"pummeling" poems
In a sermon, the preacher says:
*"The Lord created us in his image,
all who desecrate themselves
too destroy a part of God."*
I've murdered pets and
alphabetised people by
sense and style and laughs like
a rack of dresses.
I've kissed girls just because
they said they could never like me
like that
as if their lips were some
sacred maiden's blush and not
a pair of fleshy rims.
As if I couldn't read their
***** little lesbian fantasies
underneath those
angel faces.
Susan from accounting thinks I need
to see a therapist. I think she needs to see
a mirror. We don't really get along, but ****
maybe if drink enough
these clocks
these blue collars
these billboards with the pearly white teeth
won't look like straightjackets anymore.
I have this thing where
sometimes I'm just so tired
of being a body.
The world's a ******* advertisement,
Everyone with their scripted
good mornings and
chemical feelings
down to the last **** t.
My skin is a cage
and I'll strip it off like
a *****
Why be happy when you
could be interesting?
Love like a bluejay,
Fists in our stomachs-
The headlights of a car coming
at 80 miles an hour straight at you,
pummeling in a stream of light.
The taste of a cigarette after
it's been on someone else's lips.
Don't you dare tell me you understand.
When I tell her this
my therapist only smiles,
Darling it's only purgatory.
Allen knew. Nietzsche knew. Woolf knew.
In all our hearts-
We've already killed God.
Dec 14, 2018
Dec 14, 2018 at 2:49 PM UTC
I tore the fabric of space
Interrupting my affectionate stalking
Spurts of longing, interspersed
with spasms of premature *****
In vain, hankering to attain that next level rush
*Oh you're a ***** girl aren't you*
That's when I was discovered...
Her shrieks royally flushing my cheeks with shock
-Superseded by pallid chagrin
I fumble to bail,
Pants entrenched around my ankles
Premeditative,
Of absent-mind, in haste
Prime directive a method of escape
Evasion failing
Detection:
Imminent
Reflecting a grim lack of circumspection,
accursed **********
Trying to conceal my turgid ********
Her father particularly beyond reason
And not fond of my indecency for his daughter
Proceeds pummeling me to death with my beloved binoculars
Devoid of clairvoyance;
I am coincidentally sent
outward toward oblivion
Bon voyage through the portal
Falling facefirst into an abysmal wormhole
Its then I voyaged backward through time
To the moment of Creation
And witnessed the universe
**** itself from naught to existence
Spewing forth such cataclysmic splendor
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 10:48 PM UTC
I remember tottering
in too-high heels,
and rolling through
the Hollywood Hills.
I remember the tide,
pummeling the pier,
as your saline lips
pressed against my cheek.
I remember coffee
and candy apples
and cole slaw
and swisher sweets.
I remember
mellow-minded sugar drops
and static-energy power pills.
I remember your smell
on my skin
and your tingle
on my tongue.
Jul 1, 2011
Jul 1, 2011 at 7:55 AM UTC
I am the lust of the universe
longing to know itself
I am the thoughts like a cascading stream
water pummeling the rock of my soul
molding, shaping, forming, conforming
I am the peace of the bamboo forest
a society of shoots
shades of green solitude
standing together, clunking hollow,
serene, transfixing parallel angles, mesmerizing
obscuring the gaze beyond, reflecting within
drops drip and fall with a shake
I am the child throwing sand into the ocean,
jumping from the rushing water
challenging fate with a raised fist and a laugh to do his worst
I am the dancer in the waves
lifted by the tides
pirouetting in the current
I am the red stone cliff on the sea shore
sovereign stratum carved
growing with green, lush yet hard
I am the buttressed black lava rock
standing in the water, remote and mysterious
accepting time and erosion, jagged
I am the new sun rising red
arising from the mountain mist swirling on the ocean
ascending from the clouded horizon
a grand illusion of motion, perception, the seer
I am the beach wood
fallen from the trees standing
as sentinels to the ebb and flow
laughing in silence with the wind and the sound of tides whooshing
I am the surfer
riding the energy of the earth
slicing across the liquid wall face
I am the flag of men
unifying and dividing
I am the sand welcoming water and feet
soft as creamy butter
I am the mother and the son
replenishing, trailing, following, playing, watching
sharing belly buttons
I am the butterfly gliding on the Kona wind
wandering immortal
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 8:05 PM UTC
She doesn’t let herself think about it anymore. She has a schedule now, a timetable, something that might look like a life if you don’t scratch the surface too hard.
Wake up, call the hospital. Tend her garden, call the hospital. Get driven to the hospital and sit with Dean for hours, hours, hours, go home, cry. Lather, rinse, repeat. The only thing that changes in her life is the sky and the inversion it brings.
She walks on the sky when it clouds, because it’s more solid and sure under her feet than the traitorous ground that swallowed her children whole.
She bargains when it rains, to God or Big Brother or Allah or the deity of the day, because if the Jehovah’s Witnesses are right and their god is a merciful god, He will give her family back.
Once there was an earthquake and she smiled so wide she thought her face would hurt, stood between two rickety, heavy bookcases, prayed that she would die.
The most tragic part of her life is that she doesn’t. She knows this, knows it runs through the marrow of every bone in her body, which has to be why they all ache when they see the sunrise, as if to say another day, another tragedy .
Today she wakes before the sun and hugs her knees to her chest, sits there for a good three hours after he’s called the hospital and heard the same thing as always - the only thing that changes in her life is the sky - “We’re sorry, Mrs. N----, he’s the same.” Every day it’s the same, the same, the same-
-but that doesn’t make it any easier.
Same dingy cab, same crotchety driver, same stale cigarette smell. She lets herself smoke in here because if she’s lucky that’ll **** her first, but she doesn’t fool herself into believing that. Her luck ran out the moment she heard that shot from the door, heard her husband scream and saw all the blood staining the foyer-
But she’s not thinking about that. She’s smoking and she’s listening to the sound of the tires pummeling the ground mercilessly and she’s thinking maybe I should be that ground and she’s not making much sense at all, because she doesn’t sleep anymore and she thinks she might be halfway to insane by now.
They pull up outside the hospital. She’s always surprised her feet haven’t worn a track in the ground yet that leads straight to Dean’s room. She supposes she doesn’t need one.
She pushes the door open and the spark of hope he can never suppress dies with a silent scream, because Dean is the same, her life is the same, she’s the same and the same and the same and she hates it.
Sep 22, 2012
Sep 22, 2012 at 9:02 PM UTC
She's this insatiable urge
gaining on me,
like a herd of horses
galloping in the treachery of the wild,
their muscles brushed to a shine
rippling down their calves
to embrace the ground
beneath their ironed hooves
shaking it up, tormenting its calm,
whipping up tremors
that know no chains and travel far.
When she's around
dust and sweat break free
with muscles aching in symphony
the heart is all worked up
like a boiler room in heat
pummeling all of its adrenaline
in one fleeting indulgence
which the universe with all its hatcheries
is itching to contain
before the raging tides in
and floods my world.
She's the elusive horizon
used to passionate chases
and the sly azure lunging at it
for one sweet glimpse of the cleavage where it conjoins with the earth
looking for Elysium that never is.
Ah! But that is what it is
for the tamed to think of love
is an impossibility
for it grows in the wild
separated by a hundred chasms
and a million mazes
waiting for a fool to cross over.
When she isn't around
the rumpled sheets tell our story
for it has seen the storms
that raged in the cavernous nights
and filled up balmy noons
with the savagery of love
still crackling like embers of fire
which have seen better days,
and, light up still, with a death wish
to tell of our smouldering lives
that thrived in spasms of our last breath.
Sep 9, 2018
Sep 9, 2018 at 11:59 AM UTC
Blinded by the sunlight that shines so brightly,
it proceeds to massage my spectacles,
rinsing the grime away from my eyes,
there lived mankind, buildings, plants, and animals,
but where was I, unaware of the planet I saunter,
I look in amazement, unborn to what to forecast,
but then I distinguished the dark side, somber and bleak,
impoverished skeletons walking hunchbacked, desperately
scrambling for silver, as so to purchase a bottle of liquor and a burger to indulge his vacancy that absents him,
as I trek my way further into this metropolis,
I hear a sudden commotion arising from the right direction,
it begins to steer me that way, luring me in deeply there was a mass of onlookers chanting on, of what seemed to be two individuals pummeling one another into a bloodbath, but then it escalated, the crowd began to all partake in the beating and it caused a mayhem, that was uncontrolled, I bolted the scene, protecting my mask from getting dismantled, as suddenly I hear a very deafening noise, it was a four wheeler wagon, that speedily amtrac it's way towards the locus in which we was in, everyone scattered the scene, as the people who dressed in uniform annihilated the scene, putting an outright stop to the madness that occurred, forestalling future procreation from the participants, my heart shriveled and I gasped for air, I ran aimlessly into a town that was lively and sunny, as I saw mankind playing sports, clubbing, riding nice convertibles, homes were futuristic, plants were vegetated, smiles and giggles were infectious, everyone was cheerful and amused enjoying this utopian I discovered, it was care-free, as folks walked in suit and ties, formal dresses, luggages entering and exiting, dialect as clear as caribbean sea, friendly animals chaperoned by their owner, "where am I?", "what was this strange but yet interesting soil I embark on?", ..... I don't know, but it closes me in like a maze and I'm forced to live as they.
Aug 25, 2018
Aug 25, 2018 at 4:12 PM UTC
I first remembered years ago,
At twenty-something,
Speeding along in a 240Z
With my father.
Apropos of nothing,
I suddenly remembered it all,
The pain, fear, chases
And flights up stairs,
Only to have her catch me,
And feel the pummeling fists
Like a mad horse’s hooves,
Treading me down.
Back in the present,
My father was admiring trees
As we buzzed past them,
Unaware of the storm beside him.
She wore him down too
In a different way,
With constant denigration.
Over the years I watched
As he shrank way to
A painful, infested brain.
Unlike me, he had no defense,
Loving her as he still did.
It was as if he chose cancer
instead of anger or rebellion.
I had raged against her
And stood tall from childhood
To the now, when thunderheads
Rose from me above her.
Long ago, she had been
The random bolts from the blue,
Causing pain but not killing.
Now I am the storm,
Gathering over years,
Sweeping up heat and vapor
Sending and receiving energy.
The lightning bolts are truth
And their pain is admission,
Though never bringing remorse.
I am the storm warning her to run,
While knowing that she never will.
Edited October 2, 2021
Apr 3, 2022
Apr 3, 2022 at 5:03 PM UTC
.
*The sensual caress
twilight mist impearled flesh
alighting a feral desire
within blossoming spring petals
The newness of uncovered skin
a sweetness on unsated lips ,
the taste of passion and salty *******
with hastened breath
sighs do brush with warm ****** breeze
across my naked chest
wild feathers sweeten
tender touch
... emanating
sensual awakenings
Arousing buried desires
unable to hold back
constant cravings
the inevitable currents
pummeling shameless floodgates
with arising untamed springtides swell
Fleshly enslaved yen --
energy sprouts tingling sensations
nascent buds blossoming deeply
flourishing exploding flames
bursting flush
... deliciously white hot
In an unstoppable carnal moment
passion betides
like the surging sea ;
Rising and falling crescendos
unleashed waves crashing ,
drowning in the rhythmic undertow
interlaced bodies heaving adrift in the moment
like entangled seaweeds
in a riptide
as the rolling thunder storm
dances across invigorated tides
with a surging cadence of cresting waves bloom
caught in the Rhythm and the Sea*
✩ ✩ ☼ ✩ ✩
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 8:23 PM UTC
There is no closure.
Death joins and veers life's flow
We continue
stumbling, sliding, climbing
each stage as best we can.
I cannot know depth or breadth
of your grieving path
Shamed I believed I could
Nor can I know my own
until it rises
flooding body and mind
pummeling down
I cannot map its course
only know there is no closure.
Feb 20, 2013
Feb 20, 2013 at 5:20 PM UTC
against my face and ears.
Forever pummeling the
inflections across my jaw
like a teacher who is overworked
and underloved.
Oct 20, 2012
Oct 20, 2012 at 6:05 PM UTC
Skipping ropes tied to lamp posts
hopscotch was another for girls
I'd try to work out the rules
but dare not ask, nor yet even
be seen to be showing interest
sometimes I'd be invited
to join in girls play
I could hold the rope
while others skipped
but had not the grace
or the agility to skip
at all well myself
there were role play games
of families with dolls
proudly displayed
tenderly nursed
and I would be offered
the role of 'daddy'
though I had no clue
of how to do that
having no father myself
so I would be told
to arrive home from work
to sit in my chair
to put on my slippers
to smoke my pipe
to hear tales of misbehaviour
by the children
and I would be amused
but would be told firmly
that I must be stern with them
then when that was done
to eat my tea and afterwards
to sit watching the telly
distracted from the game
that continued around me
or to go out to the pub
and I thought that
fathers must be
the most boring of people
The rough and tumble
was not for me
why would some boy think
he could throw me down
straddle me, pummeling
overpower and hold me there
trapped, despite my struggles
I learned early that
scratching, biting,
flailing, kicking
were not permitted
nor were tears
yet I shed them still
and screamed and scratched
and bit and flailed
if I could not avail
myself of natural defences
generally expected of girls
then why should my attacker
receive no more than
mild admonishment, if that
while I'd be advised
to "toughen up"
and the goading
carried on relentlessly
"you run like a girl"
"you throw like a girl"
"you kick the ball like a girl"
"you fight like a girl"
as though doing those things
like a girl were demeaning
Cynthia Pauline Jones 30/10/13
Mar 15, 2014
Mar 15, 2014 at 9:35 AM UTC
It's 11:11 make a wish
Look out the spotty window
See all the frowns
And boring towns
See how powerful the words we use are
They can cut deep
Deeper than the most violent assault
Buildings and obelisks of befuddlement
Pressed for time
Lemon scented tiles
Scrubbed
No mold
Personal preference
Common courtesy
And common sense
Scarce but invaluable
A face only a mother could love
And a father can lie to
Coulda
Woulda
Shoulda
Didn't
Searching for carrion
Give way
To the wayside
ECNALUBMA
In the rear view
The worms eat us
The early birds catch the worms
The cat nabs the worm
After being resurrected by satisfaction
And the night owl writes the tell-all
Put the ear to glass
Put the glass to the door
And listen closely
To sound of knuckles cracking
And the chattering of coffee shop patrons
Indian givers going back on their word
Fingerless gloves
Prim and proper
Promptly pummeling
Tunneling to tomorrow
Well done
Slim to none
Fat chance
The local native's tongue
Sold fresh and farm raised
On any given day
You can find demi-gods
Playing a a pick up game
Matchbook
Matchbox
Mismatch socks
Pick up sticks and stretchmarks
Just stay the night
So we can wish this all away together
It's 11:12 open your eyes
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 1:22 PM UTC
lightning, thunder
pummeling droplets of rain
vicious, forceful hurricane winds
sweeping, spinning
swept violently away
whipping, ******
dragging me
a helpless rag doll
tugged around
- by my ravaged soul
dizziness, nausea
fractional-seconds, flashes of light
circling; bewilderment
world rushing past
lost in this predicament
having been carried away
so far away
prisoner of this whirlwind
fearsome, raging tempest
powerful and raw
mercilessly desecrated
mindless ****** of innocence
inescapable prison walls
captive of this sociopathic entity
hopeless enslavement
****** over-burdened
foul irony, my fate
- my only companion
pressing, constant reminder
I AM TO BLAME
chained to my own
passionless, encroaching storm -
this loathsome
jerking, twisting, spasm-wracked
hurricane monster
a destroyer -
- my destroyer!
homicidal goddess of obliteration
that I have made
I am my own
storm slave
Oct 18, 2011
Oct 18, 2011 at 10:28 PM UTC
You were far away.
Farther than halfway across the room,
A glass in your hand and that crooked smile
Rising like the sun on your face.
I was swimming-
Maybe drowning in a sea of people.
He was trying to talk to me-
About the every days that composed of
Almost nothings.
I swear I felt my skin wrinkle in my
Little black dress
And my toes pinch in
My high heels.
I told myself it was worth it.
He said I was beautiful
But I look across the room
And your eyes don't meet mine.
Each time I look at you and
You don’t notice me,
I feel myself taking a step into
The inevitable stairs of
Heartbreak.
I danced all night with him-
He taught me how to waltz in squares
And spin in turns.
His hands fit into my curves
Like those plastic cylinders
That build towers and cities.
But I still felt it didn’t belong there.
Your hands
I bet would fit like roots into
My earth
And this would beat any hundred story
Building because it was natural.
He might have disagreed with that
And at one point through that night
So did I.
If my heart was beating a thousand times
Per second and
My palms rained over my knees
And my cheeks were apples ready to
Be picked every time you passed by,
Surely that isn’t natural.
Slowly, I was pummeling
As the night neared its end.
I had not danced with you.
I had not talked to you.
I had not even walked by you
And yet I could have.
But with a heart beating as loud as mine
I didn’t want to risk you hearing it.
One thing for sure though,
I know was completely natural,
Was goodbye.
It was going to happen
And most say that it's the worst moment
Of any night
But honestly,
I had fallen in love with our goodbye.
Good night wasn’t enough but your
Tan rays of light blooming the roses
In my cheeks,
Proved you to be a source of life.
Mar 6, 2014
Mar 6, 2014 at 9:11 AM UTC
Theanine mornings
A cup of coffee
two
three
Counteracting, a balance
Sunbeams pummeling
My hands
And a thunderstorm
Raging outside
It's a beautiful day
The skies are grey
But the world is alight
It's alright
I am
alright
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 11:04 AM UTC
I flip words like pancakes
The residue left on that plate
Is gold to an orphan in that state.
Paranoid none the less I express my deepest regrets, 24 and still in school why hasn't the fool finished yet?
let the negative wave it's sword with a threat, taunting and poking at me, threatening to take it from me. These words are what I have left, now I'm left in this state of worry...did I leave patience in a hurry?
Is my purpose to fear the future & forget what is truly worthy?
Step in my mind and you'll find that my demons flurry
for this friction is not fictitious, but a depiction fury
pummeling perseverance...just pass no interference,
because those who try to catch look devilish in appearance.
I'm a rebel with a spirit of a tiger running free, from a jungle that is
Huddled by gravel and it's street. Now can't you see that we all live inside of Places that are neat? Organized by a function that's constructed yet Unique
let these rooted words form like branches on a tree, then be seen in deep vistas Equally open seas.
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 12:07 AM UTC
I want it to be night.
I want it to be raining.
Sitting in the stale car, looking through the rain-glossed windows
The raindrops cut through the thin steam emanating from the headlights and dapple in the glow
The rain shivers through my jacket;
Sleeps against my skin
Add: the cold plastic steering wheel, cracked by time and use
Add: the dead air of the car, increasingly humid
Add: the faint sound of our breathing
Add: the quickly fogging glass
The roof is alive with the pummeling, dancing drops and their reflection from the grim black steel and the memories of summer still living in the peeling paint and the time that we sat on your car and dented it but we told your mom it was a falling branch
These memories die into a regular, irregular cut-time autumn jig
I try to sync, but only sink.
You've found the key.
The car starts and we drown in the din.
Sep 19, 2012
Sep 19, 2012 at 11:00 PM UTC
On the beach
waves collide with the shore,
coming from above
and slamming down
battering the sand.
As the ocean retreats back into itself
it claws the beach
and rips away its skin.
Clouds
huddle together and through sheer mass,
hue black.
Screams
bellows
and the pummeling sound of behemoths in disrest.
Tiny daggers drop from the riot,
denting the crust,
softening it.
And finally
the sand is pierced
by the feet of a hundred stampeding tourists,
failing to outrun the bullets
of a ****** in a rage.
Jan 31, 2010
Jan 31, 2010 at 7:52 PM UTC
there was a girl who was tired from working too much.
she pleaded for the work to stop but it just kept coming.
drowning, drowning she felt like she couldn’t even breathe.
sleep didn’t even help her escape the immense responsibilities she had on her shoulders.
they keep coming.
they keep pummeling her.
they keep asking more of her.
she is spending herself.
she is spent.
she is exhausted.
she needs a break.
she needs to rest.
but rest is elusive.
she can’t stop working.
she has to keep on working and keep on going.
staying strong?
what does that even mean.
strength is all she has.
she relies on herself alone.
Mar 10, 2021
Mar 10, 2021 at 9:15 PM UTC
Like wings on the thumb;
If you pay attention, they flutter in your chest
Like waves on the lips;
Tumultuous, pummeling, magnetizing,
Still.
And then words, not a covenant, but a confirmation
of intentions
Like the nuzzle of a rabbit, push
1 2 3
And part for breath to move through
Jan 20, 2019
Jan 20, 2019 at 9:26 PM UTC
Insomnia drips, then floods,
stealing your dreams,
like someone building dams,
diminishing rivers to streams.
Hangovers steal the nights,
that you wish weren't quite over,
pummeling your head with pain
as you wake up slightly sober.
Pretty girls flood in and flood out,
stealing your thoughts as they travel,
revealing the mystique
that you were too quick to unravel.
The grunge street people lower their eyes,
as you steal a glance.
What you don't realize your stealing is their pride,
as you stride by in your iron pressed pants.
The night steals the day,
in a colorful sunset.
Only to let the sun rise up once again
as if filled with regret.
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 1:15 AM UTC
When you look through the pummeling rain,
you see her standing there.
Her polka-dot red dress soaking wet,
as is her hair.
But when you reach out for her,
she disappears.
Nothing scares more,
than what you fear.
The fear of losing everything,
losing her.
Like having the world there,
in the palm of your hand,
only to drop it in the sewer.
And the grate is just to thin for you to reach in.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 10:36 AM UTC
Thinking back towards my childhood, remembering those tiny moments that broke my spirit. Conformity, the pressures of this square peg to fit into those round holes; barriers that put my agility in stasis forcing my mind to endure constant pummeling from both friends and foes. I was too afraid to stand up and embrace confrontation; those “reindeer games” that I didn't know how to play.
I believe, everything happens for a reason, even when the reason is ignorant. The days become years, rolling with the changing seasons yet the moments mimic one another. Surely there are lessons to learn within the complexity of triviality, the child becoming the adult still tethered to burden of ********
There’s this feeling of déjà vu again; the journey is filled with course corrections, navigation through expectations and recommendations to appease values not my own. The plaguing sense of accommodation to avoid confrontation becomes the eulogy at my funeral procession. Maybe it’s time to stop moving and let that thing I am most fearful of pull me into the center of chaos; to sit in the belly of the whale and let it all go.
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 9:21 PM UTC