"pummelled" poems
Light train chugging, working to outrun
Over exerting, pulling along your freight
Sand is running out under the diminishing sun
Fastidiously you tug on your enormous weight
Segmented equal in seven hulking proportions
Weaving between sleeping rocky giants
Assertion in your drive gifted from the high heavens
Borne of light your cargo load of tenants
Silver blurred rays glinting back as reply
As you power your way through
Defying seconds, before the last rays should die
Against odds, delivering what is due
Questing to alleviate my inflicted darkness
Spear of brilliance slicing through my mind
Illuminating the farthest and tiniest of crevices
Nook and crannies that willed me blind
Careful manoeuvring to keep your balance
Through scenic views fraught with treachery
Furiously working to keep your cadence
Hopeful of unloading the load you carry
What lies dormant in that cargo of yours?
What sleeps easy within those boxcars?
What stokes the fire to diligently run your course?
What promises you bear, travelling near and far?
Bales of hope and crates of strength
Supplies of kindness and self-worth
Reside within your immense length
Intact and lay quiet within your formidable girth
Reliant on the light that fuels and feeds
Your axles seem tireless guiding forth those wheels
Thundering over land with the power of a thousand steeds
Armed to your teeth with alloys and steels
Expelling grit and dirt as you pummelled across
Grey-white fumes, shoot up to the sky
Flag flogged by wind, billow and toss
Blaring your whistle as you race on by
Propelling forward, horizon up ahead
There it is...in all its tenebrous glory
Darkened locomotive seething mad with dread
Brace for the clash and the loads the two carry
Sep 28, 2014
Sep 28, 2014 at 8:03 AM UTC
He almost let out a sigh of dismay,
Knowing this stint would be short lived.
The common sense in his head seemed to say,
"No one could be this lucky, don't have yourself deceived".
His wheels wobbled and shook; squeaked and wailed,
Under the collective weight of the two.
Screaming threats from worn bearings that ailed,
He did not want to appear weak so his legs pummelled on through.
The ease of cycling was only temporary
He pedalled harder to gain more speed.
Then the ground began to slope gently
His lungs felt like bursting as he pounded his iron steed.
The journey uphill had been more laborious than he had expected.
All the while, the beauty hadn't uttered a single word.
His mind had drifted off even though he was worn and ragged,
The thought of emerging as a couple seemed less than absurd.
The crest of the hill was a cool, long anticipated welcome.
He could finally ease up on the pedalling.
The view from there was nothing short of handsome,
The downhill would take charge and he could catch up on his breathing.
The wind met his face and whistled itself tuneless.
The bicycle rattled as it rolled down the uneven trail.
He felt a sense of flight, there was an air of calmness,
Almost had forgotten about the quiet guest on his tail.
At the bottom he thought he should check on his passenger,
He looked ahead as he addressed the lady.
When he had expected an almost immediate answer,
No response came, despite his calls for her repeatedly.
He pedalled with little effort as if there wasn't added weight
The bicycle slowed down to a clearing where it was dim.
Fatigue was setting in as the night stretched late
His curiosity won the battle and got the better of him.
He stopped his bicycle and maintained balance with his feet,
He twisted his torso so he could speak to his fare.
The moment he did so, his heart had almost ceased to beat,
To his horror, he found that the lady was no longer there...
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 12:00 AM UTC
(for Cyril Connolly)
The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.
Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.
Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.
Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.
Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.
Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.
Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.
4.8k
on the ropes: pummelled;
somehow, he stays on his feet:
the bell ends the round!
Aug 20, 2021
Aug 20, 2021 at 12:07 PM UTC
Two silhouettes muttered through cigarette smoke next to the tall, black double doors at the head of the corridor
unfazed by the white rectangles flickering above us. The doors parted
next thing I knew, I was in
a black box of four tall black walls, and a clammy black floor
made of the same padded fabric as the entrance doors.
Riotous bass pummelled through the room like a tortured bull.
There were hundreds of people here; maybe more
but they were all lying docile, faceless and still
against each other.
They were all young. I picked up an inconsistent rhythm of chests rising and falling
like ripples ushered across the sea by a gentle breeze.
Yet it was the overwhelming sense of flesh here that
lit a snarling viciousness within me. How it excited me and how
I feared it.
I was a butcher, afraid of what he could do.
I saw someone I recognised – her brown hair was tied back, her eyelashes
twitched in her slumber. I stepped over and sat behind her. She pulled herself closer to me
and kissed my cheek. I buried my face in her neck and placed my palm on her bare stomach
took my index finger, and ran a circle around her navel.
I can’t remember what happened after that. Images slip through like
water in cupped hands.
But I remember the raw beat, and the gentle ripple of chests
and how it reminded me of the sleeping new-borns in a maternal ward.
Sep 7, 2015
Sep 7, 2015 at 10:59 AM UTC
We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell
Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.
Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime,
Kept slush waist-high and rising hour by hour,
And choked the steps too thick with clay to climb.
What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men
Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,
If not their corpses...
There we herded from the blast
Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last,
Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles,
And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping
And sploshing in the flood, deluging muck -
The sentry's body; then his rifle, handles
Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.
We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined
'O sir, my eyes - I'm blind, - I'm blind, I'm blind!'
Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids
And said if he could see the least blurred light
He was not blind; in time he'd get all right.
'I can't' he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids',
Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there
In posting Next for duty, and sending a scout
To beg a stretcher somewhere, and flound'ring about
To other posts under the shrieking air.
* * *
Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,
And one who would have drowned himself for good, -
I try not to remember these things now.
Let dread hark back for one word only: how
Half-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps,
And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,
Renewed most horribly whenever crumps
Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath, -
Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
'I see your lights!' But ours had long died out.
2.5k
Beneath the water lived a nymph, beautiful as
A flower, if you like woman with petals
Growing from out of their face
And lips adorned with myriad metals
Moving silently with infinite grace.
Fishermen who caught her, in alarm
Tossed her back with dismayed cries
Fearful that she would do them harm
When she exposed her fangs, darting from her eyes,
Forked tongues from each palm.
But apart from all that, she was a delightful creature
As proud as a catwalk model
Sexuality impressed into each feature
Death in each cuddle,
Poison injected from each freshly opening suture.
At the sea’s dark bottom lived the nymph
Devouring fish raw, terrifying sharks and barracuda,
Dining on shellfish and prawns for lunch;
Darting amongst Angel Fish and eels, a hungry aficionada,
Tearing into shreds what she could not crunch.
Gentle with her own kind until coition
Was complete, when if hungry she devoured
Her temporary mate without undue consideration,
No please or thank you. Feeling duly empowered
By her actions, as confirmed by her explosive, acrid indigestion.
No longer young, her children dead,
She glides through the water from China to France
A preposterous seaweed hat upon her head
And in several places, impaling her scaly flesh a serrated coral branch.
Her sartorial taste filling even the sharks with fin-quaking dread.
The last of the kind. The others are (literally) toast.
Protected by animal charities here and abroad
She gladly subsists on ambitious swimmers who venture far from the coast
All she can now catch or afford.
A capricious tyrant until the last, when, victim of a fisherman’s boast
She was hoist up like iniquitous cod
Out of the sea, paraded on the deck while she struggled for breath.
Shot at. Abused. Poked and speared with a steel tipped rod,
Dragged into the harbour, pummelled close to death.
Screaming out, as she in unexpected agony died: “I thought, I truly thought, I was god!”
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 2:06 PM UTC
A singer died
when he and I
were twenty five.
I think I found out
some weeks later,
playing his album to a friend.
"He's the one that died, isn't he?
Fell out a window?"
I was sorry
but unaffected.
I'd seen him on T.V.,
thought he sounded
a bit like me,
bought the CD.
Sixteen years on
I am pummelled with nostalgia
for a blithely immortal age.
My band broke up,
reformed, broke up,
I got married, had kids
became a teacher
But he sits
in the impregnable fortress of maybe,
always smiling,
twenty five
till the sun swallows the earth.
Apr 17, 2012
Apr 17, 2012 at 4:25 PM UTC
November days sees me pummelled,
bashed and clubbed to a pulp.
Buried then exhumed...
Skin and bones,
hair and scalp.
Dusks watch me stretch,
warp and break.
Bitten, chewed and spat out.
So that I could come together...
So I could nurse
the same old doubt.
Nights abrade,
as they span for hours.
They sap, they wear.
They mock and they jeer.
There is bittersweetness in the solitude
where coherence of mind
is scarce and rare.
Dawns greet with tiptoeing feet.
Cradle my body where it had lain.
They resuscitate me. Fill me up.
They ward off nightly deaths
so I am reborn,
again and again...
***Into
November.***
.
Nov 15, 2016
Nov 15, 2016 at 8:12 AM UTC
THE NYMPH
Beneath the water lived a nymph, beautiful as
A flower- if you like women with petals
Growing from out of their face
And lips adorned with myriad metals
Moving silently with infinite grace.
Fishermen who caught her, in alarm
Tossed her back with dismayed cries
Fearful that she would do them harm
When she exposed her fangs, darting from her eyes,
Forked tongues from each palm.
But apart from all that, she was a delightful creature
As proud as a catwalk model
Sexuality impressed into each feature
Death in each cuddle,
Poison injected from each freshly opened suture.
At the sea’s dark bottom lived the nymph
Devouring fish raw, terrifying sharks and barracuda,
Dining on shellfish and prawns for lunch;
Darting amongst Angel Fish and eels, a hungry aficionada,
Tearing into shreds what she could not crunch.
Gentle with her own kind until coition
Was complete, when if hungry she devoured
Her temporary mate without undue consideration-
No please or thank you. Feeling duly empowered
By her actions, as confirmed by her thunderously satisfied indigestion.
No longer young, her children dead,
She glides through the water from China to France
A preposterous seaweed hat upon her head
And criss-crossing her piebald nose a serrated coral branch.
Her sartorial taste filling even the sharks with fin-quaking dread.
The last of her kind. The others are (literally) toast.
Protected by animal charities here and abroad
She gladly subsists on ambitious swimmers who venture far from the coast-
All she can now catch or afford.
A capricious tyrant until the last, when, victim of a fisherman’s boast
She was hoist up like iniquitous cod
Out of the sea, paraded on the deck while she struggled for breath.
Shot at. Abused. Poked and speared with a steel tipped rod,
Dragged into the harbour, pummelled close to death.
Screaming out, as in unexpected agony she died: “I thought, I thought, I was god!”
Jul 3, 2017
Jul 3, 2017 at 7:38 PM UTC
Abused, Abandoned and Alone,
Bound, Beaten and Bruised
Captured and Categorized
****** Defeated and Damaged
Encompassed
Faded, Failing, Flinching
Gagged
Hopeless, Helpless and Hospitalized
Idealized, Impaired and Intoxicated
Judged
Kicked, Kept and Kissed
Labelled,
Marked, Molested and Misguided
Neglected
Obeying, Observed and Offended
Panicking, Pummelled and Promised
Quivering and Quaking
*****
Screaming, Scared and Starved
Throttled, Thirsty and Thinning
Unloved and Unable
Victimized
Wailing, Weakening and Wondering
an X
Yelling, Yanked and Yielding
Zeroed
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016 at 10:07 AM UTC
-The wind was seething, heavy.
-After waking, and gazing at the pummelled window
-I pulled my patchwork desert gear into a bag.
-I borrowed some sandals, a bike,
and ate a healthy bowl of noodle.
-Then peddled scowling at the wind.
-In the town, in the open maze of buildings,
-The sands were kept at bay.
-But i rode out. North and west and then south after a bit.
-I pushed through the stinging screaming,
-Past great shallow rivers, dust roads, donkey carts, snipped and snatched dialogues.
-A cloth cap pulled low
-Sunglasses
-A palistinian checkered scarf
-On the night bus out
-We stop and i leap out for a spliff and to relieve myself
-The night wind so much more terrible
-It bit down stubbornly (i'd stupidly left my desert gear on the little bed.)
-And pellets of rain added mockery to the situation.
-The line of shiverers excited to get back on the bus is slow and quivering
-So i let the cold become a numb cool
-So as to stand it
-And when the doorway appears to me in a dark warm glow
-I leap again; this time in,
-Then dig myself deep in the cosy alcove.
-Just then, my brain slowly/grinningly explodes.
-The short little fat man across from me
-is a picture of pleasantry.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 6:10 AM UTC
They say 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.'
Had 'they' made lemonade before,
'they' would know just how much sugar is required to do so,
and life rarely throws that at us.
Even if it did, it would be hard to pick up, what with it being dissolved in residual lemon juice and all that.
But that's beside the point.
She stands there being
pummelled
with
lemons.
Not even sour-faced
although the acidity erodes her open wounds.
I ask 'does it not burn?'
She replies 'just tingles like a lemony sun'
and then smiles that crescent silver lining
which tames the acrimonious bite that makes me wince.
Little lemon pip tears drop from my eyes
and she collects them in her palms.
'Just a yellow lemon tree,' she sings in her zestful tone.
She may not be the type to catch, juggle and juice them,
but if she could,
she would be the sugar in her lemonade.
Mar 23, 2016
Mar 23, 2016 at 5:25 PM UTC
wind whips around a body
standing high upon a cliff
they're not scared
and if they are
other emotions are hiding it
conflicting thoughts
all revolving around
the jump, or fall
looking over the edge
water tumbles
crashes, water sprays
rocks are pummelled by salt water
picked on, shoved, drowned
the person glances to the sky
the sun is setting
they smile
a pretty last sight to see
clouds aren't very thick
it'll be a cold night
they remove their shoes
the ones they hurriedly shoved on
before fleeing the door
looking up again
smiling
they take a slight run
extending their arms
like a bird
or plane, ready for take-off
they fly
for a split second they're free
no one can control them now
they're away, never returning
smiling as they fly into the sun set
-------
i want to fly
Jul 5, 2013
Jul 5, 2013 at 7:46 AM UTC
Fledgings playing against the Big Stars
hard hitters pummelled
just for their supposed being
Headliners durability chiseled
the chips are down
and the Fender spreads
a hard rain
Oct 11, 2012
Oct 11, 2012 at 4:23 PM UTC
Six months of freedom
from this evil within
thought I escaped the sorrow
the devil had vanished,
thought I was finally going to win
Then the pain came crashing back deep into my bones
so sudden, so intense
as though I was being pummelled with stones
please not again,
don't make yourself at home
I was so excited for myself
to feel no anguish
it was soothing to roam
yet I lay here
after six months of ease
escape my grasp
and yet again
I am alone.
Apr 7, 2016
Apr 7, 2016 at 2:41 AM UTC
I was damaged, I was broken born
An incubator were the arms
I rested upon,
I left and real arms were felt,
Life was good for a while
Till parents
Did slam the door
Tears were many, hidden from our view,
"But was I to blame"
For many years I thought so,
My schools days
They were
Ups,
&
Downs,
Skinny White guy
Short and could run
Because of the Neanderthals
Knuckles scrapping upon the floor
I was like the wind
Feet,
Run,
Gliding.
Upon slab and tarmac,
But one only glides so much
Then came the fall,
And I fell hard upon
Fist,
Foot,
&
Word
After days, months, years
The running stopped
1 tablet
2 tablet
10 tablets more
Three times tested
I
Awoke
Confused
Once again life a cruel joke.
But I learnt that death didn't want me,
And after the third,
I clicked,
It is not me
Those who pummelled
Those of venom spit,
I was stronger now
They were the joke
I grew stronger in sprit,
I thought I could cope
"But I was broken"
Never seeing the cracks
/
\
/
\
And in late teens
Like a bull charging my mind broke,
Shattered,
Pieces,
Lay,
In bed, I lay never leaving
"A worried mother"
I hardly spoke,
Many days or weeks had past,
I don't know when but
"Like a jigsaw my mind mended,"
Not fully
Anger crept in,
But then I saw a few of those
Neanderthals
Who while at school
Were the cool kids
The ones who taunted others,
And the
Mighty
Had,
Fallen,
Real life not being what
They had hoped,
Fallen from grace,
But I felt sorrow for them
For I knew what was
Important,
Life
Family,
Love,
And I had stumbled
And many times I had fell
But now my life was for living,
This was just the first twenty years
My life was akin to a soap opera,
Days of our lives,
Coronation street,
All rolled in to one,
There were many more stories
Nutty adventures, pick axe handle to the face,
But that is for another time, goodnight & live well.
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 4:01 PM UTC
We run across the tracks,
A horde of desperate children.
Our tears are raked off our cheeks
By the wind that slams into our faces.
Crouching, cowering, gritting our teeth,
A fruitless attempt to make ourselves smaller,
To dodge the never-ending stream
Of lead teeth that eat into our flesh.
Gripping the clammy fingers
Of our only hope,
Until they are pummelled into the floor,
And we leave them behind.
We live to impress,
We walk a tightrope every day.
God help you if you fall,
Because you are on your own.
They’ll only hold your hand
If there is something in it.
They don’t love you,
So just keep running.
Running, running,
Stretch out your fingers,
To the other side.
Because when you fail…
Well at least you can say
one part of you made it…
Right?
Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 12:25 PM UTC
Kick my warped heart
'cross horizon's false length
watch it burst at my heel's tempered strength
under hot caustic palms
I grind clots into smears
o'er the tactless bold beauty
of dusk's starlit tears
Acidic blood orange
immiscible lies
through combustible petrol lined dusk riddled skies
pummelled raspberry shades
razor grazed until night
amid gloaming mood strains
of my bruise hued twilight
Your blackness detoxifies
poison carved pain
murmured words purify
dispel doubts storm fuelled rain
overcome by our sunsets
conquer nights crushing pain
watch the burnt sun arise
let our hearts love again
Oct 13, 2018
Oct 13, 2018 at 11:25 AM UTC
The day John died
I was drunk
He, no alcoholic
Yes he
Who had some.
No he did not feel that February 2017
They pummelled his chest,
Their job,
They did,
I begged let him go-too long to pump
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 5:53 AM UTC
It started with a humming sound;
To be precise, a long loud bass.
It pummelled the surrounding ground
And shook the boutiques selling lace.
In groups of ten, we clear up rubble,
Which no one asks us to explain.
The rich remain inside their bubble;
Sometime quite soon they’ll feel our pain.
For tomorrow, or the next day,
The whole thing may start up again.
I know the rules;
I play the game;
It’s not my fault;
I’m not to blame;
I feel no shame;
And yet I know
Things will never be the same.
Oct 28, 2017
Oct 28, 2017 at 1:23 PM UTC
Calibrated versions of
my reflections, I shatter with
fists of petulance.
And
still they never seem to shatter.
No where do I see a shard cutting upon
my wrists...
But bluntly do the words overwhelm
every vocalization that is pummelled
with every suppressed
motif..
That never stood a chance of being more than just
a paper Mache
eclipse.
Never truly covering anything just falling apart
before the form that
was solid like imagination.
Instead falling apart like yesterdays fake news.
Never reading deeper
than the surface,
only being more like a comedy page
that no one finds funny.
Feb 2, 2019
Feb 2, 2019 at 5:33 PM UTC
A wretched boy slumped through the winter snow,
Ashes scattered; the remains of whom he'd once known.
He clambered, shook, screamed and fell down,
And his knees pummelled into the cold winters ground.
He began to decline into the pebbles, snow, and dirt,
As the blood seeped through his paisley shirt.
Each breath became more withered and cold,
He grew beastly with fear of not growing old.
Just as the soul started it's ascent into the clouds,
He caught the shadow of an ashen haired shroud.
His soul was saved, captured, and regained,
But once a boys soul starts to leave; it never fits the same again.
Feb 13, 2019
Feb 13, 2019 at 3:06 PM UTC
Three blind mice
Killers on the loose
1st on their bucket list
Is old mother goose
mother goose double crossed them
Stole their share of the swag
Now it was retribution time
To take down the low life hag
2nd on their bucket list
Is bad boy Father Time
He took out the 4th blind mice
He must now pay for that crime
Kneecapping wasn't good enough
Bullet to the head to quick
So those three blind mice took to him
And Pummelled him with a stick.
3rd on their list was the lady they call old mother freeze
She tried to starve them out, she pinched their tasty cheese
headquarters the mice found was one giant smell shoe
so they hatched a scheme to take out her motley crew
The scheme a bit shabby and all together pretty vague
What happened next ? They had started the ****** plague
Killers on the loose going some what over the top
So Next they started a fire in a bakers shop
See 4th On the list was this **** riddled city
They tried to get rid of us by making it rather pretty
These three blind mice were just plain called ***** rats
Next on the agenda were all ginger pesky cats
May 1, 2017
May 1, 2017 at 11:08 AM UTC