"radiator" poems
home isn’t just a structure -
brick and water aren’t symbols,
they don’t reflect trust or
Love.
I can wash -
the grease from my hair
the dirt from my skin
and uncomfortably sleep
when my inner monologue is louder than ever,
with your songs ringing in my ears,
and bad thoughts longing to be heard
but it’s love
your love
that keeps me warm
and makes me feel safe,
not the white walls
or the bread in the cupboard
I consume the fibre
Anyway
and glare at the walls.
home could leave
unannounced, brutally
I'll get warmth from the radiator
now you're gone
Aug 15, 2018
Aug 15, 2018 at 6:59 PM UTC
in june I felt the project change
from trying charting all scenarios of your face
to looking to books to blacking out spontaneous lines in found papers
to clearly eventually
be a misneglected omen of your impending collapse.
"I would like to blame this on the weather,"
I said to the sky,
"I would like to stay."
I felt the camera flash stop taking
strobe light moments of our strobe light moments
instead slipped tape recorder in your cereal box
videotaped the tooth brush
ever scraping dead skin while you slept.
I said, "If you wake up I will know nothing."
if you call this a dream, I will shake
and shake.
I said "it is clear now that you are decomposing."
(there's only so much the heart can take.)
stopped thoughts about the bus would hit you
spent time watching the sun through your palm:
little bones will scatter light.
little scars on thumbs.
we are made up only of who puts us back together.
and I could smell the rain.
I said, "It is easier if you stay angry"
I said to the sky.
"I would like to stay."
I put the Starbucks mug on the radiator
ceased to chart your worried looks.
I knew your brow, heavy clouds as you'd undress
but made a scrapbook of frozen dinner clippings
drew a line through where you went that day.
I said, "I want to prove that you meant nothing"
I said to the sky.
"I would like to stay."
I said to the sky.
and then the rain.
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 4:44 PM UTC
The water drips from the faucet
As the worries fade from my mind
I rest my head on the back of the tub.
My heart sooths down to a murmur,
Not heard above the humming of the radiator.
This is wonderful,
Pure bliss without a worry on my mind.
The water stings against my body
As the heat turns my skin scarlet,
But it doesn't concern me.
I sink further under water.
This is relaxatio-
"Hurry up in there!
I need to take a shower.
And don't use all the hot water."
Well, ****
Nov 15, 2013
Nov 15, 2013 at 10:37 AM UTC
60 sunshines, 59 nightfalls till I face the day
40 topics held in to regurgitate,
**** and span for the marker man to give a brother a break.
Wait, I ain't done
Got anxiety about two more chores in head
Not to ***** and moan but *******
Getting tired of this ****
What's the point to push if you don't know where to go
Blindful blissful ignorance?
They say, and you go.
What subject?
What ever is most respected.
What job?
What ever brings financial comfort.
What about this?
Nah, you ain't good at that.
And so you sulk ever so distracted
Hearing the drip drop taps, splat on to the sink.
The metallic ting of the radiator reverberates as dormant inner silence sings.
Forever more.
A didactic sore for the ears,
Apologies in advance,
Though regardless you must hear it.
Never run to please others
Rather, focus and listen to the deep.
Dec 10, 2017
Dec 10, 2017 at 3:15 PM UTC
They would have given a lot
those paste-skinned kids
with straw for hair
and knobby knees
Not that frail— it seems
Beneath grayish strings
through black rims
one cracked lens screams—
Gets nothing!
Changes nothing!
Ritual words fall—
a rusted refrigerator
shoved over a railing from the second floor
Barking dogs tied to the radiator of misery
fed on rough-house excuses for kindness
Why do people keep children?
Larger than average eyes
huge foreheads of genetic wrong
******* childhood downstairs
while mother is sleeping
I can get used to the smell of cats
Human ***** is not so—
different?
and if I didn’t change my clothes for a week
What do children know?
Jenny cuddles a starving kitten
then releases it to where
they disappear...
one generation after another
Famished eyes
devour anything offered
words...food...sex...God
Screams from the mats of string and gray
Scald the frantic instant badly
I watch her bolt beyond explanation
Night gives no reason to let her live....
My faith went the way the kittens go
Hope and a small girl
blend beyond blackness
Apr 23, 2017
Apr 23, 2017 at 11:24 PM UTC
"...Igitur quantitates relativae non sunt eae ipsae quantitates quarum nomina prae se ferunt, sed earum mensurae illae sensibilis (verae an errantes) quibus vulgus loco mensuratarum utitur..."
--D. Isaaci Newtoni.
Time did not relent under the force of speculation. The only trees that could be seen were in the photographs beyond the reach of the faltering jeep. Although it was claimed that such a rugged machine would endure the longer journeys, truth explained that the truck had grown old. It had a ferocious grill to protect the radiator.
cos ln q ( u ) d P d e = mu chi v ( w ) d ( y , par Z ) d ( x , hyp N ) .
The sense of protection fended off any result of error on the highway. Basic footing expressed the hardness, and the light, floating away, came from electric lamps, like eyes, glowing through dust. The name of the purpose implied that sensitive eyes disliked the sudden splash of illumination. It was true; the passengers did not like the expectation of more to come. The new engines were stronger and ran cooler.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 6:01 PM UTC
Yeah it's one shot one ****
Plottin' against my enemies will soon to be killed
Bullets feedin' ya last meal
Dope rhymes sedatin' like pharmacy pills
Since hataz got no chill heads I'll drill now you leakin' out like oil spills
Or a radiator angelic caters none could create a
Flows nasty as mine poppin' a multiplicity of shells I'm one of a kind
Thoughts intertwined
****** into a demons intervention contenders in suspension from the soul lynching
Caught in the realms of heaven and hell & you can smell
The ashes burning fermentin'
time runnin' slower than molasses
My murders be classic enemies dramatic causin' static
Shoot more than Bird combined with Magic
Workin' my Johnson on the tracks tonsils sittin' as a hip hop consul underground magul
**** longer than Repunzels hair follicles
Cookin' up sigils into a *** of gold no rainbow snortin' sir nose
D'void of Funk rattlin' the earth from the bass in my trunk blazin' skunks
Abraxas I'm embracin' one of my goetias when facin' ain't no replacin'
Fools givin' chase
and to tastes of demonic faces
My flows replenish like **** laces
Blunts turn into ashes dump it out on the masses
Epidemic mase deaden your pace hazardous like toxic waste
Adversaries don't wanna face
Off like Nicolas to Travolta livin' in an ultra violent culture
Cleatin' into ya flesh I be the stalkin' Vulture mulchin' ya
'til ya
A dissembled particle blank photo in the article from curvin' emcees with my surgical
lyrical sickle stare into ya eyes as the blood trickles
Down ya body you easily brickled rhymes artificial
My soul sour as a pickle no tickles
Could move me or influence thee my legacy
Lay cinematography like A. Hitchcock in the 50s huh
Ya soon to be a death reel for thrills
Rememeber
All I need is one shot one **** forreal!!!!
Aug 27, 2018
Aug 27, 2018 at 4:57 PM UTC
Glances in passing and nothingness,
I'll drop out and take up gardening.
And you are so cool, all German bred,
and sometimes braided. I see you, so
well-read and rather regal. ***** blonde
nuclear, alabaster, aluminum rods -
electricity dripping from the soles of
your shoes. This classroom, my own
ink blotted incubator, the radiator sits,
flatlining. Your jaw as two razor blades,
your shoulder blades, broad, gentle.
I wonder how you look in the morning,
How you look at yourself in the mirror.
Do you practice smiling, and
how often do you wash your hair? Oh,
you exist in glass, and I will not try to
know you. Leaving this poem limited,
and yet. Your jam drop mouth houses all
well-spoken soliloquies, radical requiems.
So, what would happen if we brushed
shoulders in passing? Your little accent.
Accident, we appeared in the same
huddled mass. Literary plugs in the
drain, and your new American. So,
why don't we just go walking on
airplane wings? Some transcontinental
affair. Frequent flyer ******* stranger.
Feb 27, 2017
Feb 27, 2017 at 5:48 PM UTC
Warm sweet chai melts these frozen days.
Blankets and books- smells of musky pages and spice invade my nostrils.
I am home.
Our cat sniffs the air and then sleeps, his paws pushed under the radiator,
he hums a deep contented purrr.
We feel the same.
Dec 19, 2012
Dec 19, 2012 at 1:25 PM UTC
I am reading this poem,
late, in the snug familiarity of my bed,
with gentle night-light and sable night-sky,
stars swimming beyond the glass,
warm breaths fogging up the panes.
I am reading this poem,
curled on a beanbag in a library with her my by side,
breaths stirring against my skin,
like the winds of time, of change, taking me away from here.
I am reading this poem,
in a room that is abound with remembrance and days gone by,
where the bedclothes are heaped, fresh and steaming with warmth,
with the same freedom that the open valise speaks of,
a journey ending in success, a triumphant flight.
I am reading this poem,
as the underground train screeches to a halt,
and before heading up the stairs,
towards the love that life has bestowed on me.
I am reading this poem,
by the glow of the laptop screen,
where the headlines flash and flicker,
for once, joy is splashed across the monitor.
I am reading this poem in a waiting room,
of meeting eyes and crinkling smiles, more friends than strangers,
without fear.
I am reading this poem by firelight,
in the simple joy and jubilation of the young who know they matter,
and live with hope and inner liberation, from the earliest of ages.
I am reading this poem,
freed of the curved lenses, the cloudy cataracts,
and I can see the letters for what they are and I read on,
because this freedom is precious.
I am reading this poem as I sit by the radiator,
the milk is already warm (electricity isn’t cut these days)
child in my arms, book in my hand,
because life is waiting for me to live it,
knowing it is never too short or too long but just right.
I am reading this poem not in my language,
while she sits at my side and helps me translate,
because tongues are free to roam now.
I am reading this poem listening for something,
stopping to savour the taste of freedom,
to be able to refuse the task I cannot turn to.
I am reading this poem because I can,
and there is so much left to read
I have now and forever,
to soar untamed with wings unclipped, clothed as I am.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 1:56 AM UTC
Manhattan by line,
by subway track purr,
by foot in a midwinter
fresh, gale force air.
The dying battery in
Times Square's wristwatch,
halts hands in mid air,
each hailing the second taxi
that comes to them
every next minute;
definitely in the next ten.
Buried benches in thigh high
snow look lost, with
only their branching tops
on display for the tourist's show,
tramping through
this January snow.
Double-back, back
past the Chipotle store,
where diners stand and eat,
stand and greet,
stand with napkins to appear neat,
stand near the radiator to warm their feet,
stand-in-the-corner-and-text-your-wife-saying-you'll-be-home-late-because-this-meaty-wrap-is-pleasurable-to-eat.
He was with another woman, kissing her cheek.
Manhattan is a horizon of horizontal lines,
drawn by pencil lead, led up a page
to create this fascinating portrait
that a point-and-click-camera
cannot comprehend,
let alone negotiate.
We can go unnoticed there, like
most others in this gale force air,
but billboard boys-
the ones that braid ****** building hair,
window panes
and balcony balustrade-
are the famous ones
of Broadway, with nothing more
than their commercial stare.
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 10:33 AM UTC
the radiator croaks
like bourbon and Barnaby Jones huffing ******
in a lead Zeppelin; and heat clinks like a spider's tooth
on a moist towelette. and the stars hold a bounty of something deeper.
a dread helpless, in mean peace with a vital vital Truth
with no choice, as yet; but a marred County, of Big Thinker.
and you can hear the wrinkles on an Angel's *** and prove
the useless rude. and politely
unseat the morning sun
through the levolor
minds
during eclipse.
during a near
miss
from the dark-side
of a rogue
moon.
the hard way.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 6:51 AM UTC
i once dated a boy who found it "adorable" that i know how to change my headlights
fill my radiator
change the oil
and notice every stopsign as i'm halfway through it
he dumped me via text
before that
there was a boy who loved my lack of first person capitalization
my over-use of metaphores and similies
the way i personify the night
and practice preforming poetry in the shower
he took off into the sunset with my journal in his shoulder-sack
and somewhere in between
i stopped asking myself what it means
threw up my hands
and learned to enjoy the ride
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 9:27 PM UTC
You towed your broken down
beat up, used, rusted old
Chevy into my workshop
smelling like crap, and looking a whole lot worse
she had a busted engine
sputtered like a plane
(but not in a good way)
you leaked black oil all over my floors
stains of which I still can’t remove
no matter how many gallons of bleach I use
the radiator, well let’s just say
had seen better days
the interior leather seats were torn
and the once slick body
looked like you had ****** off
some mafia kingpin
so I spent my days and nights
greased up and elbow deep,
in your muck trying desperately,
but lovingly
to do what a mechanic does best
and I was leaking time
like I owned it, when I could’ve
should’ve found a more profitable fixer upper
I told myself, no convinced myself otherwise
and eventually, against the odds,
fixed you
then some schmo walks in
a bulging from both pockets
from wads of cash
and grabs you right outta my hands
the you I returned
to a shiny beauty as best I could
with the tools I had
well then, maybe I did fix you
I just never realised, I was doing it
for someone else.
Jul 6, 2014
Jul 6, 2014 at 12:16 PM UTC
could i be your several puppies
all i want is you'r hands
on my head all i want is a lot of your hands to
scratch all of my puppy heads
and right behind the ears My puppies eears
i don't mean to hide away from
you i promise i'm not mad im just
afraid of the lightning
and the vacuum too
and sometimes the sound of the radiator
why is it so loud
it sounds like monsters
everything is monsters and you are sweet
your hands on my puppy heads you
are so sweet
Feb 6, 2013
Feb 6, 2013 at 1:16 PM UTC
The doorknob to the closet
full of my skeletons is made of
funny-bone
But there are days
when honesty tugs a little too roughly and
I realize this isn't all that funny now
Is it?
As a writer
You learn presentation is key
In the bend of language
I create this man
I want you to believe me to be
And so I tell you these stories
like they are jokes
Like they are no big deal
Like the first time I got drunk
was with my friend's mom
who was a known child molester
She tried to order us ****
But couldn't work the cable
Or my friends and I used to travel our city
via the water drainage system
Near the mall
We got lost once
and while standing
in ankle high water
we saw at least 20 homeless people
sleeping on pallets
We called that place *** City
We had to get directions back out
There's a possibilty I have been an accessory to ******
Around the time in my life when I learned
How not to dwell
My body was a wishbone
My father meant to break
But every beating
left me the better half
I find so much of it funny
My brother's most recent suicide attempt
My mother's
My father's Alzheimer's
He once chased after our mailman
naked
Asking him about some letter
from some woman
I have never met before
I find laughter
and beauty
in the bend of language
When this chest becomes a broken radiator
and my heart grows cold
The metaphor mutates Campfire
Come here
I am lonely
and I have a story to tell you
May 14, 2013
May 14, 2013 at 5:24 AM UTC
it’s windy i think,
at least the windows are rattling.
the men in hard hats,
yellow motes off in the distance
and their jackets the colour
of poison,
they scale the façade
of the contralateral building.
they’re speaking, yelling,
probably catcalling, singing
their ugly songs on cherry pickers
like some crowned nest
of wagtails.
it’s early i think,
though the lights are always on.
they’re fluorescent, staining,
unflattering colouration, rinse
your skin to poverty,
to jaundice.
i’m here because of pills
i’m here because school is out,
i’m here because i’m tired
and i’m here because of you.
flowers sit at the side,
already dry upon purchase.
gifted awkwardly;
do we give flowers to a man?
a boy in sheets, foolish drunkard,
balloons with helium
to lift my spirits.
its lonely i think,
though it’s filled with people.
wristcutter, lupus, chemo
all thrown into one.
we’re what’s left post-production,
left to sit in an outlet store;
buy me for half-price
or else half an hour of company.
i’m the young one,
nurses scan me with motherly eyes,
the radiator warmth,
their rounded bosoms,
‘you remind me of someone’.
at twelve to three, she washes me,
asks me to lift my *****
so she can get at the two-day grime
of indolence.
it’s sad here i think,
at least the television is boring.
daytime ghosts and broken families
make my bedsheets gain weight;
even the balloon sags
in heavy misery,
nothing is mine.
sleep comes in fits
and starts in blankness.
it ends with my questioning
of where the dream began
and where hope had perished.
you haven’t come,
i knew that you wouldn't.
it’s hard to blame you,
what with my post-use pinings
long after you’d given up
and the way i act familiar
after treating you like a stranger.
i long to leave here,
so much the windows are rattling.
i’m here because i am
i’m here because of my job,
i’m here because i’m tired
i’m tired because of you.
Oct 18, 2013
Oct 18, 2013 at 11:09 AM UTC
Headlights, LED's, burning bright
Into my retinas, reflected in rear view
And side mirrors, a radiator grill just
Visible, almost the outline of a person
Behind the wheel, androgynous ghost,
Mad Max or just mad, determined
To drive to wherever, faster than
Anyone else, cocooned in black leather
Heads up display laid out across sweeping
Digital dashboard, vying to pass me;
But what of the queue plainly ahead
Stretching to far horizon, vanishing point,
Perhaps it is supernatural, absorbing traffic
Clearing the way by passing through it,
An alien craft with technology far
Advanced from our slow turning wheels
Selfishly driving alone in our home from
Home interiors, gathering subjects
For an out of this world experience
Or maybe a time machine
Like Back to the Future powered by flux
Capacitor, it will disappear and turn up
Ahead of all of us, or maybe my imagination
Has run riot and it's just another impatient
Idiot.
Jun 29, 2019
Jun 29, 2019 at 6:23 AM UTC
you had this many broken bones
like that time i left for an hour (because
i was learning to work some never fractured fingers
over black and white tabs) and came back
to find you in a chair, clutching your arm
like it was some project of masking tape and tongue depressors,
imitating architecture, as though it might fall apart at
any second. and i wondered what it was
to have my calcium I-beams snap under my skin. was there
a feeling, a radiator that burned against bones
comfortably, when the edges glued themselves back?
Apr 24, 2011
Apr 24, 2011 at 4:18 PM UTC
If I decided to peal paint off the upside-down radiator
for eternity,
I wonder if you would sit beside me
reading Wallace Stevens.
If I decided to nurse the convent garden bursts of peonies
for eternity,
I wonder if you would smuggle me some
David Bowie tracks.
If I decided to eat only fudge brownies and cherry Starbursts
for eternity,
I wonder if you would google gourmet
recipes for me.
If I decided to paint my own Walden in the Washington wild
for eternity,
I wonder if you would build a nightclub
next to my cabin.
If I decided to leap out airplane hatches and steal rodeo saddles and read my poetry out-loud
for eternity,
I wonder if you would be happily
married in Norway.
Jun 24, 2012
Jun 24, 2012 at 6:52 PM UTC
LET us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter's day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window,
And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys.
Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks.
Let us write of olden, golden days and hunters of the Holy Grail and men called "knights" riding horses in the rain, in the cold frozen rain for ladies they loved.
A roustabout hunched on a coal wagon goes by, icicles drip on his hat rim, sheets of ice wrapping the hunks of coal, the caravanserai a gray blur in slant of rain.
Let us nudge the steam radiator with our wool slippers and write poems of Launcelot, the hero, and Roland, the hero, and all the olden golden men who rode horses in the rain.
1.8k
Vipers barrelling -
high vaporous carcases,
farting emissions
Biospheres radiator streaks,
dooms rushing emissaries
.
Apr 29, 2010
Apr 29, 2010 at 12:58 PM UTC
my 30 gb iPod
the garter from my senior prom
a tiny golden cross that had
faith & hope
inscribed into it
the base to my son's car seat
& his monkey mirror
my husband's suit jacket
& seven years of my
life written into
various paper journals
with colored covers
these were all stolen in the
first car I ever owned
her name was Lydia
*"She was the most glorious creature
under the sun."*
that comes from a
Groucho Marx song if
you didn't know
my Papa used to sing it to
me all the time
anywho
she was a 2000 Dodge Neon
painted black
two stickers on the back
"COEXIST"
and
"SUPPORT THE ARTS
KISS A MUSICIAN"
I got her my first year
of college from
a man who's like a father
to me
we've been through many a
busted radiator hose
& flat tire
last summer my husband was on his way
to work when Lydia gave out on him
so he left her at the side of K-15 and MacArthur
in Wichita
& told the cops not to tow her away
'cause he'd be back for her
when he returned after his shift
she was gone
nowhere to be found
a vanishing act of pure mental hell
& unanswered questions
to this day
I miss her terribly.
Mar 8, 2012
Mar 8, 2012 at 2:27 AM UTC
There are days in these persistent weeks of the year...
When the sky is a block of grey outside the window,
It takes its place with such certainty that even the raindrops will not take their time
to appear on the glass in an attempt to divide it,
Sprawled across the floor with music in my ears I come to the conclusion that
Tom Odell is the only person in this world who understands me.
I hold my legs and cry into my knees
but they never hold me back,
After a while I crawl to the corner of my room,
And sit with my back against the radiator;
Any warmth will do,
And despite my enjoyment of this warmth
I can feel the radiator making dents in my back,
It reminds me of the way each day dents the week with its appearance,
The way it reaches Sunday, battered, bruised and tortured,
But it never stops,
It just carries on
and carries on.
And so maybe the persistence of each week is something to be admired...
But it still hurts
and hurts.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 9:50 AM UTC
Stare at your bedroom wall
and bard me a story about
the creeks of white between
the sun-patches of blue paint,
the faded yellow of the door
where the damp towel was hung
day after day after day.
Tell me about the mark
of a swept paintbrush
that accidentally destroyed
distinction between wall
and radiator.
They're no longer clean,
either of them.
How are the door handle dent marks
from that hurried moment when
you rushed into your room
away from our argument?
What of those stories?
Will you need a new place
to erase the memories from your mind?
The flies and the walls cannot speak
to anyone but you now.
It's all rotten anyway.
The sweet stink of evenings
spent in an intimate supine,
with a cleaver caught upright
in the cutting board bedpost.
We were atop one another
with our faces to the ceiling,
reading passages of poems aloud
after drenching the bed sheets
in varied indentations.
Cut words and minced gazes,
we grayed as shadows
against those weathered walls.
I remember those walls,
moonlight had reflected off the frames
of littered photographs, those stories,
and created a dance floor pattern of crescents
and plank-meeting-plank askew.
Those walls will tell me stories
even if you decide not to anymore.
I'd buy them all up, I would,
as I do the meat hook-hanging
in the butcher shop.
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 1:01 AM UTC