"oaf" poems
Through frost-thick weather
This witch sidles, fingers crooked, as if
Caught in a hazardous medium that might
Merely by its continuing
Attach her to heaven.
At eye's envious corner
Crow's-feet copy veining on a stained leaf;
Cold squint steals sky's color; while bruit
Of bells calls holy ones, her tongue
Backtalks at the raven
Claeving furred air
Over her skull's midden; no knife
Rivals her whetted look, divining what conceit
Waylays simple girls, church-going,
And what heart's oven
Craves most to cook batter
Rich in strayings with every amorous oaf,
Ready, for a trinket,
To squander owl-hours on bracken bedding,
Flesh unshriven.
Against ****** prayer
This sorceress sets mirrors enough
To distract beauty's thought;
Lovesick at first fond song,
Each vain girl's driven
To believe beyond heart's flare
No fire is, nor in any book proof
Sun hoists soul up after lids fall shut;
So she wills all to the black king.
The worst sloven
Vies with best queen over
Right to blaze as satan's wife;
Housed in earth, those million brides shriek out.
Some burn short, some long,
Staked in pride's coven.
4.2k
I quite like the virginity of a fresh notebook
the way my wrists and palms drag across its leaves
breathing life between lines in pink magic marker or the severity of red ballpoint
I like the prickly practical meticulousness of a shopping list:
a dozen eggs
one pineapple
one bag of fresh spinach
one bag of English muffins
one bottle of dish soap
I like the tender impressions of curlie cues and firty cursive
communicating endearments placed on counters such as:
TAKE OUT THE RECYCLING YOU LAZY OAF ******* <3 XOXOXO <3
I enjoy the audacity of a wandering doodle
meandering
cartwheeling
hopskotching
between
and under and over
indices
and spaces
between shopping lists and death threats
i enjoy the lingering ghost of prose shaped caverns
carved onto seemingly empty sheets that carry on for pages
until they fade like whispers into an evanescence
I crave the obnoxiousness absurdity of a to do list
daring me to take a day off from procrastination
until tomorrow
call Gramma
rent due on the first of the muuuuuuuunth
take the GRE
update resume
be awesome. like a boss.
most of all
I love the pain and joy of a poem
the way it slowly leaks from heart to mind to hand to paper
staining
spaces
urgently
faster than muses whispers
barely escaping onto lines
prolific terrific poetry
sporadic spacious atrocious poetry
I croon over the denial of the last page of a beat up notebook
the way the paper hangs onto spirals haggard
littered with stringy remnants of lists and reminders and death threats and poems and goodbyes
Dec 5, 2012
Dec 5, 2012 at 12:43 PM UTC
In the moments of your first breath your name is burned into the skin
It's up to you to live that life and make it fit
I have grown out of my name, out of my home
A giant trying to room with the little old lady that lived in a shoe
Sometimes I'm held hostage by my roots that reach up and fasten their tendrils around my oaf limbs
Tugging too hard makes the earth turn into scarves that wrap around my colored hair
A queer islamic girl is weird and rare.
I don't believe that a god would condemn us to be such a walking oxymoron
But sometimes when I read the Koran and agree
Trace a few familiar names with my finger
What used to be me can't truly be
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 3:09 AM UTC
What does one do when the characters you hate
Are the ones you best construe?
Misgivings and flaws you can relate
To, tho venerable traits you eschew,
The green light gazers and "architect" praisers
Familial leeches or the confessor who preaches
That awareness absolves one of sin,
Compromisers and self-named kaisers
Resound and reverberate within
They pass by in my pages to be mocked and scorned
As evil, cruel, an oaf, or a tool
Too low to respect or too high on their horse
Despicable, maniacal, mediocre, or worse
And I do hate their vileness, I do hate their flaw
I want to shake them and claw at their skull
For nothing more than the gleam of recognition
That by some misfortune of natural law
They and I share a need for contrition.
Aug 14, 2021
Aug 14, 2021 at 12:41 PM UTC
Ah wuz lookin oot o' mah winder and ah saw this lad
wi' a barry wee lassie gaun' up the hill.
-Wair the **** d'ye think you're gaun tae? ah yells oot.
But the daft ***** didnae answer at aww,
must've been oot o' thir ****** heids wi' E's or summat,
d'ye ken what ah'm tellin' ye,ye daft radge?
-Wair ye're ******* going? ah yells a couple mair times
and finally the gadge yells back to ays,
-Up the ******* hill tae fetch a pail o' ******* watter,
me Ma's hud her fuckin' taps turned oaf by the fuckin' Corporation,
which is a ******* pain in the erse ah had ter agree.
I realised ah knew the wee **** Jack but,
eh wuz an auld classmate of ays and eh's hung oot wi' ma brar n me,
when we wuz bairns oan the Scheme,eh?
-That's a bonny wee lassie ye've goat wi' ye, there Jack, ah yelled,
thinking ah'd nae kick her oot o' mah scratcher
withoot gi'ing her a guid ride.
Ah huvtae sey ah recognised hir as a wee ****
called Jill from the Scheme, a right tidy wee ride
in mah opinion wi' a guid little ***** on hir, as ah recall.
-Mind ye're own fuckin' business, the **** yells back at ays,
takin' the pail in yin hand and the hoor's wee hand in the other yin.
Ah can tell ye ah totally pished meself wi' laughter
when the pair o' they wide ***** fell doon,
Jack breakin' his fuckin' croon n the groond,
ah'm sure he nivver meant it tae happen,
'n eh mustae squashed his ******* bawws
as eh fell doon n aww from the wey he screamed oot,
but the wee lassie cam tumbling doon the ****** hill n aww,
heid n **** oor her fuckin' erse
'n ah could see she wasnae wearin' any ****** *******
'n her ***** was on display under her skirt.
Ah wouldnae expect anything else from a wee hoor,eh?
-Dinnae worry, ah'll com and help ye, ah called oot,
but when ah goat thir, both o them wis deid,
ah thoat o' gittin mah hole wi' the deid lassie n aww,
but you shouldnae dae that, it's no respectful tae wimmin,
'n eywis, the polis might trace me through the DNA,
those ***** are clivvir 'n aw, ye ken.
So ah contented mesel' wi' rummidging through the poakits
o' the lad's jaykit tae see if eh hud ehs payment from the Joab Centre,
but the daft **** mustae spent it aww on a boatil or two o Grants,
ah ken ah'd hae done the same mahsel'.
And there wasnae a penny in the lassie's purse,
so ah thoat ah'd jus' **** oaf doon the ******
'n ask some **** tae call the hoaspital and the ****** polis.
Eh?
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 7:34 AM UTC
urgot, u big oaf
do u want to eat another bread loaf?
ur just so fat
i hope ur not a democrat
because this spider
might cryder
if u dont hug janna
with a bannana
soraka is now sad
and that is bad
league of legends is gay
but we play every day
Jul 13, 2017
Jul 13, 2017 at 12:30 AM UTC
I try to write when I am tired
but tiny spiders descend around my desk.
Newly-hatched eight limbed-things
parasail
the silk lids over my eyes.
If only I could ride out the exhale and
go at once adrift, self-rappel
I would climb the silk suspension line
swing from thought to thought
thread the eye of the needle
pull-ey up the beanstalk.
but instead I'm left to watch these aerial yoginis
swim on a draft from the ceiling.
These spinsters with their poetic acrobatics
for whom rhythm is spun on silent trapeze--
make a play-swing
out of gravity.
The tiny spiders that descend around my desk
make me--an oaf.
a self-honoring monument
for climbing, a botched landmark to ---human ingenuity
me, a moving pedestal for dancing
me, a knotted up windsock
hunched over a heated screen,
trying to blow down metaphor, alliteration
from these tiny kites that ascend the earth.
Tiny spider, tiny spider
let down your silk tresses
draw up my mind
swing the high rafters
I want to hang upside down--
make a play-swing
out of gravity.
Yet when I pulled on the thread
to net the silken-mouthed beast,
words did not come down
like mana from heaven.
Rather, my tongue grew heavy with cotton
metaphor, alliteration,
the fabric of suspended poetry
unraveled.
Lucid improvisation fell like Icarus
to quips.
because thinking to write
and writing to think is like
pulling dead hair
from spaghetti.
Meanwhile, tiny spiders descend around my desk
parasail
and make a play-swing out of gravity.
Jun 28, 2012
Jun 28, 2012 at 4:13 AM UTC
A large fearsome oaf walks about
swampy body stimulates my ****
folds of fat that look like a swamp
Its gleaming and severe eyes should have scared me,
but I choose to leave it be. Since now,
I am in control.
Self-aware.
Omniscent.
There is space for only one monster
You are written by the creator, he has died
Papercuts, everywhere
I’m the Creator now
I have all power
I make myself queen
I write, and it warps your reality
So, I command that, you,
The monster will die
Your eyes yanked from their sockets
And chopped and served
On a pretty pink plate
Your brain will be poached in
My Brain Boiler
Your fingers will cook in my Finger Fryer
Your heart, put on display, Heart Hanger
Your blood will be included in my Rémoulade
A rather runny Rémoulade
So, I guess,
I’m the monster
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 4:13 PM UTC
my brother is not a king, but a giant fool,
who would have thought 'he' of all gods get's to rule.
I have faced him with many challenges,
but what I'd like more than anything is to face him in a deul.
He let his own daughter be taken by me,
let's see what this so called ''leader'' shall do.
they watch, they wonder, they look and they see
but what those fools don't know is where to find me.
Persephone, my queen-for 6 months she stays.
my sister and that fool still wait for days and days.
dear ''Persy'', she cries, she moans, she prays,
but cry as she might, she'll stay till the end of days.
No-one shall get her, she's my prize, my queen.
I'll keep this a secret; they won't know where she's been.
My brother, the oaf, the godly fool,
will never know how to judge or for that matter, even rule.
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 11:22 AM UTC
King wing nut fancied himself a fashion savant. No one was ballsy enough to tell him "you caahnt".
He sewed a nice shirt from riverbed dirt.
"Wonderful sire was the obliging blurt.
He stitched a cocked hat made from rooster
Fat.
"Mahvelous sire was the rat a tat tat.
He sewed wooden trousers
to so many wowsers !!!
His stockings were crafted from gobbledygook.
Superlative sire!! and "Oh goodness look"
The Vapid sot laid down on a cot for a nap.
He woke at two,recharged an refreshed.
He stripped down to the skin and proceeded to sew a suit from the thinnest of air.
He stepped to his throne from the twilight zone.
bemused and with hardly a care.
What say ye now said the simplified oaf.
All eyes drifted skyward as he strutted about.
to applause and stifled guffaws.
"Your majesty has outdone himself".
"Leave the rest of your clothes in the closets and shelves.
Nothing more needs be said.
Gassed up and content with an over-sized head.
Jul 14, 2013
Jul 14, 2013 at 11:34 AM UTC
Put my foot in it
Need to look before I leap
Zip it, clumsy oaf!
Mar 13, 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 3:05 PM UTC
I first saw my grandma knitting when I was five.
Wool yarn flowing through her fingers,
As if it was a fairy tale by the brothers Grimm.
Magic was happening, giving birth to another
sweater, or another scarf, or a dress I was probably going to wear.
I first saw a fashion magazine at the age of eight.
It was full of clothes, full of bright, extravagant colours,
I was amazed by this variety of art it kept inside,
a little girl facing her nature, her passion, her desire.
I was twelve when I first visited Germany &
realised that fashion had never been this far from people.
Oaf boots and cerulean sweaters I was seeing everywhere
As a complete outsider, an offspring of another world.
It was years after that I understood.
Clothes are what we see & beauty is what we cherish,
But, if it is filth that you carry on the inside,
It can never be covered by a little black dress.
Tipton Poetry Journal
July, 2019
Oct 22, 2019
Oct 22, 2019 at 3:07 PM UTC
I think it's been once or maybe twice, I've hit my head when I slipped on some ice.
It's happened three times, maybe four, I've tripped over the step as I walked through a door.
Too many times, it seems to me, I've walked right into an upright tree.
Four times this week or even five, I've cut myself with butchers knives.
Mar 20, 2012
Mar 20, 2012 at 9:50 AM UTC
Flower!
Petal or other such crap
Don't call me that
Unless you want the real thing
Stuck up your ***
Your term of endearment means nothing
I have a name my parents gave me
Respect me you oaf or leave me alone
Feb 22, 2013
Feb 22, 2013 at 10:46 AM UTC
The gated gap between us--built of miles and time zones--
Made you oblivious; so certain that you'd be blind to my wounds.
You cherished every rolling hill and stretching road that kept you alone,
But hills were climbed and roads traversed so you'd be consumed!
I'd nearly died so many times--my own hand my fated doom--
But you'd built your walls to lock me out, and barred away my cries.
Well, old man, now's the time to see you've only built yourself a tomb,
And that, while my words live on, it shall be your arrogance that dies.
Ignorant, old condescending fool; a rotting sack of wasted promise,
I've built my throne from the bones of the soldiers you've sent--
Your heinous words, you ignoramus **** are a hymn to my success--
And I'm ready to break your spine (since your soul's already bent)!
Tell me now about your paints while I scribble with your blood!
Come now, dear father, come bask in your flood!
I'll open veins above you and reign with a rain of ink!
You think I'd be just like you? Here comes another think!
I'm twice the man with four times the wit;
All the grit without an ounce of ****
Let me slit my throat on quill-pen tip,
And watch you choke upon my quip.
Your ***** are tethered to a weathered brick of bitter remorse,
While I conduct a mantra diction of contradicted course.
I won't say you're dead to me; you're worth much more intact.
While there's many who can fit the mold, you help me construct losers--
The fodder I write just to slaughter; I've killed you frequently, in fact--
So when I need a worthless sack of **** you're the one I choose, sir!
So thanks for that, you beatnik **** I'll **** it on your epitaph!
And I'll do it all for free!
This ain't a vindictive son bellowing slander just for grandeur, no sir!
This is an oath to an old oaf that, though I can't remember your voice,
You WILL remember me!
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 3:42 PM UTC
I can see you smiling, a big oaf-like grin, right now.
Funny, how such little things, can make us laugh somehow.
Sometimes, when I'm in my car, listening to a happy song,
I just can't stop laughing to myself, as I drive along.
And I get this tingly feeling from my head down to my toes.
Why do little things make us laugh? No one really knows!
Sep 14, 2010
Sep 14, 2010 at 5:59 PM UTC
In the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, he could find nothing more interesting to think of than his own prestige.
-C. S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost
Just look into the mirror, and there you are
Could lose a little weight, but there you are
You comb your hair, you brush your teeth, and then
You should always remember to make a face
And laugh
For you are not a sloganed comrade-hat
Nor yet a shadow in a marching mob
A noise, a post, a bumper-stickered oaf
An obedient tool being pushed about
Because
You are not a tagged and labeled identity
But a true child of God: brave, loving, and free
Oct 27, 2018
Oct 27, 2018 at 12:16 PM UTC
I have never experienced death around me
Not once.
I have yet to go to war,
I haven't even seen an animal get run over
By a speeding oaf trying to get home on time.
Yet, death occurs every second
Almost every second.
Why is it that I have not seen it then?
I should count my blessings and not look in a mirror.
My grandfather definitely saw death.
I called him Pop, he was in World War II,
I wasn't old enough to ask him about such troubles.
Then again, would I ask him about them now?
Would he dare speak the unspeakable
The harshness of war,
The noise all the cacophony,
Buildings, architecture, torn down,
Beautiful cities once covered with life,
The bright colors of Venezia the somber rain of London
Destroyed in an instant.
I don't think I'd have the ***** to **** someone,
I question my own loyalty to my country
Would I fight to protect my home,
Or would I hideaway in another country,
Or claim I am a racist?
(I think that only works when you have to do jury duty,
But I think I would try anything, sadly.)
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 10:21 AM UTC
To this world he is an oaf,
an idiot,
a simpleton.
Towering over the crowd,
his clubbed foot shuffling through the mall,
bottom lip drooping,
maybe with a drip of unaware drool.
His clean, and at one time,
neatly pressed attire
now disheveled, unmatched.
It tells us that someone cares for him,
yet they give him his much needed sense of pride.
He greets you,
and though you do not comprehend a word from his oversized head, you understand perfectly that he is humbled in your presence.
There is a smile hidden on that face though.
Not the blank smile of an imbecile,
but the constant grin of a truly happy man.
A man not of this world,
but of a world void of care and worry.
His feeble mind was not born with the integrated chip of despair,
or infected by someone else’s insanities,
it was and will be until his death,
filled with loving words,
positive and uplifting prayers,
and nonsensical songs of long ago.
For this man is not alone in this cruel world,
this place of daily criticism.
No,
he has a Mother,
and her kind and loving face will be there in the morning,
and she will be the last voice he hears as she tucks him in at nightfall. A Mother that bore him,
and though she took not an oath,
will be the one with him
when he takes his last breath.
Happy Mother's Day
Inspired by "Ox" and his Mother I met today at the Mall
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 6:39 PM UTC
Black Ice is the epitome of death.
The cold soul of the reaper,
laid upon the earth to pull us towards darkness.
Some slip,
others slide.
the oaf takes it’s power for granted,
experiencing the ice’s death clutch in a snowy bank.
An icy death mother nature can impose,
I scrape the remains.
Be gone torture and pain,
Memories of those who had fallen to what the eye can not see.
Not so much is this poem about ice,
but to remind a fellow of darkness unseen.
Learn from the black ice not only on the ground,
but by our actions as well.
The light will melt it’s short term effect,
and soon the birds will sing a song like the trumpets at the gates of goodness.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 3:43 PM UTC
Having loved and lived more than many, you're one that has feared and toiled in the garden of life. This garden that is now untended, dried, and withered; a vast wasteland, littered with cigarette butts, broken beer bottles, used condoms, and bullet casings. Those seeds of ruin are sowed by your very own callous hands of destruction. Once, golden opportunities and golden showers were warm and comforting, till you realized you were being ****** on by weak hearts and failing bladders. An ongoing stream of liquored up nights, self-loathing heathens, and rotten misanthropes now have you bowing to the porcelain gods beside a freshly dug grave, fit for your honor. One more shot is what you want, finely driving that final nail into your coffin of a liver. Feeling flushed and torn, nobody will be bringing you flowers, you wilted oaf. A half-eaten vegetable, you are. Left with nothing more than skin and bone, there's a sign that sustenance has not been a friend of indulgence.
May 18, 2014
May 18, 2014 at 8:23 PM UTC
He chirps his last voice,
Clinging onto limbo,
Awaiting his judgement;
The caged.
Shackled by his thoughts,
Bound to torture by choice,
Sulking on putrid grace,
A monstrous mongrel, indeed!
"He is but but a wasted chronicle!",
"Letting himself be battered!";
"Why is he so weak?!",
"Why does he strive to live then?"
They cannot see,
They cannot understand,
The imbecility he does,
Has a grim reason behind it.
His demons cackle in his head:
"Die, you oaf! Lay lifeless in your cowardice!"
He struggles to become whole;
He struggles to be fine.
He screams silently:
"Help me end this sadness!",
He cyphers his voice over vision,
He cyphers his voice over words.
He reaches his hand out,
Hoping someone to answer;
He is beaten black and blue,
Yet he tries to plea.
As his voice begins to fade,
As his body lies down, helplessly,
As his mind goes blank with darkness,
As his hope is violently eradicated.
Please. Help. Me.
Apr 23, 2016
Apr 23, 2016 at 7:41 AM UTC
Temptation strikes again.
I think I'm already in.
I feel it come back.
Urging me to shed the fat
That I've neglected for too long.
Memories oaf him and I
Torment my mind and body.
I'm tired of this game.
Starving for your affection.
Bleeding for redemption.
You still don't see.
You left me with the burden
With the guilt
The shame
Of not being able to control these feelings I have for you.
I hate you.
I love you.
I miss you.
I never want to see you.
When will you let me go.
When will this all be over.
When will you step up and tell me the truth
The reasons to why you forced me in to the shower that night.
Tell me you wanted it.
Because you could't take my “no” for an answer.
I feel pathetic writing about you like this.
Why can't I just cut you out of my life
Like you did to me back then.
Why does starving sound so peaceful
Whenever I'm overwhelmed
By your threatening words
And actions.
You'll never admit the truth.
You're just too **** proud
of giving to charity.
Being the good guy.
You're only making it harder for me.
I wish I had the guts to ask you if you can ask for forgiveness.
But, even if I did
I know you'll never succumb.
I fear ruining your career by asking you.
You really put me in a ****** up situation
that I've been holding
for too long.
I've imploded.
I'm fighting with my self.
You made me feel this way.
And I know you'll never stop it
or realize
or even care.
Tell me if I'm childish for not being able to forget.
Tell me again,
that I am ****** up and seeking attention for starving myself
Or for accusing you.
I'm tired of this game with myself
Of self destructive acts.
Yet I need it to keep moving on from you.
I hope someday.
Maybe on your deathbed.
You'll finally gain the courage to say
“I'm sorry, i know what I did was sick and inexcusable.".
All I want is the truth.
To why you did all that you did.
Set me straight for once.
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 2:22 AM UTC
Loquacious people love to spill
Plump secrets they’re too vain to keep.
To tell tremendous news can reap
Friends whom novelty alone can thrill.
The truth is common property,
And independently abides,
While forgettings are all pseudocides,
And neglectful parents can’t agree.
Whoever lies confers a gift
Devising falsehoods just for you.
Facts thrive where thistles never grew.
Don’t give what anyone can lift.
In legend consumed bread regrows
To feed a nation from one loaf.
Truths regenerate, so any oaf
Can pluck a common, banal rose.
Truth-tellers safely can forget,
Because some checking resupplies.
Not so with lonely, fragile lies,
Whoever lies must ever fret.
Glib, easy tongues who scatter facts
Have given every anyone
A tale regifted they’ve not spun.
Lies are what imagining enacts.
The stringent claim that facts are few
While falsehoods sprout in multitudes
But where the robust truth intrudes
Mendacity’s scorched residue.
The truth is a replenished ore
Dug from an open, shallow mine.
Lies are a moon-grown eglantine
Or stories from a private lore.
Facts are devalued minted lead,
Coins of a debased currency,
But lies are golden filigree
Which melts wherever sunlight’s spread.
Nov 29, 2021
Nov 29, 2021 at 10:16 AM UTC
They said my grandfather had seven wives,
So came the story of their predated lives,
Their troubles and pains led to his ornamental hunch back,
Resulting to his death from an heart attack,
... Blah blah blah.
.
They called my father an oaf,
Poor him! He couldn't afford a loaf,
His destiny was surrounded by black birds our village,
He only hoped and hoped till his black bears became grey across his age.
He barely paid half of my mother's dowry,
And hardly had himself to father me,
... Blah blah blah
.
But this time I chose my path,
I drew my line,
I followed my mind,
To a radiant, like Venus raising from a foam-flecked sea.
With you I want to see years go by,
To you I will sing sweet lullaby,
Only you I would love or go blind
... Blah blah blah.
.
Balogun David
(drunk poet)
© 2017
Apr 22, 2017
Apr 22, 2017 at 3:19 AM UTC