"ossein" poems
Alien among aliens,
Fanning delicate fins to promenade
A prim coquette and starchy cavalier
Trimmed and tined in ossein finery,
Sipping shrimp cocktails, dancing demure
Circles before blushing coral courts,
Holding hinds in groves of turtle grass
Until the paisley bodies
Bump bellies, and she imbues his pocket
With inklings marooned in dreaming Pegasus.
Aug 15, 2010
Aug 15, 2010 at 11:10 AM UTC
She suffers from bouts of amenorrhea,
She masticates as often as the day is black,
You, her associates, claim to have no idea,
The young ossein—aged with many a crack.
The chassis appears, to you, to be gaunt,
No fervor for coitus intimates strangeness,
Her color looks like she is inclined to haunt,
Her apparel— ill-fitting, not made to impress.
When will you void your lack of knowledge?
She needs someone to come to her aid,
Take her hand and lead her from the edge,
Instead of averting, trying to evade.
Go and lead her in the right direction,
And help desist her craving for perfection.
Nov 27, 2011
Nov 27, 2011 at 9:49 PM UTC
Anxiety
I run,
and run,
and run,
and it chases,
chases,
chases.
It haunts the crevices of my mind,
laughing,
mocking,
pushing me closer,
to an undefined edge.
As I think I am getting better,
as hope caresses me into a broken lucidity,
it knocks on my door.
Pounding against the hard cracking ossein,
pounding,
pounding.
All around me my walls shatter,
and it’s echoing voice,
protrudes my hollow skull.
It taunts my frail spirit,
It takes a hammer to my confidence,
It tears my existence to shreds.
I hide in my room.
It is safe there.
Hiding.
Hiding.
No pain can reach me,
If it cannot see me.
Its voice is a calming melody
That masks the true terror it really is.
“It’s okay to hide. You’ll be safe here.
“Don’t be scared.”
When all I am
Is scared.
Scared.
Scared.
Scared of people,
what they’ll say,
what they’ll think.
Scared of how
I will embarrass myself
this time.
Its hand grasps me by the throat
and shakes me numb.
“Do not go. Do not go.
“They will mock you,
“They will judge you,
“Don’t go, Don’t go.”
I run,
and run,
and run,
and it chases,
chases,
chases.
I want away. I want away.
This fear it gives me.
This fear is throws on me.
I do not need.
It racks my mind endlessly,
whispering lies into my ears.
I try,
and try,
and try,
to get away,
and it laughs,
laughs,
laughs.
Sep 6, 2013
Sep 6, 2013 at 11:53 AM UTC
“oh, how they will all bet on morrows that strain rills after dark,
and yet the Game, unpitying, regains its lordly behest at dawn;
lean back and feel the turn of things, the chance, the risk, the almost...
ante!”
⋮
this mania!
when it wreathes,
the imperceptible of myself,
it drains through me, sedulously,
hands aquiver, sight fretful,
and the bath of wanting (and not, ergo),
spewing and fusing
inside the etna of my inlying.
you are, then, obedience itself,
long before the grapevine,
before the Cards;
rails tarnishing, yet begrimed steel,
rather ossein, or thew,
turning to a suttee so pale, it forgets its ills.
and the trains;
yes, they were gushing, though not afore;
“did you think they would arrive for you?”
they smelt into clag,
into a mist of faces, barren,
swelling and shrieking of throe,
snaking, snaking down the spine of
the Stake.
slaves betting with their ilk of ardor,
when a match struck, belatedly,
but already it is leaning toward cinders,
its shine no more
than a laugh of people,
leaving the hall shivery in its bleat,
charcoals sighing their waning,
others honing their exit.
bitterly, bitterly, i am
left with nothing to hold but smoke.
but time, ah, time,
the nimble Host,
old trickster with his cuffs of lithe,
shuffling cloaks for loose change.
he and i,
always at the same table,
and i know his favorite sleight:
to grant the boastful player
a losing hand,
and winning eyes.
the coin is tossed,
to the Parlay; so soon cast,
so soon swallowed by the piker.
the crowd, they clap for a name,
but it is never genius they are crowning,
only luck,
foremost Dealer,
with that last word,
smiling as he lays it down:
only the blind Card turned upward.
~~~
and i,
sitting with my empty cup,
still growing a taste for losing
foolish, surely,
but the loss only deepens the greed,
doubles it, whets it past the reach of will.
so ring then, coin,
dull as you are, tattered,
clattering against the floorboards.
it tells me i am counted,
measured,
already spent.
yes, yes, it is only a caprice,
but it hews, it digs,
it laughs where no mouths are,
and i laugh back;
ante!
Sep 13, 2025
Sep 13, 2025 at 6:33 PM UTC
Your aging on
Those bones
We share
While
Caterpillars
And carapace-soil,
Beneath--
Our souls
Let lobotomy kiss us--
The-cure-for-all
--Impossibly.
Feb 12, 2015
Feb 12, 2015 at 6:50 PM UTC
"Grey, I wish I was you!
You're so happy!
You never give up!
You never struggle!
How do you do it?"
Daily, I get told this.
Always saying thank you,
as if my vocabulary bit my tongue,
spitting something else out,
someone else into my place.
My throat burns with screams
I can not release,
as if my own carbon dioxide suffocated my thoughts,
leaving a waste of capacity within the room.
This paint consumes my face,
concealing any trace of reaction
that I want to give.
That I need to detoxicate from my chemical unbalance.
I want to speak
but the flood of anxiety
grasping at my air,
makes me too terrified to be heard.
If I was heard
no one would believe it was me.
They would all look around,
and say nothing,
worshiping the silence I yet to give.
The consequences hide behind the lines,
that my mind can't bend.
The ventilation of my corrupted system
backslides into error,
shutting down the coordination
of my world to come.
Turning my everything
against the collapsing forgotten,
that I didn't raffle for.
I didn't sign up for this
scenery that rotates my sights to the
desperate calling
of a separating cell.
"You look so different, Grey. Have you lost weight?"
Oh, thank you for confusing
my sorrow
as cackling ossein
that lost all their symbolism
as a whole.
Why satisfy the ocean
if the waves tug between
the used and abused.
How did my appearance affect the way
vitality takes place
between the lines
of an open book
that I elope
with the desperation
of being found,
Being saved.
“Why do you sleep so long,
even though you went to bed at 7:30?”
I don’t sleep for the sake of depletion from the world.
Sleep calls from the numbness attached to my dangling limbs,
the rumination of death,
but somehow,
still isn’t convinced.
Why bother to contrast me
to the markings of the sun,
if only to be controlled by the skin.
"Sweetheart, why are you so quiet? You're never quiet."
Mar 1, 2018
Mar 1, 2018 at 9:31 AM UTC
I've a deep thirst
for the blood in your veins.
A craving to kiss the flesh upon your ossein.
My heart aches for an answer
from the heaves of your breastbone.
Up
and
down.
Up
and
down.
You inhale,
my breathing stops.
You exhale,
my heart throbs.
My thirst is unquenchable for
your answer remains a mystery.
Feb 1, 2013
Feb 1, 2013 at 2:04 PM UTC
A joyless tale
Turn into appearance
To this vitality...
That lipped to mouth the letters
"Wait.... we'll come across once more"
The era's peel of the skin...
Till it turn into a ossein
By season to season...
Therefrom... nevermore reunited
Hence, one relinquish life...
Not allowing us to embrace once more...
That joyless tale
This poet mouth's that letter's.... one by one....
Is mine.... joyless tale
That came into vitality....
Oct 17, 2018
Oct 17, 2018 at 11:56 PM UTC
To those who want to start an awakening in minds willing to listen
To those who have wide eyes, bold pupils and furrowed brows staring unspoken words in the face.
To those who want to begin a movement
To march
To yell
To pause
To breathe
To those, you must remember
To admit defeat, but never to apologize in the standing.
To keep walking, because even if you shake, a step is still a step.
Push those toes in the ground like its warm sand.
Feel every grain on your feet, thinking of the story of every one of them and what stone they came from.
A stone once skipped across the calm water by a young boy and his father, making memories that last forever.
Or a stone once stepped on by girl somewhere and a boy picking her up to carry her back to the car, knowing that he was going to marry her one day.
Breathe
Dig your heals in the ground...
Stronger than that.
Plant your feet like a tree that's been there for years.
A willow tree whose roots reach the opposite end of the earth.
Whose roots are far too deep, far too grounded, for even the strongest to yank up
Stay. Grounded.
To those, you must remember
Stand tall in your posture with every vertebrae lined up, creating a tower of bodies of ossein reaching to the stars in your brain.
All stretching out to grasp a part of the infinite cosmos in your brilliant head.
Full of unheard of galaxies and not yet discovered planets.
An entire new world to explore
To those, you must remember
To want to start a change
To bring awareness
And to end...
Just to begin again
To those who will start an awakening in minds willing to listen.
Dec 9, 2016
Dec 9, 2016 at 9:27 AM UTC