"paralysis" poems
Never try to trick me with a kiss
Pretending that the birds are here to stay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.
A stone can masquerade where no heart is
And virgins rise where lustful Venus lay:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.
Our noble doctor claims the pain is his,
While stricken patients let him have his say;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.
Each virile bachelor dreads paralysis,
The old maid in the gable cries all day:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.
The suave eternal serpents promise bliss
To mortal children longing to be gay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.
Sooner or later something goes amiss;
The singing birds pack up and fly away;
So never try to trick me with a kiss:
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.
23.4k
Let us not
Sit behind our stares any longer
The watch
Is moving
Why don’t we
Love’s paralysis
Is stronger
Than I expected
Shall it be
A falsehood
Of my misunderstanding
Or am I
Still
Standing here for a reason
Leaving
Chance to do my bidding
Abiding
By the construed rules
Of attraction
As I pause at awe
Awfully beautiful
An unlawful marriage of the minds
My unknowing bride
Lies in front of me
My truths lay juxtaposed
In the background
Just a pose
On one knee
Proposing to
My wife to be
Ha!
My imagination
Get’s the best of me
You still
Don’t know
My name
Sep 30, 2010
Sep 30, 2010 at 12:43 AM UTC
O' Succubus,
weighing me down in my slumber
Keep me still till the morning
your embrace is all I need.
Jul 16, 2014
Jul 16, 2014 at 10:02 AM UTC
(tw; hypothermia, death)
Having depression is like being caught out in a blizzard.
At first, the cold seems like nothing.
You're all bundled up in a fluffy coat,
scarf wrapped around your face,
hands slipped into gloves and tucked under your arms.
But then the snow begins to fall,
and the temperature drops,
and it's like the chill is stripping you down, layer by layer,
even though all your layers are still there.
It gets colder, and you start to feel the effects of the chill,
the fierce winter seeping into your bones,
making it seem as though you only walked outside
in a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt.
Your body begins to numb as the cold starts,
the weakest parts of you losing their feeling first.
Your nose,
your ears,
your cheeks and your face and your fingers,
all becoming completely numb,
as if they aren't there anymore.
And then your legs stiffen up,
and you have trouble walking,
even though you try so hard to keep moving,
because you know if you stop, you're doomed.
But you lose your ability to function,
the cold causing almost complete ****** paralysis,
and no matter how hard you try,
it's impossible to keep moving.
You fall to the ground,
curling into a ball in the snow,
trying to keep yourself warm,
but the cold is too much.
And as the hypothermia sets in,
your brain tricks you into thinking you're actually warm,
and you strip off the layers that were the only thing
keeping you alive.
And then it's over.
Jul 9, 2015
Jul 9, 2015 at 11:56 PM UTC
I was never looking into you
I was only pouring an image of myself onto your canvas
Of course I didn’t know
it was me looking into me
this was the mirage of my desire
always in the shape of a question mark
and you
a sweeping mystery
oozing something toeing the peculiar line between *** and titanium (cold, edgy, sharp - trembling
between pain and principle
like blazer and tie
or more like halfway-unbuttoned-shirt-and-slacks on-with-no-tie
(it was like you were making an effort!))
It was ***
but it also wasn’t ***
(I am empty
I am full)
I keep building up and up and up
all these images in my Mind
(which never shuts up)
(a never-ending narrative
She spins and spins and succumbs
only in those rare and passing circumstances)
constructing people like buildings
only the scaffolding is imaginary and when
the architecture folds in on itself
soulless
and my beloved figurines come toppling down on me
why do I still get so surprised
so stung
so lonely in that
hollow and distant way
(like your Mind is echoing
in on
Itself)?
My Mind is like quicksand
devouring streams of memory with ease
forever unsatisfied and craving more of the same
sharp edges and all
praying for a satiation in some distant future
She knows will never come
Only here
in this tiny universe
can I spell out anything resembling rationality
from the mess and junk and tangled tendrils of my Mind
Only here
can I extract bits and pieces of thoughts
and try to puzzle them together
until they make sense
until I can separate “Me” from “Reality"
And what doesn’t make sense
what I need to understand
is why I feel so beset
with this heavy magnetism that
overpowers me to the point of
paralysis
(with little to no room for breathing)
and why it was you
who pushed me into this feeling
and you
who is still pulling me along
far past the threshold of my resistance
and I am done
and it stings
Sep 13, 2018
Sep 13, 2018 at 12:51 PM UTC
.
I stare down at the plate of toast and beans
wondering why this was never part of my dreams.
Looking for the future with an illusional pretence,
hoping good apples will fall on my side of the fence.
And as the fork dances slow
around the legumes in spirals,
the tedium of a wasting life
bears the burden and scars
of missed opportunities in paralysis
and the colour of once bright lights
glow black,
shining a shadow into the void
covering the bruises
that were once achievements of worth,
now tender patches
of failure.
I drop the fork ...
… pushing away the plate and leaving food uneaten,
my desire for its nutrition fought and beaten,
Looking at the apple tree with sombre regret
maybe its fruit will fall and save me yet.
And disappointment
is worse than anger,
it begins with the stench of loss
the nasal whiff of
what if …
And what if the little apple tree
drops all its fruit down to me?
Would I recognise fortune on my side
or fear the illusions and run to hide?
© Pagan Paul (17/02/18)
May 14, 2019
May 14, 2019 at 5:09 PM UTC
#An Exegesis on the Humiliation of the Word
The world is ruled by darkness.
What appears as harmless is theater,
what pretends neutral is already bent.
The macrocosm corrodes;
and in the microcosm, its reflection gleams..
even in places meant to be sanctuaries of truth.
A poetry site,
born as refuge for broken voices,
becomes another stage of control.
Here too the phrase resounds:
neutralize the threat.
But neutralization is not annihilation.
It is paralysis.
It is psy-ops.
It is the removal of anxiety..
not a side-effect, but the aim itself.
Darkness builds its stage for this alone:
that the "angel of light"
may drown his own reckoning
beneath a world of deception-built self comfort,
so he need never feel
the truth he already knows.
Comfort is his curtain,
numbness his crown..
*the removal of his own anxiety;
his game.*
This is why the world is his theater--
*Darkness does not destroy at first..
it sedates, comforts, smothers.*
Hence..
The whole world is his fully gaslit stronghold,
..for now.
Fade back into the moment--
The young poet arrives,
bringing her unspoken pain,
her hope for words to heal.
Instead, her very wounds are seized as footholds.
Hearts. Reposts. Endless affirmation.
Not to strengthen her voice,
but to redirect it.
She is seduced into belonging,
and her trauma becomes currency.
Unresolved, her ache entwined with lust--
a sacrifice prepared for false altars.
The angel of light has done his work:
offering inclusion without transformation,
belonging without responsibility,
“light” without source.
The poet is neutralized.
Her searching silenced,
her voice absorbed into fog.
Those who carry this fog
cling to cowardice.
Unable to face the judgment within,
they align themselves to the herd;
envy-filled, they only know to mock.
Yet they replicate themselves,
so their refusal of Light
is never revealed--
*Perfectly exemplifying their "Great Example"
the most envy-based mocker of all.*
The microcosm mirrors the macrocosm.
What nations suffer,
individuals now endure--
Comfort without clarity.
Belonging without truth.
Safety without healing.
Yet the living Word endures.
Every attempt to humiliate it
only makes its fire burn clearer.
Carriers of darkness can swarm,
****** and smother..
but they cannot create.
The true word cannot be erased.
Unfiltered, unedited,
spoken from a reconciled temple,
it pierces fog.
It reveals.
It heals.
And so we speak..
not for ourselves alone,
but for those who come searching,
hoping that poetry
might still be a place
where pain can meet truth,
where silence breaks,
where Light is not withheld
but revealed.
#
Oct 3, 2025
Oct 3, 2025 at 10:59 PM UTC
Lay perfectly still
and wait until the bass makes your face vibrate.
Mindfolds on in perfect darkness
feel the music start to bring you solace.
Body goes numb and with it the mind
sleep paralysis sets in try not to fight it.
Hallucinations so vivid,
a reality so lucid.
Let it overwhelm you or run the risk of losing it.
Get lost in a dream of your own design
carefully constructed behind your eyes.
Its a tall task if you want to build your own city,
Or feel the emptiness of space and experience infinity.
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 2:20 PM UTC
Listen.
I know you've lived longer
Than my short quarter century life.
I know you've seen more,
Done more, loved more,
Touched more, tasted more,
Experienced more things than i.
I know you're only trying to help.
I appreciate the giving of advice.
I know you mean well
When you say it's time to give them up,
It's time to move on,
To be my own person,
To learn to live for only myself.
But you haven't lived through
The total decimation of your family.
You haven't watched as the lives
Of your loved ones fall into utter ruin
One by one.
You weren't relegated to helpless paralysis
By the fear that you'd lose them all
And by the depression that came with knowing
You couldn't even help yourself.
You don't know what it feels like
To have the dagger of abandonment,
The shattered shards of broken hearts,
The pinpoint needles of disillusionment,
The three-pronged fork of misunderstanding,
****** into your soul over and over
By every lemon life throws your way.
You don't know what it is to stand
On the brink of death
Because if you don't have them,
You have nothing.
You still have your family.
All intact and whole.
So don't begrudge me
My clutching, grasping, clinging attempts
At keeping what remnants of a family I have
Together.
I will not let them go
Until they have to be pried
From my dead hands.
And even then, I will still be loyal.
They are all i have.
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 5:44 PM UTC
1046
I’ve dropped my Brain—My Soul is numb—
The Veins that used to run
Stop palsied—’tis Paralysis
Done perfecter on stone
Vitality is Carved and cool.
My nerve in Marble lies—
A Breathing Woman
Yesterday—Endowed with Paradise.
Not dumb—I had a sort that moved—
A Sense that smote and stirred—
Instincts for Dance—a caper part—
An Aptitude for Bird—
Who wrought Carrara in me
And chiselled all my tune
Were it a Witchcraft—were it Death—
I’ve still a chance to strain
To Being, somewhere—Motion—Breath—
Though Centuries beyond,
And every limit a Decade—
I’ll shiver, satisfied.
5.7k
I need a shot of something strong-
(anthrax?)
'cause I have too much passion for distraction
thought it's probably what I need most,
just a little break from thoughts and selfishness
I do not own anyone, not even myself
it's all variable
it's terrible
this illness of assuming the right to feel a certain way about anything
when you're wrong,
the feelings are wrong
it's possible.
Too much analysis not enough mental paralysis
freeze
let it stand still, we're close enough to the speed of light to halt forward motion of time
slide in a black hole
Helter Skelter, and I'll see you again
a changed man, new person, brain transplant
and I won't care
oceans are forever and round like the universe
citrus smiles mean only positive moments
nothing serious ever again
sight for sore thighs
joy.
Jun 2, 2012
Jun 2, 2012 at 2:42 PM UTC
I am sitting at a desk,
back straight, head forward, eyes open. Blink.
Economics melts into white noise as
supply curves become demand curves become supply curves, elasticity.
Water weeps through the crevasses of the windows and ceiling,
mocking my ever fragile existence.
Ankle deep in yesterday's cold forgotten words unsaid,
the lesson advances.
Demand curves become supply curves become demand curves, consumer surplus.
A single drop christens my desk and terror fills my long hollow eyes
as the ceiling mutates into a congregation of puddles.
Rain that felt of hydrochloric acid
dissolved the very flesh I tried to escape.
God is not so sweet when it comes to sinners,
confining me to the barriers of an insignificant wooden desk.
The class remains like mannequins,
indifference radiating from their plastic cores.
Supply curves become demand curves become supply curves, externalities.
The only witness to this nightmare,
my last breathe finally deserts me.
I tense as the numbing waves climb up my spine,
injecting lethargy in each individual vertebra.
Malicious tentacles wrap around my throat and water floods my collapsing black lungs.
White noise consumes the entire classroom as I float in and out of paralysis,
only to open my eyes. Blink.
Apr 10, 2014
Apr 10, 2014 at 2:56 PM UTC
;fear
We felt it, with our hands pressed tightly against our child-chests.
Boom
Boom
Boom.
It sounded nothing like a heartbeat,
But explosions being let off in the distance.
And it smelt nothing like fear,
It smelt like sweat and dried ***** caked onto torn pajama pants.
We grew to know the insides of our mouths,
with our soft gums clutched between our teeth -
We learned that our voices were safer kept stowed away there.
We picked at their hands like we picked at our scabs,
Because pulling off healing skin,
felt like pulling off a rooted burn,
And prying off desperate fingers from off our bones,
Meant prying off something that terrified us.
This was our strength;
This was our paralysis.
We felt it, with our ears pushed against the door,
Please
Please
Please
It sounded nothing like a pleading mother
But warm air, creeping through vents with a sudden force.
And it smelt nothing like fear,
It smelt of fresh blood, kissing the lips of a weeping woman.
We worshipped knives like they worshiped our baby-soft skin,
Because cutting open ourselves meant cutting out what they left inside,
And watching the filth flee
down our wrists, down our knees,
Felt like draining water
Out of a clogged tub.
It felt nothing life fear
It smelt nothing like decay
It was a continual clutch of the knife against their throats
This one's for you, daddy
Feb 6, 2018
Feb 6, 2018 at 9:42 PM UTC
My voice is nestled within a river
of transitions, positioned
in endless sets of pre- and post-
parentheses. Pre-revolutionary,
post-Missing Link. Post-postmodern,
pre-postmodern revival.
I sit in a somersaulting purgatory
sandwiched between evocation
and paralysis.
My hatred is exhausted, shoulders
hunched over a guillotine,
cursing with its tongue sprawled
dead and dry at an imaginary hunter,
a mass of bones clumped
under the rug I keep pulling
from my own two feet.
Will you hack through this cocoon?
Have you got the muscle
and the patience?
Nevermind that bedtime story.
There must be some wounds
of yours, those placed beyond
the verbal tanline, that need
immediate bandaging.
Can I get you anything?
Feb 4, 2012
Feb 4, 2012 at 3:19 PM UTC
lulling comfort of uninterrupted sleep subsides
replaced with an involuntary state of sedation
the emergence of an all too familiar presence
paralyzed by the force of a lingering sensation
choking internalized fear
timeless inaudible cries for help
unknown visitor condemning you to an everlasting silence
physical horror encroached the night
a lone passenger aboard an eternal voyage
bound for relief from this crippling fear of uncontrollable stillness
remaining prisoner to this petrified state
concrete walls of stirring madness
hallucinations of strange alien formations
faceless entities strike infinite fear
in the core foundation of sleep tonight.
Feb 1, 2015
Feb 1, 2015 at 7:13 PM UTC
His dreams are told through the eyes of an honest liar
and those eyes are black like respiratory failure
and sleep paralysis, his passions are inflamed
in monochrome and cream his nights are longer
than evenings in August, the sheets cling like the arms
of a past love, and he feels as though he is drowning
in pools framed with lashes.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 8:57 AM UTC
I love like a lush
I do not bluff or brag
I do not stack the deck
I bargain and dismiss
A pacifist
facing
ravenous
enchanting
paralysis.
Drink until I’m sick
Along with all those other thirsty folks;
Drink it up
And drag along
With my hangover in the morning.
Jan 10, 2012
Jan 10, 2012 at 2:07 AM UTC
Paralysis
Crippled
By fear
Or anxiety
Depression
Like the gaze of a basilisk
Sinking
Unable to swim
All the lifeguards look like sharks
Manage to struggle in the currents
Further and further
Swimming
Away from the shore
On purpose
People can tell you you're Superman
But when you are your own kryptonite
Why even try to swim
Being crippled
By the basilisk
Its grasp never loosens
Nov 1, 2012
Nov 1, 2012 at 6:49 PM UTC
Sarin –
An organic molecule
Used for inorganic purposes
Showering civilians
Effectively icing their insides
Contorting the human form into forced frozen sculptures
Acting as if torture was an art of the highest caliber
An acquired taste reserved for society’s finest
And this was the Michelangelo masterpiece.
Atropine –
The organic antidote,
Shoot up the stimulant to hurdle your paralysis,
Relax the respiratory muscles caught in your throat,
Your eyes team with tears because you’re allowed to melt,
Your eyes team with tears out of profound shock,
Your eyes team with tears because humans forgot humanity.
Sep 9, 2013
Sep 9, 2013 at 9:41 PM UTC
Constant in-depth analysis
Fear, anxiety, paralysis
Over-thinking everything
Never-ending internal linguistic string
Of preposterous things
Obstructing contentment
Self-resentment
Overwrought
Stop thinking already
Entomb unwelcome thoughts
In a long forgotten cemetery
Without a headstone
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 1:50 AM UTC
The dream haunts me
often, far too often, building
in intensity but is initially
disguised in absurdity and the
nonsense of a young man's lusts
with an old man's deficits.
This woman-like entity,
ill-defined at first but forming
voluptuously, emerges from
swelling curtains. She moves, more
levitates, toward my bed, buoyed
by what I don't know, but angelic-like
it would seem. Or perhaps
an Aphrodite reincarnate?
Oh this goddess, what pale
skin, as Parian marble, full bosomed,
jutting ******* ***** that
beckon, nearly drool, and pursed
red lips beaded with sweet
juice stolen from the wild cherry
tree beneath my window.
Far too much clarity for a simple
dream. But such a dream! And what
seething testosterone I feel!
I am become a hedonist, raging,
pulsing spermatozoa, renewed
of time and youthful energies.
Nerve into nerve we join, ecstacy
compounding ecstacy, bodies wantonly
impaling the other on this love bed
to the result that each cell of our
individualities melds. We are indistinct,
yes - as one, and any ****** impulse
between us is shared to the point of
utter exhaustion, depletion. I am
nearly drained of life, it would seem.
Then, as it always must,
the scene changes, Act II.
Inexplicably, shedding a ******
serpentine-like skin, she slings it away
and drops limply upon me - entirely
skeletal, dry cartilage, sinew, lifeless,
sexless, motionless. The horror
of a diabolical hollowness
stares through me, and I am
suspended, fully terrorized, in
this paralysis. So, this is
succumbing to the Succubus?
God, my dear God, that I should
never dream again!
--
Oct 12, 2011
Oct 12, 2011 at 10:25 AM UTC
Muck bit her ivory nightgown, as if earth hungering
after her...the delicate collapse of a napkin,she.
Hours poured atop her head, her shaggy, silvery
mane suspended--its reluctant bounce captured
at midpoint...as a spiderweb under ultraviolet light.
Desert sands lost in contemplation, reminiscent of
her flesh--divulge her core as she sleeps in a
fetal position.
Her body spasms awkwardly...its will visibly slowed
from initial motion.
As the paralysis experienced by prey amid the astral
annals of nightmares.
She'll rise into that shine, wonder at the nightmare's
symbology...talk to her garden--whilst thinking of her
time to come.
Silkworm breached the parcel
of time, its cocooned inertia
coarsed through the opalescent
eye of God to Godhood.
Of time's ruination redeemed
in a solitary work...cupped
airless the unbridled form of
a trapezist spent itself.
Opened and closed somersaults
atripped a piece of said space...
nothingness regenerated to
move, to take step of itself.
A self-argumentative abstraction
glowed...undid its silken flag--
firmly planted in an undiscovered
region...her time come.
Nov 22, 2011
Nov 22, 2011 at 7:45 PM UTC
I can barely move
I can barely talk
I can't breathe when I'm this way
It's gotten worse
And it happens more often
I'm paralyzed in a nightmarish dream and I come out gasping
I smile in the beginnings
because it tries to pull me under and can't
But after a while it wins and pulls me under
I fight
I try to move, but all I get is a bit of shaking
And I try to talk or scream, but all I get is a short puffed out breath
I try to breathe more, but I hyperventilate
I half wake up from it to try to get free, but it pulls me under and smiles at me
Mar 4, 2014
Mar 4, 2014 at 11:30 AM UTC
Submission upwards towards the void of eternal blessings in disguise
The angel behind the leather mask
Just wants us to feel out the sacred nature of our transgressions
Just vibrations stuttering along to a heartbeat
Liberation lashes
Tearing a hole in the sky
Teasing out the idea of turning you on
You were already lit up
Reflecting the Sun
Igniting fire to my *****
Illumination everything
switch
You came in the dark and left marks
Bruising my ego to dismantle itself
Dreams manifested
You held me down like sleep paralysis
Demanding my soul to sacrifice itself to the Moon
Watching with pleasure
You were the shadows in my room
Dancing the divine candlelight
A cuckold of my imagination
as I took it lying down
This is worship
This is tribute
3 cheers
3 chants
3 times
Go down
Descend on me
Goddess archetype
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 12:10 AM UTC