"pinched" poems
a wind has blown the rain away and blown
the sky away and all the leaves away,
and the trees stand. I think i too have known
autumn too long
(and what have you to say,
wind wind wind—did you love somebody
and have you the petal of somewhere in your heart
pinched from dumb summer?
O crazy daddy
of death dance cruelly for us and start
the last leaf whirling in the final brain
of air!)Let us as we have seen see
doom’s integration………a wind has blown the rain
away and the leaves and the sky and the
trees stand:
the trees stand. The trees,
suddenly wait against the moon’s face.
47k
O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked
thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
beauty .how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest
them only with
spring)
29.3k
When I was little my mother put me in several ballet classes in hopes to bring some grace to my stumbling gait.
I grew up walking on eggshells, wobbling to keep my balance on a tightrope that never really ended.
My instructor pinched my thighs and shook her bony finger at me every tuesday and thursday for three and a half years.
4 am, I'm still tiptoeing around the creaks in the stairs as if anyone would notice an empty bed.
This Christmas I came across the broken reminents of the ballerina ornaments my younger sister used to play with.
I never did master the delicate posture I was expected to adopt. My feet fell a bit too heavy, I suppose, on the ice tonight.
I'm not cold anymore, just exhausted from attempting to balance the wrong things for too long.
My life is flashing before my eyes, but all I see is a younger version of myself practicing Grand Battements on thin ice while everyone slept.
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 3:18 PM UTC
Dear Math,
I wrote this letter to let you know how I feel about you. The thing is much as you love me so much, we can never be an Item when all you do is torture my brain and break my heart.
You claim to be a linguist, yet you know none of my languages. You don't know Kiswahili neither do you know English and only speak Algebra and statistics...I loathe you for all you do is play on my mind with words like Sigma and Meu, factorial and co-factor.You claim you want to be the only one but still ask me to find your X without even telling me Y.Well, grow up and solve your own problems because I'm tired of solving them for you.Just walk out of my life forever and not temporarily like the dew. You have hurt me enough with razors of matrices, pinched me simultaneously and never asked me whether I believed in your ancient beliefs like those of Pythagoras or not. We were never meant to be. I found a new one, her name is literature and she loves me so much.I won't apologize for saying I hate you because It's unfair apologizing for saying the truth.
Yours with anger
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 1:44 PM UTC
son spreads knee blood into ******* &/or
sidewalk chalk.
mixes reds to pinks with head cracking asphalt.
of god & country.
of soggy bread in a lunch-bag; snackpack readied.
he skates.
the concussed ****** of booming youth.
omega he:
to the wolf pack outers.
breathing love of summer, he
is the son drunk on hi-c
& burping.
watching teenaged supersoakers yodel
on a bridge.
florida.
son sneaks out late to rationalize
the city’s features
under strange light & love of nightly people.
boy sculpts body out of beast,
turned dark corners.
arrives swollen.
his father erects a roofed flattop in the backyard slab
with flood light electronics taught to worship
the shred.
mother rattles the blender
on the kitchen outskirts, ***** breathed
& nearing with hugs.
blister-itched.
glossed folds of scar tissue.
those days on summer-beyond when the neighborhood pulsates.
with satellite dishes tuneforking high-frequency vibrations
from outerspace & pigeons explode.
son’s ears bleed, &
the television goes unwatched.
he snaps plank & ankle protein, refurbishing
his legs into iron-rods
or wands of summer anthem.
cold war.
he empties sugar-sweat & toxins
into the storm-drain.
essence of wet heat, skin pinched, & friend
of ghosts.
a three legged dog lay in the shade
leisurely watching the boy skate
on endless.
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 1:11 AM UTC
He stroked it
I felt it
the warmth of his ****
was so sick
I licked it
he pinched my ****
I loved it
I was so *****
I wanted him to feel me
I wanted him to make me ***
I want....
Coz I'm *****
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 2:22 AM UTC
As I outstretched
and reached
my hand
deep into the black infinity
of flowing wonders
I pinched my fingers
on something lovely
and pulled out of the black abyss,
A lovely star
dripping with
black infinity.
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 3:09 AM UTC
Lou,
You're an orphan now.
The deciding vote
In your favor,
The good kisses,
The latent reconciliation
Linger in this thick room.
You won't need to clean chimneys,
Work in a blacking factory,
Get your ears pinched, and your **** kicked.
You've laid out a fine plaster effigy
In this cherry box;
Yet Enzo's nature is hidden:
His personal tears
And public laughter
Aren't in this demeanor
With rosary weaved into the basket of his hands.
We've polished our shoes,
So we stand and discuss
The crucifix wedged
To hold up the lid,
And how we follow our fathers' footsteps.
We knew it to end this way
With our fathers' generation.
*But you must know your father lost a father,
That father lost, lost his...*
I too am orphaned, Lou,
And we'll continue on
As orphans do.
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 10:04 AM UTC
An artist,
I’m scared to be left to my thinking atoms and nuclear cells
Why solder my raining thoughts to reality
In my head I can’t trust these clockworks
Rusted gears precariously tricking forward
Tensions unbalance on a pinched nerve ending
Hesitate I retract to others knowing what I don’t know
That once I start I might fail
I don’t do what I want to
I don’t speak when I want to
When I so desperately need to
Before I explode
Violently, into a void
Void of emotionless urges
An artist like me if I so believe I am
Doubtfully attempts to act in the face of thunder
Only to cowardly hide in a cat’s whisker
Inner bricking delays outer progress
Progress I provocatively flaunt to the alive bodies
While knowing the fallacious congrats is unwarranted
I don’t believe in magical rainbow kitten surprise wishes
But I won’t also hide my love
With the internal flame dimming
I want to act the part by flipping over the stones
For the mysteries hidden away
To see them crawling out
My untapped desires
Jul 28, 2018
Jul 28, 2018 at 6:34 PM UTC
My oh my , dear oh my
Why sole me , deliberate shy
Arrouse me in meself inner sanctum
To cause penises go wild erectum
Why me frail and naive
Touched and grabbed feels so tactile
Breached and pinched gets me unleashed
Fortold and shadowed narrows me leached
Oh how i humble and crumble for pain
Pleasuring may not be enough, but not in vain
Showering me until it rains
Pumping my blood through my veins
Widely and unique i scorge and emerge
Make me *** till i purge
Bright and shiny i humbely traverse
For a non-stoping reverse
Apr 6, 2010
Apr 6, 2010 at 3:54 AM UTC
there’s a network of vigilance
around the guarded causeway
of walla walla
the stacked cinders
and smoking rails
leave nothing
but black hooded fate
gray halls
and razor scrawls
mark the hellion crust
abandoned overtures
and dead fill
cloud the horror
and retribution
of this hell hole
bloaters and skin heads
(with wretched memoirs)
shout incessantly
from the second floor
adolphus greely
reading over the
rights of nantucket
and banging his head
on the bent steel bars
with pockets pinched
and tumblers dangling
the stone walls soften...
a seminal moment
crosses the roo house
as mother mary
and the good painted warrior
loosen a finely tuned grip
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 2:04 PM UTC
TRIGGER WARNING
They met at a dance recital.
His eerie blue eyes watched her, stalked her,
riveted by sinewy skin and the way her legs stretched and parted
skillfully, seductively: she knew how to captivate her audience.
They had mutual friends.
Her curiosity thirsted for more, for she had been taken
over by an empty lust, broken by another, but the way he spoke:
she felt as pretty as his charms sounded.
They went on a date.
He kissed her, pinched her, and spread those legs
that comprised his fantasies, not caring about the bruises he left
when he took off her lacey coverings, pinning her to the floor.
They learned more about each other.
She saw the empty, carnal look in his eyes, but her pleas
and shoves were not enough to lessen the weight of him, to push
his hands or his hips away, as he broke her over and over again.
They ended the night with a kiss.
He grabbed her face like a starving man grabs his first meal,
forcing an intimacy she could never get back, but he said,
“You liked it, didn’t you.”
They kept in touch.
She tried blocking his calls, his messages, asking her if she’d
come over to his place. Like the continuous force he prodded her with,
the pounding in her head beat out a thumping heart-line of no’s.
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 12:21 PM UTC
drenched in blue moonlight
I admired her through
the sheet of smoke
in the gap between us
Carefully I
swayed and our arms
greeted with a gentle graze
"I tend to see the glass as half empty–
sometimes completely."
Sudden words drew me
like water from a well
A cigarette pinched by
the uneven crescents of her lips
pulsated, her sallow face
awash in a delicious red glow
"Either way, it's a beautiful glass,
isn't it?"
time nonexistent
She fumbled another
to a faintly open mouth
I lit it in silence
Jun 30, 2016
Jun 30, 2016 at 11:23 PM UTC
curled in bed
eyes pinched tight
whole body trembling,
sleep escaped hours ago
this is how it is trying to talk to you.
like pulling teeth with pliers
clenched in a small boy's fist
a wry grin on his determined face,
knotted eyebrows will ache for days
like being pulled by a speedboat
tossing and turning in the wake
skin on my palms already gone
taking a breath, giving up, letting go,
crashing hard onto cold water's surface
like my chest giving out
every breath catching on its way in
hands digging through a too messy bag
inhaler nowhere in sight, help nowhere in sight,
breathing is too hard to handle right now
like a beach beyond the caves
crawling through at low tide,
sand gritty under fingernails, sun stinging on flushed cheeks
lounging on sharp boulders that dig between shoulder blades,
then rushing back home to escape being trapped for the night
toes tickled with goodbye kisses from the dark, growing waves
through missing teeth and breath,
under wrinkled sheets, and sand and water,
I can't hear anything.
I never could.
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 5:49 PM UTC
Spinning chairs, crashing
Dollars bills, in a G-string
Face hammering,
by sweaty sticky ***** cheeks
Plastic suitcases, held tightly
Chug your drink it's time to leave
Walk cautiously, drink powefully
Ting, ting, goes the machine
She winked at her, she pinched back
He said let's go
Their room opening
Laying, the mysterious women on the bed
He grabbed her hips
His wife watched, caressing her ****
Door goes cold
Sun shining brightly
Eyes being punctured into gaping holes
Cheesy over done smile, stepping into the livingroom floor
Perfect outstanding family
Morally hidden, detrimental corrupting
Their professional suits, look so clean
Appearance is everything
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 2:27 PM UTC
I dropped by my favorite place today, released another exhausted breath. My pants were bulging out and the fat kept me stretched out. I hate that feeling. My stomach turned into billowy waves of expectant marks, pinning through my outer skin. I hate that feeling. When I sit, my thigh provokes every nerve in my body. If she has thoughts, she'll be a demon whispering through the wind. My unkempt hair is spinning around like gravity does not exist. Somehow, I failed to sigh out the black smoke forming all over my body. My skin, when pinched, is like soft straps that cannot be withdrawn from their owner. My skin is like the skin of my ancestor—it keeps stretching widely, tirelessly, and unprovoked. My heart is tightening its grasp on me. God, please help me! My eyes! I swallowed all my tears away, but my reflection still reflects the dark hue of the moon. When it is sad, the moon exposes his true nature, just like rolled down skins on my neck. My hands go from gently holding my heart out of my chest to weighing the weight of my body. If I let out my thick heart, my body would be lighter and my skin would be a plethora of scars and clay. If I abandon thee and such a calloused body, art will find me beautiful, and that is one of the moon's other sides. It's thick and uncooked. The heavens may not forsake an insecure moon, but a woman hates her reflection when the moonlight lights on her flesh. "Mirror, mirror on the wall..." I called and they did not answer. I froze in my seat and waited until the sun bloomed and dried my tears. Yet I still could not breathe. I went into the sea and swam with the lonely whales. The sun reflected on the waters. I reached letter fourteen, but it was written by someone else. The ambience of the calm ocean washed over me. I released a breathy sigh, and the light went to take me.
Feb 1, 2022
Feb 1, 2022 at 1:28 PM UTC
Said the Prince unto his raven-haired Lady as he rode and galloped away,
He leaned back and this is what he had to say:
“Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.”
Jack O’Lantern prowls and haunts the frosted hills hunting to ****** for fresh meat.
This monster, this dark beast creeps down from upon the heath!
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.
“Where be the Lord of this warm and happy house?” says Jack O’Lantern with claws tapping.
“Gone to London town,” says the Nurse the coins from Jack receiving.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.
“Where be the lovely Lady of this house?” smiles Jack O’Lantern mouth full of jagged teeth.
“She’s in her red chamber,” says the Nurse asking for a treat.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.
“Where be the delightful baby of the house?” says Jack O’Lantern purring like a cat.
“Asleep in the cradle,” says the Nurse accepting Jack’s gold sack.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.
“We will pinch him, we will ***** him, we will stab him with a long pin!
Nurse, you will hold the basin for the blood all to run in.”
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.
So they pinched him and they pricked him, then they stabbed him with a very sharp pin.
The false Nurse did hold the basin for the blood all to run in.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.
“Lady, come down the stairs, come drink this tasty gin,” says Jack O’Lantern dripping sin.
“How can I see thee in the dark?” says the Lady unto him.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.
“I have silver bracelets and rings fashioned out of gold,” says Jack O’Lantern bowing.
“Lady, pray sail down the stairs and come see them glowing.”
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.
Down the stairs the radiant Lady gently glided without alarm, thinking there to be no harm.
Black-eyed Jack stood ready to snap her in his arms.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.
There is blood in the kitchen and blood on the chamber floor, there is blood also in the hall.
There is blood upon the open door and blood upon the wall.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.
There is slippery blood in the parlour and bedroom too where the Lady did slip and fall.
Now Jack will be caught and hanged and punished in hell’s hall.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.
And the false Nurse will be broken and burnt in the fire raging scarlet and black.
Said the Prince unto his Lady dead as he rode back:
“Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
O why did you unlock the door? My heart will now forever twist and turn!”
Mar 10, 2010
Mar 10, 2010 at 1:33 PM UTC
Oh, my dearest Egooooo!
When you can’t squeeze through the door,
so immense and entitled,
I tell myself,
“That’s enough!”
No more confetti and fireworks!
Haunting me over a lost chance.
The Magnificence of Doubt—
what if I were…
Soundless compliments
only to be pinched and ignored later.
From now on,
I celebrate my mediocre greatness
with a crown of fool’s gold on my head…
yet throne-less.
Some falls, invisible success,
and unfulfilled hopes,
which, surprisingly,
made me stronger.
Oh, the Irony of fate!
All these sleepless nights
for this Wisdom?!
Mar 2, 2025
Mar 2, 2025 at 7:35 PM UTC
The weight of the night is starting to settle on my shoulders
and everything is heavy and everything is breaking
And I’m honestly lying on the open carpet
Shifting between positions where I might not get sick
From a hangover of tears and sinking realizations
And my body aches badly where you pinched me too hard
Yes you’ve drawn some blood and left some scars
Yes you wanted too much and you clung too hard
But it’s proof that you played an equal part
And that you cared to stop about as terribly much as a brush fire
cares about leaving the earth un-charred.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 4:37 AM UTC
I want to possess you.
I want the quivering of your throne,
The trembling of your bones underneath me.
I want beautiful blood to bleed for me.
Reach for me from your place _beneath_ me.
Between my fingers
I want to feel the struggling breaths of your heart,
Pinched veins in your throat,
And your whimper like a sweet ****
In the dark...the dark.
The dark in my selfish eyes match the night.
The coo in my voice tells you it's fine...
Bruises ruin ruined skin,
I make you mine.
Thin nails along your jaw,
Devil's claw.
Say it now, say it raw:
You are mine.
Never let another come near,
Nor touch you, taste you.
Raging jealousy, I fear.
You are my pet who speaks when I say, my dear.
On the scent of musk, a predator's lust;
I must admit unsettling crime:
I'm tired of watching...
I'll make you mine.
Now beg for me.
Rope 'round your wrists,
Under my control.
You are darling like this.
Teeth leave starved greedy marks,
Labored torn lips and fingertips
Where the sweat pools in the dark...
The dark.
Apr 20, 2018
Apr 20, 2018 at 8:15 PM UTC
He stirs, slowly...
watching the spoon,
break the fog,
settling over his morning cup...
opalescent eyes,
scanning the sleepy blue,
of daytime horizons.
Porcelain fingers, shift
into hard, ceramic claws;
first smoothing up,
snuggly cotton pantlegs,
and then running them down,
forcing his navied thighs, to separate.
The fork, in the road,
as I crawl in, between them,
headlights, and a glossy smile,
on full beam.
He jerks, with surprise
at the unexpected motion,
lips, arrested in a subtle purse--
a pinched pink,
pouted gently, outwards
to blow away the steam
gathering, around tense fingers.
I mimic the tension,
with my own, slaking lips.
Hands shift,
to cup him,
and slide, upwards.
Suddenly, he needs two,
to grip the mug.
My tongue, slicks out,
wetly,
to follow his ascent,
as he stands, upright;
neapolitan soldier,
with the suede skin.
The heat,
gathers,
in my palms
flushing his thighs,
and it circulates, warmly
against flickering flesh;
mouth, moving limberly
to drink him,
under the table.
My feral eyes,
fix his drunken ones,
as we both take each other,
in.
"I hope you saved some cream, for me?
Good morning, honey."
Jun 13, 2025
Jun 13, 2025 at 10:02 AM UTC
two young hitchhikers
with big dumb cajun mouths
sinking below the roadside
in an abandoned cotton field
an oasis of sunkissed tractor parts
one in a ten gallon hat
the other wrapped up in barbed wire
two miles south of the state penitentiary
headed toward a pinched pachuco sunrise
onward, into the vortex.
Jan 18, 2012
Jan 18, 2012 at 7:20 AM UTC
We plucked eyebrows
from the clover.
Caterpillars
contracting as
we pinched each one
between our plump
baby fingers,
expanding as
we lined them on
each other’s arms—
wooly train cars.
They would ripple
blindly, segment
by segment, scoot
across the floor
of the rusty
coffee can we’d
prepared for them
so carefully—
braided hairs of
grasses, flowers,
twigs, stones and all—
a crude and cruel
imitation
of their clover,
but certainly
better, somehow.
We were sure.
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 4:04 PM UTC
I used to write about you so intensely, so determined that everything I said would somehow reach you and the ink would spill in your veins. I used to write about you with a pinched heart, an ache that never left my bones, and a crystal tear in each eye that never wanted to stroll down my cheeks. I used to write about you, hoping that the missing-you feeling would pass and that the visions in my head would be diminished if I just ******* wrote down how I felt.
We were partners in crime. We were our own Bonny & Clyde, but you decided to get away with Billie Jean. My hair is falling out and the tears are streaming like blood down a pure river. I flushed my rosary, the one you gave to me, down the toilet and now the toilet’s clogged and I don’t want to get out of bed to fix it. I don’t even want to call your brother plumber, but maybe I will and maybe I’ll ***** him and leave lipstick kisses on the places I would leave them on you.
I feel so sick when I get in this cycle, when I start writing about you again and when everything just spills out of the glass. But I still write about you because the therapist tells me to.
Jul 9, 2016
Jul 9, 2016 at 2:07 PM UTC