"nibs" poems
Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,
Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off
Before it has a chance to go two blocks,
At Colonel McComsky Plaza. Berth's Garage
Is on the corner facing west, and there,
Most days, you'll find Flick Webb, who helps Berth out.
Flick stands tall among the idiot pumps-
Five on a side, the old bubble-head style,
Their rubber elbows hanging loose and low.
One's nostrils are two S's, and his eyes
An E and O. And one is squat, without
A head at all-more of a football type.
Once Flick played for the high-school team, the Wizards.
He was good: in fact, the best. In '46
He bucketed three hundred ninety points,
A county record still. The ball loved Flick.
I saw him rack up thirty-eight or forty
In one home game. His hands were like wild birds.
He never learned a trade, he just sells gas,
Checks oil, and changes flats. Once in a while,
As a gag, he dribbles an inner tube,
But most of us remember anyway.
His hands are fine and nervous on the lug wrench.
It makes no difference to the lug wrench, though.
Off work, he hangs around Mae's Luncheonette.
Grease-gray and kind of coiled, he plays pinball,
Smokes those thin cigars, nurses lemon phosphates.
Flick seldom says a word to Mae, just nods
Beyond her face toward bright applauding tiers
Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads.
8.4k
12 in the dark, I sit awake by the window,
Across from Hyde Park, and the feel of the wind oh,
Sparking a bark, Nana's remarking from below,
Canine matriarch against the boy with no shadow,
Time's flickering by and I begin to rust,
Consumed, I'm high with lust just for pixie dust,
But to fly you must be robust and adjust,
And I can't, though I try, I just look with disgust,
Sitting on the sill, I think of him mournfully,
Hard as I try, I can't think of him scornfully,
Despite the fact that he talks so informally,
He says my name and I know I was born to be,
Part of the family, I think of them nightly,
Tootles, the twins, Curly, Nibs and Slightly,
Second star to the right, it shines so brightly,
Hope he might come back if I ask politely,
He doesn't apologize, he's immature and he's cold,
Lives in a land without rules so he can't be controlled,
But as soon as I saw him I knew I'd struck green-gold,
Peter Pan is a joke that just never gets old,
Don't smile at crocodiles down in Neverland,
And if you hear a ticking clock, hope the ships are manned,
Because there's a high demand for the taste of pirate band,
And if you're not hooked by now then Hook'll tell you first hand,
I flew here like a bird in a night-dress, frilly,
Scared, trying to fight stress, skin like Chantilly,
Found Peter and I confess that the boy's my Achilles,
Now I'm a lost girl treading on Tiger Lillies,
Acorns and thimbles are my idea of 'bases',
And sword fights with pirates are my ***** chasers,
Watching the boys as they fly and admiring Peter Pan,
But he's the boy who can't love here in Neverland,
I wanted devotion, to marry men who were charming,
So I repressed, left my emotion, I left Peter Pan snarling,
My own species no longer, just a common starling,
Caged by age at my window, I'm Wendy Darling.
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 3:36 PM UTC
our bread and butter...
*the web of stars,
the scatter of moons
and orbiting planets.*
the entire universe
harvested and crammed
into the metre,
of a poetic verse.
our bread and butter...
*harnessing the regal rays of the sun.
inflating the fluff of quiet clouds.
drinking up the winds of the weather.
revering the magic in the flight of birds.*
we fill our cups to the brim...
with fantastical dreams
and let spill
over parchment
the cornucopia of idealised words.
our bread and butter...
the incessant peeling and picking
on healing wounds.
of which we have learnt to savour...
*let bleed
the willing blood...
feed the seeds
with impending flood.*
nurture to fruition
thoughts stunted in discretion.
bring to light
thoughts hidden in the nether.
our bread and butter...
we dip...
the nibs,
of our word worn feathers.
let them sink,
shallow beneath the surface
to the sanctity of a familiar place.
*casting our trials,
and tribulations...
pent up emotions,
and what we think
unto paper
with the burn of
everlasting ink.*
Sep 11, 2015
Sep 11, 2015 at 9:16 AM UTC
Thugs with Pens & Aerosol Cans
Thugs with Pens
Hell-bent; not on cultism
Just airing the other sentiments
That don’t make it to primetime
Thugs with pens
Not poking out eyes
Just venting spleen
Sick of the lies
Thugs with pens
Deserve to be heard
They don’t poison your brain
With stacks of *****
Thugs with pens
And aerosol cans
Can change your mind
In ******* time
Thugs with pens
Can make a dent
They don’t need to insert
Un-readable, un-interesting
Covert small print....
Thugs with pens
Don’t need no script writers
Or advisors nor signatories
Witnesses, nor dodgy men
With gold plated fountain pen nibs
To make amends
Or throw in no hidden clauses
That secretly **** your life blood
Thugs with pens
Don’t aim to pierce your skin
But make their mark
Deeper within
Thugs with pens
And aerosol cans
Completely uncensored
champions of free speech
The establishment want suppressed,
silenced, deleted; terminated.
Thugs with pens
And aerosol cans don’t
Schedule meetings
To fix the minutes
And schedule another meeting
And keep ‘minutes’
As square angled
And unproductive
As formal conversation
Thugs with pens
Aim venomous ink
At headless politicians
That squawks like chickens
Bending over
For the *************
Bank-beefing corporations,
Controlling the masses
With ***** little catchphrases
And mounds of munitions
And illegally enforced restrictions
On your movement and free expression
Honest men
Have nothing to fear
From Thugs with Pens & Aerosol Cans
These “thugs” seek asylum
From countries
Where the law’s
Not bought and bent
Thugs with pens & aerosol cans
Are made to wear monikers and masks
Thugs with pens
Don’t turn on its own
Neighbours and citizens
To perpetuate myths:
A ****** ************* lie…
A thing that never happened!
(That’s for all of you dumb wits
out there
Who believe most of the ****
That’s drip fed
Your sensation addicted minds
Most of the time,)
Time you started reading between the lines
In fact get a pen
Or an aerosol can
Write your own lines
Start broadcasting
Reclaim your space
Before you’re completely neoned
Into the shade
And corralled under the spell
Of a TV screen
Or an anger raising headline
That conducts the flow
Of the status quo
Load up your magazines
With ball point pens
And sharp edged writing nibs,
Strap on a belt of aerosol cans
Reclaim your right to free expression
In public spaces
Join the rag-tag army
Of intuitive
Self-knowing men
The End: is well begun,
George Orwell
Should never have written
That blueprint,
‘1984’
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 8:59 AM UTC
I held you gently when you were most fragile.
You solid cloud.
Borrowing your calcium shell from
The turtle who flew.
Sitting among the twigs and
Thorns you made your throne.
I held you gently when you were awakened.
You precocial chick.
Watching your pinions grow
Into deadly nibs.
Seeing you filled with
Self-defined joie de vivre.
I held you gently when you were set to be free.
You helium ball.
Soaring to your motherland where
You are meant to be.
Looking at all the faces and
These radiant faces reciprocate you.
I held you gently when you were shot.
You bloodied phoenix.
Burning peacefully with all the might
You could possibly muster.
Embracing your demise with
Nothing more than an expectant smile.
I held you gently when I was most fragile.
Yet I know your short life had been worthwhile.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 9:29 AM UTC
I often speak
of the holy:
the high and mighty
the hands that guide me-
because that stuff never leaves you
when your oldest memory
is writing stolen stories in the back pews
(next to you)
of the church that ****** me to Hell
just for living; for loving; for breathing.
And
I often speak
of the ink
under my skin-
how it beats
with the blood
of my veins
how it rots
the valleys of my brain
how it festers
in the edges of my eyes
(Besides,
I’ve always thought
leaky faucet eyes and flatlines
were better fitting for me anyway).
And with calligraphy nibs
for teeth
and nails-
the points beg
for the weight
of the word
and the worlds
I could make.
So don’t mind
the blushing lines
on my wrists
& stomach
& sides-
that’s just me scratching the surface.
And
I often speak of
the hell I faced
in the soft heaven of my bed,
and how you Holy Figures watched
and waited
with blind and prying eyes
for the answer to come to you
on a rusting silver platter.
And yet,
when I served the cause
to this wretched effect
bloodied and blessed as it was-
wrapped pretty and proper
in a note I wrote in deranged worry;
you wept,
painting me a monster
with the ink from
my own ****** letters.
So,
cast from above
like One before-
a glistening gold halo
turned to petty pyrite
(how fitting,
for a follower turned fool).
So,
I ask
your Heavens now:
when I came to you
with prayers
and pleads
heavy on my tired tongue
in the pews of your Holy House
made Hell,
did you ever think to hesitate
before you began
to point your jagged fingers
and other weapons of war
at the silent space
between the lines of my letters
(that weren’t even there)?
Or did you hate being wrong so much,
six years of ignorance
was the price
you were willing to pay?
Was it worth it,
my Holy Roots?
Nov 25, 2024
Nov 25, 2024 at 9:05 AM UTC
You leave the apostrophes to someone else, I can't even make it in to 'im', instead I'm writing papers about the Oneida and Jonestown murders.
The television is on, the air purifier
is dying. I can hear the ***** fan belt of my laptop on the fritz or the fizzy bubbles of
The Cranberry Redbull that I'm trying.
I could be a great sport. Ya know, anything you want.
Jump to.
Make the Miso soup, clear off the kitchen table, buy brand new markers with no recent pictures drawn into their nibs.
Throw in comfy pants. I don't know what else I have to offer, a clean bath? Some books? A magazine?
The weather is exciting, we could call get Pneumonia or at least share a drink and catch Hep-C,
Put our children together to catch the gift of Shingles. A motorcycle toy for my Uritis it is better. The roses from the sweater paired with leather, leggings, and a kick *** song. Inside we can talk about his hair cut and going to California. I'm intimidated by you moreover when you tell me you can eat airplanes with only your bare hands. And even if I'm a bore, I still have Streptococcus. So seal and deliver. My cerulean goddess, with the best, thank thank you for the nightmare fever you stole from the words I wrote. And at the end of your book you don't have to cop out and fall along a crippled sky. With crippled words, verbs, and losers. Score cards of different colors. Tunics proud as the walk to the river we voted from Baptism to demon-voter. Stand and deliver, flora and fauna that threatens to eat our home.
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 3:11 AM UTC
Broken Needles and rusted gates,
Treading over thorns and crushing glass in an apathetic state.
At best toss the thrown rock will crash,
Not without aggravating a storm of Asbestos.
Iron-lacking in socially acceptable art etiquette.
Climbing neglected buildings.
One hand gripping a rusted ladder,
The other, spray paint wielding.
Battling for space between the wall and the vine.
First time I don't feel misplaced, struggling for lines.
My minds at ease, I have everything I need.
A place to sit and think,
A place where the space is occupied by two high school kids.
Lighting candles that have merged
With the unstable rotting wood of the table.
Scratching their heart's words through bleeding pen nibs.
Loose leaf pages scatter the ground,
Not worthy of residency in my note book.
Reunited with the fallen leaves.
Reconciliation with my mind hook or by crook.
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 8:39 AM UTC
is there any such thing
as too much ink
too many pens
more paper
than the human heart can fill?
the heart does nothing
but pump the blood that is necessary
to fill my fingers
to move
to scrawl too much ink
with too many pens
on more paper
than such a treacherous ***** deserves.
but the heart will get its ink
if it has to bleed dry in order to fill
the pens that it thinks it should have
to defile more paper
than any forest should have to give.
the heart will have what it wants
forests
nibs
and veins
be ******
Nov 18, 2017
Nov 18, 2017 at 12:12 PM UTC
Eyes are blue gleaming diamonds,
words concealing gold dust
are sealed between the lips
that avidly taste thunder,
expression of my hidden hunger.
Hands bind me closer til
rib cages say "No more"
Like nibs, nails on my back
write ****** verses direct,
forcing one to spread eagle
as the orchestration moves to crescendo
itinerant eyes emit sizzling light,
the cloud that engulfs , caresses every inch,
a bamboo grove in wind
dances whispering love, in many tunes,
tells one to lie under it's canopy, I submit,
hear my songs from a secret center,
eyes speak the lingo of love, light spills
heart beats against heart, in mad frenzy,
we need no words any more.
Jul 29, 2015
Jul 29, 2015 at 11:29 AM UTC
I burnt my tongue a week ago--
Too much of scalding coffee and lies [on your part],
But I swallowed it with a couple of anti-depressants
I have forgotten how creamy, toffee powdered mocha tastes like and your lips,
They used to taste like macchiato, as time passed by,
Maple leaves drizzled autumn, burst into slashing icy winter,
Your lips started tasting like black coffee, like tar, most of the days it’s only a figure of speech,
Warning sign blinking all day long in my head, when I can’t hold it in my fingers,
When it’s escaping out of my grasp, ready to run, making space for the sugary vanilla layer
But then there are days, when you find your way back underneath my sheets,
My duvet, the only witness, sadly silent all too similar to my will power screaming inside my head,
And here are you fictious sentences, framed with such precise,
Knocking down all the walls I tried to built, leading to defeat,
Holding me chained like a slave.
All my fury fueled sentences burn like fire, vengeful riff of an electric guitar within my mind,
When your fingers encircle me, rough nibs of your lips on the nape of neck, palm tracing lies on my tailbone
All the fire drowns in crafted lies, ashes of my dignity scattered, a bleak watered down-
Note of a single string as the soundtrack of my misery.
I burnt my tongue last night--
Too much of your blazing skin and lies but I spitted it all out,
This brittle heart not so brittle anymore heated at 1,300*c, on the kiln again and again-
To form an everlasting nature.
Arteries have clotted, hatred burning bright within, lungs suffocating starving for oxygen and blood,
Like the dragon breathes fire, I’ll breathe out the scathing curses; and leave with my dignity intact
Barely responding to all your shameless deeds.
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 11:40 AM UTC
we fly
with lofty feathers
albeit shorn wingtips
we speak
but with pregnant minds
albeit engorged nibs
Oct 5, 2023
Oct 5, 2023 at 7:39 PM UTC
after years of fending Mathematics,
hiding disastrous test papers as guerrilla tactics,
lolling in the shame of discovery,
followed by parents' sherlockian commentary,
how they came upon the dreaded documents, accidentally,
I thank the gods who gave writers nibs, quills, ink,
how their tales became shields,infused life in print,
these angelic saviours from Darth Vader menace,
famed rescuers from teacher disguised fiends,
dear, beloved school education, I forgive you all your sins...
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 11:43 AM UTC
After a sudden migration
paint thick brushes hid
and pen lids leapt on nibs,
the sodden hydration
dry as dust.
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 6:23 AM UTC
A Gossamer, glistening in the glen,
Tulips in bloom,
Thrushed, blushing red.
Two lips crushed together,
A stolen breath.
Tick,
Tick,
Tick,
The hours, they pass, lovers leap in
two
each others arms
Spaghetti legs and arms,
the nub smell of rub and sheet,
the twine nibs imprint,
a palmer's press.
Give me a kiss, breath,
You escape me, but just.
I cannot escape. I give up.
I cannot escape your lovers lap.
Dippled cheeks, and that,
Smile, laugh.
Your mind is a killer. It's a net of whittle and wit
You laugh because I am an easy lay, I have no complexions, no way
out.
You laugh because I am so strut forward, and you know, you play.
You play, pull touch push. And laugh.
And when I want to say nay, go away and sulk you pull me to your chest,
and **** into me like a full house on a sunny day.
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 4:14 PM UTC
as if frayed brushes,
broken pen nibs,
emptied paint tubes
and ***** of crumpled paper
laying haphazardly on the floor
wasn't enough to show
the lack of love
in our hearts.
we pass by each other
like ghostly strangers
with a vague notion of
familiarity.
we sleep on the same bed,
but we're not sleeping together.
we eat at the same table,
but we're not eating together.
but some nights,
i hear you let out a quiet sob
just as i turn the corner
and you don't know it,
but i've seen the tear marks
on your cheeks when you
silently crawl into bed.
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 11:22 AM UTC
“We’ve engineered the world for comfort and ease. Most people rarely step outside of their comfort zones these days—we’re living progressively soft, sterile, temperature-controlled, overfed, under-challenged, safety-netted lives1. And it’s slowly limiting the degree to which we experience our, as the poet Mary Oliver put it, “one wild and precious life.””
Michael Easter, Substack
<>><<>
five months have expired
from when this notion
1st caught my notice
but fallow lay,
unattended, unremarked
unforgiving
of my ignorance and inattention
but it freshly, rightly,
core challenges me
guilty of the underbelly softness
so well described,
I
choose to scribe,
wrestle with angel and devil,
two~on~one human,
and yet, still a
fair fight
"wild and precious!"
how rarely we employ these
adjectives,
that conjure the edginess of an
existence
lest you think,
that we are here to implore, urge,
skydiving, remote wilderness trekking, or other physical states
that set adrenaline on fire,
I am not
afterthat for them
oh, my
wild and precious
is far more treacherous and enthralling
what I beg you to embrace is
no farther than
nubs, knobs and stubbled nibs of your fingers,
the taste buds flowering invisible
on the wily, twisty tongue,
the tiny-vibrating little hairs of your nostril,
two extra large eggy pupils of your two eyes,
here lies danger,
your customized throbbing throbbing your drumming,
leadings
access to the garden of
The truly wild and precious,
the poems you will scribe,
from the safety of your captains chair,,
Throwing caution to the wind compose and depose yourself with bitter questioning,
For which the answered answers must be truly be
wild and precious
cyan sighs,
oaken cries,
furious colorless invasive tears,
steely stabbing personal truths,
yes those wild ones,
in your. chest close held,
spill them like cold coffee,
surrender the precious, and
inward confess your
shame, gains and the relit
that you are not merely
wild and precious
but a sea borne sailor,
a navy voyaging to
to where
danger enthralls
enlivens!
Jun 21, 2025
Jun 21, 2025 at 10:23 AM UTC
*Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I swear to god there's no other way to say*
***I ******* love you***
Jan 25, 2016
Jan 25, 2016 at 3:50 PM UTC
This blank page haunts me
Daring me to fill up the lines
Defining words
To try describing the universe
Transcribing between the lines
A little tool too often used
Softer than a whisper
Sharper than a sword
Blasted manifestos
Speeches lapped up by leeches
Letters of love
Declarations of hate
Signatures for war
Who am I to dictate?
From the scrawls on my little page
But present still is “what if”—
When script fails
What is left?
Nothing but smudges
Faint remnants of faded pasts
Moving to fill blank spaces
Nibs dancing across white pages
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 4:40 AM UTC
There must have been seven chimneys
In the great house on the hill,
I never actually counted them
While the house was standing still,
But the years had brought their own neglect
And the house was well run down,
By the time we pulled the place apart
For a new estate in town.
We couldn’t just use a wrecking ball
It was too immense for that,
When we took it brick by brick apart
We could build a hundred flats.
The chimneys were the hardest part
For the flues had twists and turns
As they rose up through three storeys with
Each hearth, soot black and burned.
It had been the home of Dukes and Earls
Back in Victoria’s day,
With gardeners, cooks and pantry maids,
All with a place to stay,
There were ***** and more for the gentlefolk
For the vicar and local squire,
And after the garden parties they would
Huddle, in front of the fire.
We chipped away at the chimney stacks
And gradually brought them down,
Brick by brick to the local tip
As red dust covered the ground,
But then a guy gave a sudden cry
During a working lull,
‘I think I see, what it seems to me,
The top of a human skull.’
The top of a human skull it was
Of a child, no more than six,
Jammed up tight in the chimney there
Imprisoned by old red bricks,
We managed to pry him loose at last
And lifted him from the flue,
But then the horror came home to us
For his legs were missing, too.
We saw the mangling hook they’d used
That lodged in one of his ribs,
That tore the body apart to clear
The chimney, for His Nibs,
The kid was lodged in a twisting flue
They knew that his case was dire,
And tried to make him climb up and through
By lighting a smoking fire.
We couldn’t tell if the sweep was dead
Or simply allowed to choke,
When someone ordered the fire lit
And sent up a cloud of smoke,
Perhaps he screamed as the smoke had streamed
And the fire burned, but slow,
He was just a sweep, his life was cheap
Compared to the guests below.
The little lad’s in the cemetery
He was laid with special care,
With everyone but nobility
Gathered to lay him there,
It’s a page at last from a cruel past
That we turned, but won’t forget,
Great wealth destroys our humanity,
Have we learned that lesson yet?
David Lewis Paget
Jul 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015 at 4:43 AM UTC
People have asked me how I feel. It’s not simple sadness - it’s far less real- but more a resigned sense of loss. I guess… I guess I’d say it’s like when your shoelaces come untied and you look down at them, you see the laces laying listlessly on the ground, but you don’t reach down, you don’t twist them back into a knot and rescue them from the dirt. It’s not that you don’t want to, it’s simply that something is lacking - the energy, the motivation, the care. And so you keep walking, and with every step you take, you see those laces snake around your feet. They tangle with each other, trampled by your shoes, but you don’t care. You don’t have the energy to lose. Instead, you let them drag in the dirt, in the wet, in the dust. You let them because you just don’t care. After all, it’s not as if your shoes have fallen off; the laces are still doing their job, just not as efficiently. They’ve been compromised; they’re acting differently. And that’s fine. But the worst is when people look at you, look down and say to you, “Oh, your shoe laces are untied,” realizing it anew. As if you’re not aware with every step you take that those tiny plastic nibs at the ends of a fraying string are slapping against the floor, raking across the ground. As if you can’t feel the looseness in your shoes, the vulnerability, and the sense that they no longer feel quite as snug and might fall off at the slightest tug. As if you can’t look down and see them dragging, twisting like snakes trailing in your wake. Yes, you know your shoe laces are untied. It doesn’t matter what you’ve told yourself, it doesn’t matter if you’ve lied. You know. You know, but you’re not going to do anything about it because why? Why bother? You’ll have to untie them eventually; you saw it coming, that inevitability. Everything must break. Everything must come apart, every shoelace, every person, every work of art. Nothing can stay together in the long run. We might as well let it come undone.
Sep 28, 2015
Sep 28, 2015 at 8:39 PM UTC
we did feed, on pine cone nibs
wild onion and garlic under a lonesome willow tree,
we fed good on unconditional love,
woke up with sun listening to doves
and Mulberry trees grew all over us a ruby
red berry fed us then
in an unconditional like love
ourselves giving in to the shade
the dream of a willow tree providing us
magnificents cool on a hot day,
breezes wound us up and deposited us like
dust
on a fertile field,
wrapped around nature wrapped around
each other
then.
Jun 1, 2015
Jun 1, 2015 at 3:42 AM UTC
the pile of books on my windowsill sits gathering dust
the pencils are swords instead of daggers
all the pen nibs are dry
the embers slowly starving
the smiles succumbing to gravity
and the grit's nothing but dust
if time is money
then we're in debt
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 8:17 PM UTC
Mentally, with transfixed exuberance
I beget unto my fingers something so entrancing, that as if to steady a tongue-thwapping aweness- it plays to me, like a unicorn song. Heavy-like. Sweeping hands over with stranger’s voices, mixing the toiling mischief misunderstood. Then stains each column of its melody in waves impervious to this language. With nexility, the nibs and thimbles jettison into the blissful rains of beading color, where only such human momentum cascades before its subtle ends.
Oct 9, 2017
Oct 9, 2017 at 5:34 AM UTC
There's a lot of past and more of the future.
A lot of crying and many more tears, of joy and sadness
Dumped In this huge pile of Present.
Which we are unhappy with.
Hoping to get more,
More more than we can.
More than we deserve.
What is this pressure?
Sharp like a razor.
Bleeding through the nibs of our pens and literature.
And us?
What about US?
What are we going to do with all this future?
Dec 24, 2019
Dec 24, 2019 at 2:18 AM UTC