes,
like numberless leaves
dreamers listen to soft serenades as the universe favours
lullaby-songs to deep breathing.
Silvered surface shivers with night-eyes as glittery dust
follows with dart-swift
flight each soul's winged journey while murmuring such
mysteries to those sleeping still.
Glimmers on sightless horizon reveal light's celebration
while untrodden dew
newly writhing in close-capped life waits inertia's frame
stirring to shake before rising.
Piercing the brain time's needle regathers worn threads
and remembers that more
sown seed means now-grown grain needs re-collection
in daylight's mind-aware storage.
Open-eyed, naught is over as hinging on less or more,
sun, with slumber done,
now hurries to open the thin partition between yawns
of torpidity to more hours won.
Mar 4, 2017
Mar 4, 2017 at 5:12 PM UTC
membranes bleed in classic fashion
seep into my brain with passion
pump my heart with fuel and tension
feeling like a villains henchman
blow me baby, how did i know?
one more chance to powder my nose
i see whiter than the snow
and i dont know how far i can go
mr rogers asks for entry
everything gets past the sentry
powdered sugar makes me antsy
for whatever suits my fancy
im too focused for my brain
all the colours look the same
bow to gods that i dont need
if it'll cause my nose to bleed
blow me baby, how did i know?
one more chance to powder my nose
i see whiter than the snow
and i dont know how far i can go
blow me baby, how did i know?
one more chance to powder my nose
i dont know how you could appose
i'll just lay here taking several blows
i need you cause i want you bad
the sweetest girl i've ever had
is whiter than the winter's snow
i love it when she's in my nose
oh, i've been told to get in line
that my whole lifes a waste of time
but i've got everything i need
as long as i can do the deed
blow me baby, how did i know?
one more chance to powder my nose
i see whiter than the snow
and i dont know how far i can go
blow me baby, how did i know?
one more chance to powder my nose
hardly straight, no arrows bow
an early start for whole new lows
Tonsils set aflame
I can't complain
I've only got myself to blame
Apr 17, 2017
Apr 17, 2017 at 12:05 PM UTC
Fig Newton Vanilla Wafers
Like sand through an hourglass
The smell of Doublemint Wrigley’s
Gum that lingers in the air like
Your poltergeist hanging on a string
Chicken and dumplings
Christmas at your place
There were so many pictures and
Do you remember me anymore?
Quicksand neurons coughing up
Phlegm and congestive heart failure
Diabetic membranes hooked up to pacemakers
You’re kidneys were caustic waste bins
And you ****** yourself
Cancer Cancer
Don’t shut your eyes
***** and hypertension
Hyperventilation
My mother is crying
I’m crying
Don’t die
Please don't die
"She’s not responding"
"Somebody say something"
Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace
Sep 25, 2013
Sep 25, 2013 at 2:00 PM UTC
allocation of supreme alliteration illustrates perpetual contemplation and concentration that dictates a maligned mastication of federal incarceration of elongated complementary probation leaving you cuffed and based on baseless accusations conducted in aboriginal abbreviations masked task force concluding a course of brevity conducted in coordination then coordinating and copulating condemnation for a homeostasis of thought bought scolded eroded and shot inefficacy perpetrating cultural holocaust irrelevance somersaults galactic static of mathematical bombastic smack addict glued shut in a craft attic floral resurrection gartered section of ****** selection she moves fluid through unaltered perfection of cosmic bypass past the point of extemporaneous infinitude reciprocating fortitude of sinews congregating fabricating visuals of vitality soldering axonal membranes on the cerebellum and cortex simulation of sensual vortex demented fusion more blessed I am that which stands to understand the incomprehensible unconsidered options of racial conflicts the screaming round of unaltered copper fiber severing life from the living only now can we debunk the years
Apr 17, 2013
Apr 17, 2013 at 9:01 AM UTC
we were the bomb squad
a tribe of children in
plastic crash helmets
pillows tied on
to protect our insides
holding hands to keep
from feeling lost and alone
we were the bomb squad
living like thieves in cardboard caves
beside the mine fields
hidden beneath beds of poppies
decoy explosions
in cadmium red *****
tender tongues
like kittens licking
the insides
of trembling thighs
we were the bomb squad
mucous membranes and bones
tick tock throats and veins
popped in the pyre
stomach bile and marrow
all up in the same smoke
as something that was
once smooth and sentient
we were the bomb squad
we found no time for any flag
nothing to do with kings
or foreign countries
just the knowledge
of not having known anything before
Jul 26, 2010
Jul 26, 2010 at 10:59 AM UTC
Born to an Italian father
and a dreaming,
wide-eyed American,
travel was my fortune,
my life before I chose it.
One late September evening,
my wide-brimmed
velvet hat and I
discovered
what it was to fly.
Surging through moving sculptures
of clouds,
riding the Pan Am night
flight to London,
I was nine, and I was hooked.
Peter Pan was my secret love then.
I had saved my loose tooth
for the English tooth fairy, wishing
and hoping for an English penny.
Scones and bridges from my books
were real now to taste and see.
I began to write then, mostly
in my mind.
That was how I lived then,
and still do.
Finding and forming
words within for everything.
A sacred artesian spring,
i Fonti del Clitunno.
Perfection at Paestum.
Stonehenge,
when one could still
walk among those holy stones.
The early church of Santa Sabina,
whose high windows
transmit light
through membranes of mica.
The abiding silence
of these ancient, sacred places
held me transfixed.
Continuity of time flowed,
like invisible honey,
all around me.
I wanted to taste it with my mind.
Know it with all of my being.
And one day, find the right words.
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 9:06 PM UTC
you cry like lost toys and dead pets
there's nothing you can do about it right now
you cry like a small animal with a broken spinal chord
you keep whimpering, but it can only heal in time
you cry like pressing the skin of your palms
into the membranes of your eyes
when everything in your head is so cacophonous
you want to rub away all the little things you absorb
want that your hands could throw out this migraine
like a candy wrapper on the sidewalk
and if you believe hard enough that it's gone
you'll never notice the sugar rush or the comedown
so you press your hands to your face
as hard as you can and try to pray like a religious person
but you were raised christian and american and
the ways of believing and hoping and loving that you knew as a child
seem insincere now, and hard to speak
the language is not truthful
everything is what they told you it was not
nothing is what they told you it was
or everything was always what it was
and you or i could've told them that
and you think that wrapper might eventually end up in a landfill
if you go throwing it carelessly around
and sadness taken with too much sugar can be a toxic combination
so maybe making the bad things go away
is harder than throwing away the wrapper and enjoying the rush
maybe the wrapper is somewhere else now you can't get to
where you can't hear it crinkle or see it shrivel,
but you can still relentlessly feel it
getting whittled away by time and weather
while steadily melting down bits of you
as you pass your heart around
gasping inside the icebox
until one day you look up and the sun is a bloodier color
and your lungs are full of ice like pins
freezing inside of you
and when seconds before you had oxygen
as you begin choking, you think it's amazing how long
it seems to have been
since you were alive
your knuckles are dry from holding on
to a rusty ladder wrung
even when you want to move so badly
and there's nowhere to climb
you refuse to jump
and you're still trying to figure out
how to fall correctly
to break the least amount of limbs
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 6:45 PM UTC
Why did you leave your bones
scattered? White
chalk on my floor.
When I awoke in the hazy mourning, doves
laughing at my stumbling.
I tore them from my windowsill,
I buried the evidence in feathers.
I locked the door,
to stalk, alone,
through eggshells,
Searching sticky membranes
for shy muses flaring sparks of
lessons learned.
Oh, how sweet,
the air,
in reminiscence,
tastes of morning dew.
On soft wings,
a slew of sound:
The melody of spring.
A mourning dove falls
in love with winter's animosity.
A song,
lonely and hollow,
echoes through white snow.
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 9:04 PM UTC
My eyes
are bags of mucus hanging by cellophane membranes
to my skull which is now structured like a wet sponge.
My tummy protrudes out from the rest of my abdomen,
a gelatinous layer hiding away a chiseled core
which may be deteriorating into oblivion at this moment.
The skin rests and hangs a little over the top of my leather belt
which somehow manages to fit three loops in from the first hole.
My neck hangs heavy like the ears of a sad elephant.
Oct 18, 2012
Oct 18, 2012 at 12:55 PM UTC
I don't feel it, You say. And, pray tell her
name, my sir, that i may find she thee and prithee
Bear me off to southern sounds, fallow fields,
an altar ground, a garland rope of singing springtime snows.
this may be more than i can--;;
YOU
ARE
NOT
WOR
THW
HILE
and i had such an awful dream last night--
you said, Bronwen, my love;
and i could not sweep her hair from the floorboards
beneath which you hid your ***** mags from mice.
because you tell me about it.
WHOAM?
you speak of gOd like dOgs & i am worthless coinage
in the sewers. the sewers find my dress still hanging from your bones.
your bones your bones your piano finger bones
kiss me again
until my lips swell my throat bleeds i do not want you to know how much i crawl spiderlike through the trails of hair in the drain as the autumn leaves the summer leaves the spring buds freeze over hell i am not i am not listening pan-drum please let me say this one last thing:;
he is your accordion player the ***** player man who speaks fluent french and inflected english he is your accordion player on the pipes-----
and you say i do not feel and i reply,
this is too bad too late, chuckle replay as your fantasy walks through the door my team my team she is porcelain lovely see the perfume in your synesthesia colorblind goat footed grandiose Cesar with epilepsy she is your dream she is she is she is!
&meanwhile; the trumpet in soul still plays solfeggio---
1 2 le 3 4 1 2 le 3---1 2 le 3 4 1 3--le 1 le 3 le 1
she is the discord of the seventh in the tenor line
she is membranes she is rain she is towels
LEIGH **** IT
if only if only you weren't so lonely i might call you mine and bring you back homely.
IF ONLY-----Charles weren't so busy while you
stare at silver spoons and cherub smiles
and cupid calls you home again.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 1:37 AM UTC
you cannot finish need.
it fiends in wretched globes of dwarf
swelling to tremendous steam
a Bacchanal of vineyard borscht
a moonlit morsel of demolished dreams...
we serve at the pleasure of the absurd
gilding shadows with clay confetti
and the nictitating membranes of blue crocodiles.
and blank verse.
felling the Yggdrasil, by all means; you maraud the larder
in the night kitchen; nicking blackbird-pies and pinky-russet salamanders
[ the loose farthing ] and the hard liquor... all gone now
your potato sack, rakishly slung from the shoulders of an Atlas, entitled ' Promised Land; betrayed '.
a new map shrugging off old kings from dead valleys
revealing the hour of your worthless estate,
in-lieu of the boundaries of your lost holdings. unhappily -
you inherit the unripe peach
in a hound's mouth.
you slouch rough, slowly
to your beast
of a couch:
there, to remain unholy and due South.
there, to remain unknowing
by all account.
Feb 11, 2013
Feb 11, 2013 at 10:13 PM UTC
Who’s to say how
He might come back for a second
inhumanely heaped-up helping,
if we grant that immensity
of our assumption He did come
kingly first into this inside-
out size from a do-you-miss-me-
yet’s mirthfully mythical realm
I have seen Him
lurking in a particle-board fine
finish on the thin outer membranes
of our estranged and better faces;
He’s Higgs-boson omnipresent,
but far too theoretical
for our broadly practical, turned-
away gazes to rediscover
There He is now
rising in the favela’s gap-
toothed grins with fabulously naughty
corners this glee-pawed grandpa twists
using cur jests his ***** charges
imagine as flightless quarrels
grey-hooded pigeons would gaggle
were they over-stuffed on golden grain
And there again
on a Calcutta mound’s cluttered
conic end, smog-like He slowly lifts
with the crust-gnawed, razor-wire crimps
of a soup-can’s unconsummated lid
as dainty fingers crawl in toward
a gelatinous glob still clinging
to the powerful pretense it’s meat
And there once more,
conceding oms, He restless flickers
at the margins of blocky beige
Beijing screens as crisply clicked clacks
circumnavigate the darkling
smooth patches and spit-spark a few
conscious drips to squiggle out from
the babble of noxious red seas
Emerged, this welp
won’t toddle off to dribble-stain
the dressy linens of a made-up
nanny’s well-mannered and ornate
evil; it will curl up instead,
a swaddled yawn with no yearn to
suckle under His real mother’s
gaping wide and grungy bloused best
Oct 20, 2010
Oct 20, 2010 at 11:04 AM UTC
Osmose with me
Into perfect symmetry.
Our membranes transfer me to you
An you to me; its chemistry.
And when in your proximity
Your energy sets mine in motion;
Moon's effect upon the ocean.
A privilege, surely, 'tis to feel
Not shared by stones or trees or seals.
Chimpanzees can't understand
but they come close.
A human thing it is to feel
And that is what I value most.
Nov 30, 2011
Nov 30, 2011 at 9:18 PM UTC
He is my least favorite vegetable.
No amount or level of preparation makes him taste better:
Boiling-
brings out his bulbous, insipid ego
the texture of his flamboyant ignorance.
when I timorously sip him in soups or broths,
his oozing insidious misogyny
contaminates my blissful dining, contorts any ingredients still pure.
I fry him, striving to remove the
excess of impertinence which
permeates the oxygen I feebly inhale.
but he evades my maneuvers:
usurps bliss and violates all semblance of tranquility
I cannot prevail
against the throb of his assaulting narcissism
I must instead attempt
to comment
(arduously, fraudulently)
on the delicate iridescence of his silkily mucoused membranes
and admire deftly
his indefatigable ventures to pervade my
every.
serenity.
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 3:18 AM UTC
My breathing's wrong.
This pattern inside me
isn't my rhythm.
You've got all the control
& I'm programmed to rise & fall
just from a single phrase of yours
and
I wish I could even try
to get this heart to knock on rib doors
build some courage up
to
whisper truths between the
sliver membranes so I can
try & balance out the breathing
and get a grip on reality
cause I'm almost outta that conscious-land
& I don't know
this man
he keeps bringing me to hell & heaven...
then back
with just his text.
(c) 2014
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 8:39 PM UTC
I get my information
from the dirt…
While running my hands
through the fertile earths…
My mucus membranes
collect the biome beneath..
ancient mycelium filaments
feed my primal needs!
Aug 4, 2021
Aug 4, 2021 at 2:47 PM UTC
I have long sought quiet.
And please, let me be clear: quiet.
Not the quietus Hamlet desired,
No “consummation devoutly to be wished” for me.
No, with or without a bare bayonet,
UNBEINGNESS is hardly what I seek.
It is not the predicament of death,
But the quiet spectacle of the grave I envy.
Originally a city mouse,
I am familiar with the urban soundscape.
I know city noise, amped up in decibels.
Noise-induced stress, shrill and enervating,
Add to the mix a working-class neighborhood,
Where someone is always hammering,
Using a power tool of some kind,
Repairing, improving an older, somewhat decrepit home;
But a steal as the realtors say.
Or vehicles, like Old Havana relics,
Held together by secular prayer,
And thriving underground Cuban capitalism.
Then just for fun: *"Let’s send the son of a ***** to war."*
Tympanic membranes be wary and be ******
Stretched and perforated,
Compressed and torn,
Shredded like wheat.
Pummeled by shock wave.
I was Lear wandering the heath,
Your ass-cheeks cracked:
*“Cataracts and hurricanes . . .
Oak-cleaving thunderbolts . . .
Sulphurour and thought-executing fires . . .
Singe my white head!”*
Cue Cabaret music (Cabaret (1972) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0068327): “Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome . . . to Indochine,”
First a Weimar-Saigon suckee-fuckee,
Then out to *The ****
Mind-numbing concussion,
Reek of jellied gasoline,
Charred meat,
Assorted red entrails,
Obliteration of thought complete.
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 8:48 PM UTC
1.
The peace of the brave
gave way to the war of allegories
illuminating our world
like a medieval manuscript
with a confusing colophon
of indecision.
2.
Unstable religious fuels
and volatile political compounds
energize the endless human wicks,
that light many an unsuspecting
yahrzeit candle.
3.
And love which may have
been 'stronger than death'
is not so strong lately
as an army that's already dead
cannot be defeated
as easily.
4.
"the children come right home from school"
Yossi said,
'perhaps they've already learned too much as it is?'
I think....
Our home is our castle
and like a missile defense
in American mythology
its walls are semipermeable membranes
of security.
Sep 15, 2016
Sep 15, 2016 at 10:39 PM UTC
In the morgue, the aseptic light
Was flickering upon it;
The livid, bruised, black and blue
Lying body of Love.
-Honey, It's dead, you see!
-Yes, sweetheart, but how did we
Come to this?
-Pass me the lancet and
Then we'll see.
A sharp cut was made on
The right temporal lobe of the brain;
The synaptic membranes were
Damaged, the reciprocal nerve-racking
Jealousy had made the brain collapse.
A big incision was made upon
The ribs: into the lungs no more
The vital breath of Love, only water
And mud were clogging the alveoli.
Love had drowned in the sea of adultery.
The last deep cut was made upon
The heart: the still valves and
Ventricles hadn't pumped
Blood and passion for long.
So, there's nothing else to do,
My dead love!
Nov 13, 2011
Nov 13, 2011 at 4:59 PM UTC