Poem

I watched a truck churning under a wire convergence
and the sky above doped entrails coming from Europe
Where had the turtle gone, the one puffed in the curve of the fox?

Now clambering onto the icy porch
I open the door into
smells of brass polish, wood polish
pots full of bones.

Winter’s wind rattling time holds me in
I must make marmalade with Seville oranges
with their thick rutted craters, sadly moon-like

a little sweetness of the blossom
worn on bridal veils will come back
as the flesh boils soggy with pips
and Demerara’s sweetness pummels

and I’ll be beaming ear to ear, beaming, full
of a sugar high, then fall.  I don’t think I’ll be flying
to Jamaica, but at least I have a box of jars

My house will be dressed
of stiff forsythia branches, blooming
while I pull on stupoods of wool
socks, and wax my boards

I watched whirling snow collapse, loshing
on my face, signs of a dream, unsettling
separating mills and boon from reality.

If I had cast a spell stirring boiling sugar
And whispered ancient simple words
And as spring soars from
the dirt he would say agapa me

and my house full of worms, fat as fingers would dissolve
which is why I must plant, for butterflies to flutter
O my mighty easel, you are not like nature

though you are like a highway
of roots, clamped with straps
Supported or shaded, you reveal
all that I am.

The light begins to drop out of ticking stars
onto the snow bank behind the studio
the place where crimson and ochre mate.

I am really a painter
and my brushes are words
which glaze accidentally across
vellum, spurning censure.

rattling thunder
pummels the tinny tin can roof
under which you drive
through the swelling swamp-roads.

you say this is england.
i say this is climate change.
snakes emerge from murky water,
the same green as your eyes.

a hiss wobbles through your tar-bones
and your flesh boils to scales.
a fat, emerald python.
eating me whole and clean.

your bleach-bowels sear me.
a hapless, cocooned boy for a devil.
the teenage smile is what beguiled me,
tricked me into your drunken youth.

" It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews,
            Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and  
                Illuminations from one End of this Continent
                      to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
      John Adams – July 3, 1776.

Webster Groves - 2016

The Townhall fountain dances
cheerily in the morning sun.
The red-white-blue shirted crowd
rises as one for the colors.
Laughing children scramble for
tootsie rolls and sweet tarts
tossed by a strolling  clown.

         Philadelphia, July 3, 1776

        Carriages sped toward Philadelphia
        where resolute patriots
        would turn the pages of history
        and tell an unsuspecting world
        that a new nation had given birth to itself.

Sousa strains peal from the marching Statesmen,
Girl Scouts guide their well-groomed mounts -
hooves echoing through concrete caverns.
Vintage firetrucks and autos
sound their horns and sirens
as candidates work the crowd, pressing the flesh.

        Each crass insult from the British crown
        had tightened the noose on the colonial neck.
        The middle ground was soaked with patriot blood
        and revolution was the only course left.

Barbecue clouds drift over Pat and Lee’s farm
Horseshoes spin and clang and frisbees fly.
A ***-luck feast with beans and franks
interrupts the pop and glare of bottle rockets.

        One by one, each patriot quilled the parchment
        resolved to endure the costs of liberty -
        knowing to the marrow that defeat
        would spell certain ******* and death.

We reach the lakeshore at dusk -
unfolding chairs - spreading out blankets -
strains of Americana drift over the lake.
then a pyro-technic extravaganza
blazes across the summer sky.  

        Washingon’s tattered and bloodied men
        cornered Cornwallis at Yorktown.
        Then surrender - all British claims
        to American soil banished to the tomes of history.

The grand finale pummels the darkened sky
raising cheers and whistles from the crowd
Toddlers collapse in parental arms,
car doors slam, engines ignite
and head-lighted caravans, turn for home,
spiraling off in every compass degree.

“Happy birthday,” America and endless happy returns
"from this time forward forever more!”  

Robert Charles Howard

Poem

I watched a truck churning under a wire convergence
and the sky above doped entrails coming from Europe
Where had the turtle gone, the one puffed in the curve of the fox?

Now clambering onto the icy porch
I open the door into
smells of brass polish, wood polish
pots full of bones.

Winter’s wind rattling time holds me in
I must make marmalade with Seville oranges
with their thick rutted craters, sadly moon-like

a little sweetness of the blossom
worn on bridal veils will come back
as the flesh boils soggy with pips
and Demerara’s sweetness pummels

and I’ll be beaming ear to ear, beaming, full
of a sugar high, then fall.  I don’t think I’ll be flying
to Jamaica, but at least I have a box of jars

My house will be dressed
of stiff forsythia branches, blooming
while I pull on stupoods of wool
socks, and wax my boards

I watched whirling snow collapse, loshing
on my face, signs of a dream, unsettling
separating mills and boon from reality.

If I had cast a spell stirring boiling sugar
And whispered ancient simple words
And as spring soars from
the dirt he would say agapa me

and my house full of worms, fat as fingers would dissolve
which is why I must plant, for butterflies to flutter
O my mighty easel, you are not like nature

though you are like a highway
of roots, clamped with straps
Supported or shaded, you reveal
all that I am.

The light begins to drop out of ticking stars
onto the snow bank behind the studio
the place where crimson and ochre mate.

I am really a painter
and my brushes are words
which glaze accidentally across
vellum, spurning censure.

Turning
Dark brown
I let go
The sweetest release
Slowly I fall
Twisting my way
Upon the wings of the wind
I soar
Gently
I rest against the ground
Which grows
Colder
Harder
With every second
I lay
Silent
Curled up
Crunchy
Dead
A foot comes
Large and wide and horrifying
It steps
With power and purpose
Directly on top of me
Squishing me
Breaking me into
Tiny fragments
Puzzle pieces
That could possibly connect to form
What I once was
Lucky for me
My stringy veins
Hold me together
I lay sprawled
Flattened
Exhausted
Like a connect a dots completed by a toddler
I don't resemble myself
But I can see my parts
An unlikely display of
Strength
I had long thought disappeared
The wind pushes me around
I tumble
Forward
Back
The air cools
Rain soaks my surface
Snow pummels my body
Soon, I am trapped beneath its flakes
All I see is
White
A blank wall of
Nothing
I can feel my body
Disinigrate
But all of the sudden
A warm sensation comes over me
It is so strange
I see slivers of green from beneath my white blanket
Eventually I see blue
Puffy white clouds
Brilliant flowers
I am soggy
But somehow
Still
One

The whole time
The evergreen stands near

Instead of a heart,
You had a piggy bank.
And instead of  happiness,
You wanted to be filled with
A kind of freedom that doesn’t exist.
Freedom from who you are,
but that can never change.
I wrote lines and lines of poems,
about how my heart sang
when you held me.
While you just scraped together
lines and lines for me
on your kitchen counter,
And told me that this was you
giving me the world.
When I asked for love,
you handed me
Glasses of gin,
instead of holding me.
You filled me with fear,
When it should have been safety.
I asked for a husband,
And you handed me a pipe.
Was this the great love I dreamed of?
Glass pipes instead of slippers,
And my soul mate,
My perfect fit who pummels me into shape.

I faded into a ******* maid,
"A hollow selfish person,
who only one person could bear to love."
My dream lover,
a 6 foot 3 tradie with the temper of a 2-year-old.
27, and he still throws his toys.
It’s a shame that I’m the only thing he likes to play with.
The more he played, the lighter I became.
Soon it went from pushing, to throwing.
After tiny bruises came blood.
The pain his horrid words made,
Echoing in my head,
Like ricocheting shrapnel.
The tightness of his grip,
Leaving his handprints all over me.
The same hands that brought me pleasure,
Brought far more pain.
Lips that I once eagerly watched,
Waiting, wanting to kiss,
Now were the gate keepers,
to the most hurtful words he possessed.
The skin that once excited me,
Now pressed against me,
Holding me to the floor
as he staked his ******* claim on my body.

They always told me of my pneuma,
This creative spirit,
Capable of conquering nations or liberating the unjustly incarcerated
Unearthing fabled, folkloric myths,
With all the pummels I’d expect a brain cyst—
Still, he trudges on,
Like a scapegoat in its farcical, ineffable glee—
Why are you telling me
To manufacture and market my life
Like an indulgent, indulged on swine
Conforming to the convention,
Supporting units of straight edges

What in this straight-edged maelstrom
Can help the creative pneuma
To thrive in a place so confining and restricting
And detrimental to discoveries, breakthroughs,
Spiritual sustenance?

She gave me tea and cookies
and a blanket to keep warm
A smile of reassurance
and shelter from the storm
She pointed at a crucifix
and took me by the hand
She said, 'this is my savior'
But I did not understand.

'What is it he saves you from
and what is it you fear?'
'He wards off evil serpents
that would otherwise be here'
'You mean to say without him
you'd be overrun with snakes?'
She looked at me quite oddly
and said 'Oh, for heaven's sake

'I don't think you realize
the power of the cross
it pummels every evil
showing Satan who is boss'
And all at once it happened
as if suddenly on cue
Two enormous serpents
slithered to the door and through

She moved as quick as lightning
taking crucifix in hand
And smashed each slimy serpent
as it slithered in the sand
I sat in abject horror
as she pounded out their brains
and smashed them for good measure
three or four times once again

And when she was quite certain
that these snakes were truly dead
she hung the holy crucifix
back up over the bed
Then turning in the fire light
a smile upon her face
She said 'One cannot argue with
the power of His grace'

Snow pack dissolves, shrinking icecaps
Trickles, connects with succinct spring
Runs down frigid, joins brook
Babbling, descends to stream

Meanders past meadow land
With butterfly ****, rippling grasses
Flows through tributary into river
Enters the rocky canyon

Cliffs high as cotton clouds
Jagged, angular, shadowed sunlight
Chilly air rising off splashing rocks
Echoes of rushing, rumbling

Fresh scent of Blue Spruce, sappy pine cones
Churning white water, mile long
Cutting rocky gorge

Raging river travels with purpose reverberates around bend
Water falls towards paradise
Pummels hard to form pool

Surrounded by grassy fronds of Deerhair bulrush, Hydrangea, Lady Rue and Button Bush trees
         My secret sanctuary

I said that I needed
to put between   us    some distance.
And in that instance,
with a voice so vicious,
You warned me
to never ask your help again.

I don't think I need help from you
if you can't give it freely.
There's always some catch
some payback
some string attached.
Not gonna let that enslave me.

Not gonna do this anymore,
Not when your anger
pummels me into the floor.

As I sit and stare-
The water motionless,
yet moving along
I gaze upon eternity here-
With white rip tides,
gasping for air
I sit and stare-
The waves endless
in shape and form
Life pummels toward you
without a care-
© 2014 Christina Jackson

Each night it takes a tremendous amount of effort not to completely lose it...or hurt myself. I want to be numb…I NEED to be numb in ways that I can’t explain. Sometimes I can catch it on the cusp but most nights it hits me out of nowhere and pummels me, pinning me to the ground and restricting my breathing. I become engulfed in a fury of emotion and I wonder if I am even real.

At night, when the trauma thinking takes over the 5 year old struggles so much...she panics and desperately wants to call anyone, someone to talk to and hear her voice…any connection so she will feel safe somehow. The world is too big…too frightening and she just wants to feel safe. I don’t know what to do with her. I don’t know how to help her so I just let her cry and struggle…there’s nothing strong enough inside of me to keep me from slipping away. All I feel is pain…no one else can feel it…no one else can see what I see…it isn’t real to anyone else. I’m not real to anyone else.  No one.

I am not real anymore.  And I’m scared because I don’t know what the next step is…and it is nearly impossible to navigate my way through this with a broken GPS system. I keep thinking about my relationships. Looking back I think that I was so selfish...but then again, how could I trust anyone with that part of me? And so I felt like I had no choice. Now because of all that has happened I find myself hiding from people because I am not sure where we are now..and because I no longer think they can tolerate any type of harm that I may (unintentionally) cause myself...and I fear that they will over react to what I think is a normal part of this process due to the overwhelming trauma voices that take over my brain and react in bizarre and maladaptive ways.

I have done better lately but I still don’t think I’m good enough to stay out of harm’s way 100% of the time. And what happens the next time I become unstable and lost my ability to maintain myself in a safe way? I need someone to respond to me, connect with me, but not over-react…but I’m walking on a thin black sheet of glass now because I don’t know if that’s possible. It’s troubling…because I think I’ve worked through all of this, tried it on every which way, examined it inside and out…but clearly not…because it continues to resurface again and again.

I don’t know what’s right or what’s wrong…Do I continue to hide?  Should I quit now– and spare them additional emotional trauma?

I don’t know – but I don’t feel well tonight…and I’m struggling with a lot right now. Confused and shattered…Should I stay here or run and hide? I think hiding is the best option right now. I don’t know who to trust now – or if anyone can even be trusted.

I see my face in the mirror now and I don’t recognize my own reflection. As crazy as it sounds I sometimes talk to the face staring back at me to see if her mouth moves in sync with mine. I look closely at her, check to see if her eyes are the same shade of blue as mine, I touch my face and watch to see if she touches hers too…and many times I feel nothing.

*Am I real?
Do I exist?
Am I her?
Is she me?  
I don't want to be real now.
I don't want to exist now.
I don't want to be her.
I don't want her to be me.

Unkulunkulu arose from combusting reeds,
Conjured snaking kalaidoscopes to colour the bony landscape.
He summoned oozing crocodiles,
Mud encrusting their jagged rinds
whilst the newly vomited sun pummels it to solidity.

Then seeds descended from Nzame's hands,
Scattering, he watched the devil strive
to swallow the sun with his eager muzzle,
only thwarted as Kamui’s crow flew down his throat:
Kamui and Aionia chortled smoke as he retched.

Then, the first peoples.
Their frail bodies of earth, chickweed for hair,
Willow spines that would bend when they turned old.
Sandals sprung into leather squirrels,
Tarantulas span cord webs to create the earth-ball,
supported by posts to stop it rolling,
Steadied, it rotates:
a roasting world on a spit.

Two ultramarine diamonds
Glazed like hailstones
Transfixing and adoring
With the courage of a thousand monarchs
Peering with an immortal persistence,
Like the twirling whitecaps of the sea
And how they never forget to kiss the coast goodbye
Petrifying all nerve endings
In every gap
And every adjacent membrane ofaxons
In every gland and cell
Recepting molecules of hunger and thirst
Set aflame by
Pummels of my infant and eager heart
Both silhouettes swaying in greed
Yearning, longing,  speaking,
Pleading with a meek caress
For incessant spasms of arousal,
A stifled sob made of silk
Hushed by the storm of a lull
Sapphire globes fasten once again
A duet of mercy
Cupping cherub faces
Tracing trails of promise with settled fingertips
Down chilled spines
And frozen echoes
Tangled in a warmth never wielded

The thundercloud parking garage swallows me whole
and drains the authenticity from my smile.
The descending escalator sends me to my personal hell.
All I can think of is my counterfeit countenance
or the carefree singing voice of my mother.
I grasp at the sound, the long lost curl of her hair,
the sun of her eyes.  It's like trying to catch smoke.
The tears before security tell me I'm not alone
though the final embrace of my mom disagrees.
She disappears, fades into the metal detectors.
I'm alone.
I float through the crowd, past half-machine men,
their brows furrowed in stone as they slice through lines
without one last look at the family they wish they had.
They race to winged robots that autograph the sky
like the parting at the end of a letter.  The goodbye.
The stain mochas of Starbucks beckon me.
The neon magazines cheer at me from Hudson News.
Together, we watch the clouds gobble the planes,
mourn the farewell of the familiar, the leaving of love.
Rain pummels the windows like tears down a face.
Again, the machine men, the magazines and mochas
comfort and reassure everything will be alright.

120 beats per minute and I can’t stop thinking about you
It is the moments I lay under these sheets and
The moments I spend alone
I am tossing and turning with unattainable relief
My lips resembling a dog’s chew toy
Because there are so many words that I cannot say
But I can bite them into morse code on my skin

I am groaning, exasperated, the light beginning to pour in from behind those blinds
6am and I still can’t stop thinking about you

The delicacy of your words flutters and lands upon me like a butterfly
Pounding headaches and strife towards euphoria
All leading towards the realization that
Oblivion is inevitable  
And facing death is much simpler
Than telling you the way I feel
Because I can think about life and ponder about death
but I still can’t stop thinking about you too

I can’t stop thinking
Not about your warm brown eyes
The warmest I’ve ever seen
Or the tone your voice takes when
you begin to explain something to me
And the smooth skin behind your neck
And the taste of your lips
Will have me up all day
Because I sure as hell didn’t sleep last night

I am in some sort of paradoxical tortured pleasure
that picks me up and pummels me down
With each profound effect of your words
Ringing in my ears and
Having my pillow greet my face
For another night of painful thoughts about the pleasure of you

stress injury is concussive
compresses and pummels
rewires and reroutes
rumination rules
tossing and turning in it’s bed
rumpled and flung pillows
a mountain of mismatched linen
pushing the brain to limits
pulsing then seeping
beyond skull
I have had enough
craving colour co-ordination
with simple, single-strand thoughts


@journeyofdays

Lightning rips the sky apart.
Rain pummels the ground.
Thunder shreds the silence.
The force of nature displayed
in its most beautiful form.

I stand this pain so long,
from the dusk of day all the way through past the rise of dawn.
Sometimes look out in empty distance wondering if I shall go on.
I've been so long walking past the pain,
but that that don't change how it's a burden all the same.
Not even worrying about faded dreams of fortune and of fame.
The dark does not only come at night, it lingers in my head.
Pummels my spirit so thoroughly and leaving it to dread.
These thoughts come to my mind, they come from my heart.
It takes my memories and uses feeling that pick and pulls apart.
Remember where this point is is somewhere between heaven and those left for dead.
Because like I said, the dark lingers and the thoughts all come in from my head.

At times

oceans of memories

flood my steadfast

moorings




yet still...




my soul

is in hiding

as the undertow

of the day's

reality




pulls me under

and pummels

my senses

leaving shreds




to be mended

at a later

time

and place

A Cold Rain is here

The invading cold rain
Pummels the fall foliage
Punches the dead leaves
Like an angry mob of looters
Stealing color from the trees
Leaving the ground covered with the fallen  
Now bruised and broken underfoot        
Stomped and kicked to the curb
Trampled by the relentless rain

Copyright 2016
Richard L Ratliff

Light moves and night steals.
In the night,
Time stands still;
It wobbles and caresses a broken seal.

The moon falls and gives a goal -
To live your life is your only trial.
In the night, time is a companion:
It whistles and sends a knoll.

The darkness is a lonely cavern -
It swirls in spirals intriguing a lonely wayward orphan.
It pummels the ground.
In the night, it engulfs the land in an endless tavern.

In the night, you are trapped.
Your dream is your alibi;
There is no escape unless you find yourself in the light -
Unless the light is tapped.

Sail a ship;
In the night, there are crinkles in the waves -
They **** and sink,
They wear their blade on their hip.

There are hallows;
There are taunts and burdens to carry;
In the night, there are monsters -
There are shallows.

Even though the darkness is tight,
And the fear is illuminated -
The world is at peace;
In the night.

Stories of burning in the sun
fizzle out after a couple generations
Stories of salt filling our lungs
will outlast many civilizations

The sun burns quickly
like a brief moment of excitement
that wanes away while we search for
the next blazing hit

The sea pummels slowly
like a life of enduring and remiss
beating you down day after day wholly
until you sink into the abyss

Rain pummels against the pavement of my skull.
So loud is this silence, like static on my tv.
White noise floods the every corner of my brain.
I slide out of people's lives as quickly as I come into them.

Sudden storm raging, wild winds whip high,
With frantic fury from azure eye.
“That feels so good”, the deep wind sighs
Towering trunks like trembling thighs.
Wood petrified by warm wet breath
Pummels to the little death.
Lightning strikes me with that smile
Embrace me yet a little while.
My shelter snores. A summer storm:
Wild and raging, strong and warm.

Life drinks Love
like a hound
at a bowl of brackish water,
it soars more deeply
than the common wings
that a bird takes for granted
and a bee believes

Life drinks Love like a hailstorm
knows a rose.
It pummels the best of Us
for a season
and forgets how we
lonesome.

after all.

.

Oh Misanthropy she whispers in her lovers ear as she sits bolt upright nails in his chest, thighs tight as she rides the human not the race
Eyes glazed she's somewhere else, as she pummels his torso into the bed.
When she's done she lets out a cry!
Oh why oh why oh why oh why.

Lids break over dusty lenses,
My heart pummels the walls until it bleeds,
ribcage rattling like a broken furnace.

This moment extends past the cage of sensibility,
onto a new horizon where darkness
and light
are not merely consorts lying,
pinky fingers playfully intertwined
as a stray hair closes the distance between
their bodies yearning,
all of law is subject
to their complete breath burning.

Rain pummels fast,
leaves wildly shiver,
droplets fall with graceless sighs;
the world around in mourning.
 
The clouds in tears,
and icy water falls.
Earth shall never more be dry,
in the setting of the sun.
 
Swallowed by this pitied isolation,
with forty breaths too slow and lumbered.
Worthless beasts drown with repentance,
as their rasps are now extinguished.
 
Creation washed anew,
in isles of splendid beauty.
Prosperity untamed;
until He maims the world once more.