Prizefight poems on Hello Poetry

Shane Hunt Sep 2012

Words washed over me:
past the point of no return,
catching clarity at the elbow.

Arms limp at my sides,

a pugilist after 8 rounds with Ali,
suddenly realizing
he had been conserving his energy
while I hurled hay-makers
at uplifted gloves,

none of my hate hit home.

She spoke the knock-out blow
     or, the ghost of her voice...

"You have to admit to yourself
that ******* a stranger's
the only way you can hide anymore."

You only start listening
    after exhausting your arsenal.

The void of
       my mouth
swallowed her sentiments.

  I took up the
      empty husk of her heart
  to make it my home,
            just to have a memento--

holding on to anything.

     On the ropes,
  disoriented,
skipping chapters to
  take in the denouement
only to forget the characters' names.

But I couldn't ignore how
she closed the door;

Gently-
not a slam
screaming passion, energy.

No.

The door and jamb met resignedly--
children who can no longer play with one another.

Kyle Kulseth Feb 2015

Blueprint

City limit space expands,
it's threaded through with veins--
grey-black dendritic strands
                                     span
                        across this moldy brain
of a city.
Our rotting nights spray hits around
           the places players play.
The impulses will whitewash all complaints
'til the glaring day.

I wanna spit-shine every storm drain,
stain the cracked sidewalks in white,
take this town to Sunday morning Mass,
though she was born for Friday nights.

We're gonna trickle past addresses
                                                   now,
Electroshock through habit streets
these crosswalks sneer with snide expression.
Mildewed thoughts we'll hardly think.
A conversation you're repressing
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow
Another weekend's blurred out
blank confession
melts off the tips of tongues,
          I can taste it now.

Circulation space expands,
we're threaded through with veins--
this bio-asphalt plan
                           spans
              all through this molded frame
of a body.
But rotten thoughts, like ships aground,
                   teach sailors how to pray
when impulses have buried all complaints
'neath the foaming spray.

I wanna shade out every bruise now,
paint the dumpsters all in gold.
Missoula, listen: You're a lady.
I don't give a **** what you've been told.

A moldy brain dreams slattern makeup
for a prizefight town each night
so let's take up every artist's brush,
paint shadows on these barroom eyes.

We're gonna flow right through these boule-
                                                                    vards.
Electroshock through habit streets.
These dim lit yards and spoiled thoughts
are hyphens placed between each week.
A conversation you're repressing,
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow.
Our city's made-up face is running
off the tips of winter and I taste it now.

#metaphor #brain #space #town #city #lady #place #montana #mold #missoula

Mary McCray Apr 2015

30 Poems About Suffering: The Empathy Gap

(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 23, 2015)

The tendency to underestimate the influence or strength of feelings, in either oneself or others.

The intellectual stone:
intrepid bravado,
indissoluble substance of certitude,
the very matter of suffering
unable to dissolve its own errors
and miscalculations of how we are.

Unmovable, it burns in the sun.
It sinks in the stream and rolls
only when the other stones roll.
We love our stones. We do.
But what about the rock’s soft
cradle of soil, the embrace of earth.

Goodwill we say, (because love
implies too much), is a practice,
a radial gradient of feeling
gripping, like a muscle, the joy
and sifting go of the hard ache,
the tight cerebral prizefight ropes,
the square platform comprising a ring,
soft gong that ends the quarrel
which was always only
gray canvass in the brain.

New Study Finds Mindfulness Therapy As Effective As Meds Against Depression Relapse (Huffington Post)

#napowrimo #napowrimo2015bd

Camellia-Japonica Apr 2014

Fighting writing.

My need to write is like a prizefight
One scribe, one pen enters the book
Hopefully hundreds will turn up for a look!
If not the fight hasn't been in vain, I'll probably
realise my pomposity, at pretending to be a prodigy!

Consciously though I prophesy this, my right wrist
in all honesty, couldn't conduct a pen to solve a mystery!
Yet, still my need to scribble words overtakes sense,
hence, at the pretence of being a poet, I actually don't know it!
That last bit rhymed!

#poetry #silly

matthew scott harris Sep 2018

Aftermath Of Hurricane Florence

Florence hydra logical might -
tee pseudo tentacles, monstrous sight
didst bring watery plight,
deluge rivaling Noah - bliss oblige
     epic flood of biblical
     proportions, downright
terrible, re:, a drowning egregious fright
ten ning (in contest

     able uber catastrophe) - Don know why
     das trumpeting spare none, tossing,
     pitching, and lap
     ping blithely alight
ting across geography of thee
     Old North State leaving affright
full trail of destruction, (envied by
     the ghost of General

     William Tecumseh Sherman),
     he no match, where battling
     mortal men didst bite
the bullet outflanked,
     sans doodling Yankees topflight
capstone march to the sea,
     then touted as outright
masterful stroke, asper,

     turning tide of historical Civil war,
     which swath of indiscriminate overnight
destruction in tandem
     followed his Georgia quick step,
     successful Atlanta battle, fight
     ten, which campaign
     rendered victory in sight
Union accorded devastated country

     as winning *****, viz prizefight
ting champions clearly, grimly,
     and lamentably plunged
     once promisingly emergent
     then vanquished Confederacy
     with defeat written
     in figurative bombsight,
qua Rebels surrendering

     at lanced armstrong
     rapier pointed to Appomattox Court House
     original United States territory
     initially indigenous copyright,
stolen, whence ark enemy
     routed, killed, and decimated
     blood brethren human kind -
versus present natural disaster

     no matter meteorologists foresight,
nonetheless horrendously cruel debacle
     crushing The Tar Heel state
     trouncing analogously
     as aqueous blight
**** hellacious sight
tropical storm forcibly reclaiming
     visa vis re

     discovered primacy birthright
(i.e. revanchist deeded sic - seeded),
what "she," viz Mother Nature
     felt tubby "her" right,
bar no holds Gaia
     pulled out all stops
     punishingly ravaged North Carolina
     mercilessly didst wring

havoc bore out flooding
     and proved accurate "NON
     FAKE" fervent devout
     alarmist theologians
     appropriating weather forecasters dire
     prediction as doomsday message
     fore taste testing, telling, and texting
     presaging Armageddon authored

     by cosmic playwright,
whence global pulverizing,
     savaging, and torturing spite
     fully sucker punching
     swing, perhaps indicative dire strait
(a hunch from this topflight
atheist) posits ultraright
religionists possibly ascribe
     divine creator a bit uptight.

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