"ratted" poems
A curtain held by one nail
Faded blush pink, tilted
Ratted hair into knotted beauty
Eyeliner set as feathers
***** crusted stage, crackling with every step
Audience of the haunted, ghostly clapping
Amused by the audacity
She twirls
Egotistical, making her toes blister
She closes her eyes, her thighs tingling
Meat hanging on a bone barely
Hells lounge
What a crowd
The devil sharpens his hair
Perfect horns of despair
He smokes his cigar
"Keep going my queen
Famous was the only request
You never said where"
Satan's personal entertainer
He kisses her forehead,
carressing her mangled body
He loves her the best a man can,
when being the king of hell
A ferocious request, "bow everybody"
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 7:01 PM UTC
Out of the loop de loop into the swirl of hoopla hoop
Transfer into the oasis of illusion, awaiting the water boat
Fall over the bolder dropped from your shoulder
Rolling and gathering moss, scraping off the parasites
Bowling the ball down the aisle into the skittle alley
Knocking down those fellows who denounce you
Don't hear you, read through your eyes to the back of
Your head and beyond, into their own ace of space
Rolling around the ground belly aching their sound
Machine, mean warriors of gloom, for soon they'll fall
Short of time to relish their pleasure boat, punting along
Paddling their pedalo into the grey below, capsizing
Forlorn arms stretching out to capture, only trickery
Bickering, as you fall through the gaps and rake your ratted
Soul with grit between teeth, spit, of solemn men who
Give out black track thoughts for you to devour.....
Finality bleats, gongs the looming song....the hour, fatal shower
Jan 31, 2013
Jan 31, 2013 at 6:06 AM UTC
I was marching down the crowded avenue
When I realized my hair was covered in kerosene.
Eyes flash; memories appear.
Bitter lips and kisses just covered in lies.
I was as stainless as the flowers in my hair;
The ones you picked from the garden.
I was as passionate as the ocean;
Always coming back to kiss the shore.
A sweet love, a love as wonderful and
As vibrant as the floral perfume around my neck.
The same one that gave me a rash.
Once we held flashlights, escaping into
The dark and hollow night alone.
Two hearts ignited on fire.
But flashlights always run out of battery,
Right?
I breathe in the salty ocean air.
I detect traces of you.
A ratted baseball glove.
Faded mint soap.
Stale potato chips; always crushed.
Nights of March play over and over;
Leaving and leaving and lying.
You talk of
Nightmares of dead flowers, wasted love.
Dissolving all bonds of emotion.
All I can see are flames.
You held the knife,
But I was destined to burn.
I was holding the matches all along.
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 9:14 PM UTC
There is a bat in my closet.
I can hear it rattle its ratted wings
whenever I think about last summer,
the dark and curling feelings.
I can still see its putrid paws hanging over me
in the bathroom that summer night I came home crying.
The alcohol spilt on my dress was streaming
the words my friend said as he threw
the open beer can at me.
“I love you and you’re too much of a ***** to love me back.”
I don’t understand why I felt so bad.
Why the bat inside beckoned to me,
hissed at me to take the razor,
to free it from my cyclic center.
I can still feel the first cut,
me shattering on the bathroom sink,
the bat inside of me screeching
through my watery skin.
I still do not know how to forgive myself
for being so stupid.
I do not know how to forgive the bat in me.
Instead I hide it in my closet,
Lay in bed each night hoping
its wings wont rattle through the door.
©DelaneyMiller
Mar 5, 2014
Mar 5, 2014 at 9:07 PM UTC
Pharmacopoeias
Pseudo psychedelic phantasms
Kaleidoscopic deliriums
Mushroom acerbic cloud igniting
Truth denying exposition
Chemical makeup
Dressed to ****
From seed
To harvest
To market
To dinner plate
To grave
In wooden box decaying
Infatuations with infrastructures in frustration
Genetically modified bullets
BT Corn ripping organs
Exposing the explosion
Imploding on a sunny afternoon in March
Ants on the streets
Trampled by elephants’ ***** in the parade
Rats in slavery’s maze
Corporations’ corporate mandates
Sold out government conspiracy
To cover up the conspiracy of conspiracies
TV eyes ratted out you and yours
A fist-full of dollar bills
Some odd change to clink in the wishing well
Monsanto seeds die at plantation
Reincarnation of a deadly virus
Sow the soil and reap rewards of petulance pestilence
Mar 26, 2012
Mar 26, 2012 at 7:18 PM UTC
Put genitals in your mouth
No one bats an eye
Eat a chip off the floor
After five seconds
People lose their ****
Whirl down Cupid’s Hill
Post office bound
Island air and golden sun bars
Through moon roof
Corner pocket
Western union
Mow down island dogs
Kintaro
Please mow down as many as possible
You love dogs?
I do too.
But, no, it’s the humane thing to do
Otherwise they cry all night
With suicide eyes
But no pointer fingers to
Pull the trigger
Or tug-of-war
A baby piglet in half
Red spray painted
Toe nails
And
I lose sleep
And get nasty with
Unsuspecting writing students
All day Thursday
And
Besides
It’s not like they
Won’t be dinner for
Your neighbors
anyway
Be weary
Menwai are tricky here
Find one who is the ****
And spend your time with them
Better yet
Choose a westernized local
Someone who knows and
Respects both sides
Because
For some reason
Menwai lack any ******* semblance
Of depth and loyalty
In paradise
No, no
If you want integrity and honesty
A westernized local is the way to go
You dig
Because who knows if that
One Adonis
“Friend” of yours won’t
Keep a secret local girl friend
Locked away in his forbidden,
No trespassing 4TY apartment
And **** all the girlfriends
You confided your feelings in
For said
Statuesque Portland haling
Lawyer
“Friend”
In your apartment
Lies
Fairytales
And fallacies
Get me off this rock
If only for a weekend
On Black Coral or Nahlap
I can eat ramen for days
Ratted, greezy and
Scattered-ass ramen packs
Two Kool-aid red fingertips
Away from grasping
Something that at least
RESEMBLES confidence
And security
Because when your
“Curls and Gurls”
Best Peace Corps mate
Isn’t around to make you
Laugh till tears
Laugh at the absurdity
So that you can feel:
“At Last!
Grounded.”
You allow your brain and heart to
Meet in that covert cloud
Looming above
Decrepit Kolonia-town
But,
But:
THE TEEJ MALI says:
More free
More free
So far surviving slum and street
Wearing these scars
Just as he is meant
To be
So you know *****
Gonna be alright
Soon
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 9:23 PM UTC
I am the lone insurgent
Walking through the streets
of my own mind.
My mind
Is a totalitarian state.
I am the lone assassin
Of the members of parliament,
Remember, in my own mind.
I am ratted out
By the shrill shrieks
Of an old lady on the tram.
I walk home from endless meetings
With myself, where him
And me plot our rebellion
Sparking the ember, remember;
In my own mind.
The Secret Police awaits
Probably in my living room
Waiting for me to turn on the lights
Revealing the glint of silver nozzles
Mere millimeters from my my head.
The warrant proclaims:
"Conspiracy and ******
I may be lone, but my hand
Wields just vindication.
I may be lone,
But as I am executed
There is still me
And another will always
Follow
Striking the ember, remember;
In my own mind.
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 8:34 PM UTC
The late-day light slants in through
the large, framed window and onto the couch where I sit again.
I watch my Abby lean against the back and
squeal with joy as she points towards the tall trees
dropping pine cones and needles and filling the air with yellow dust.
"Dance! Dance!" she chimes while the trees continue to sway.
A sober smile spreads itself across my face
because the contrast lays heavy in my heart.
The air is thick and stuffy even though the wind outside blusters with
the warmth of a young Indian summer.
My grandmother sits pale and broken in that chair.
there was a time I sat there with her
delving deep into tales that took place so far away.
Her soft, careful voice lulling me
like the trees were lulled in that wind-
And there were times that I lay outside with my sister
our hair ratted with autumn leaves and pine needles
on a carpet of the greenest grass.
We would lay there, trees swaying above us,
shrieking and giggling nervously when they would bend.
Clutching hands we would laugh nervously and say
it was just a game.
And Grandma would call us in
to soup and sandwiches
made with such care
and over chocolate milk
we tell her of how the wind had snapped branches off the apple tree
and we had found a perfect bird nest with feathers still caught in the twigs
As she listened her eyes would widen with interest and,
at just the right moment, her hand would flutter to her heart
and she would gasp with such sincere surprise
that my eyes would meet with my sister's and we
would choke back a chuckle with a smile.
And there were times when I would snuggle deep
into the cleanest smelling bed linens and
Grandma would pull the quilt up over me to my chin.
"Goodnight my Angel," she said.
But in her eyes I saw the real angel
as she bent to kiss me softly on my cheek.
The smell of her face cream always lingered on my cheek from that kiss.
But now she sits
tired and broken
in that chair we used to share
and watches my little angel
young and vibrant
giggle at the same swaying trees
in a different age.
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 7:08 PM UTC
What broke me?
Why did it feel so ********* righteous?
I swear, as long as my *** is round,
I'm probably in a better place,
some sort of better state of mind.
My 85-year-old neighbor once
told me, if she didn't laugh,
she'd cry about her deceased husband.
So, I often wonder, with all this laughing
I do, does it cover me well?
Does it warm my broken heart?
I stuck a pencil in my ear once,
because I had a little itch.
Mind you, I was 7.
But I kept this secret from
everyone, I didn't want to be screamed
at. Two weeks later, my friend ratted on me
and I ended up in the doctor's office,
screaming my head off.
This was the day I almost went deaf.
I wear glasses for my nearsighted vision,
and it's nice to choose when I feel like seeing.
It's hard for me to believe if I'm looking at whatever
it is that everyone is usually looking at.
And no one will ever be too sure, if we all see or hear
the same thing. But, I'll tell you what, seeing is
believing. And if I could begin to explain,
some of the things I thought I'd seen,
maybe it would begin to make sense-
Why I laugh all the time.
A droid statue, mechanical failure,
a deepened depression no one ever saw
forever ago. color-blinded green eye,
a real big joke, a decent lie.
I race myself through my blue-blooded veins,
the alter-ego, dead-deafened twin that lives within.
She lives, and she loves for no reason,
but simply just because.
Because if it wasn't love, it'd be a hate
pool that I'd drown in.
Dec 29, 2013
Dec 29, 2013 at 11:08 PM UTC
White Asylum
I love red!
Wanna know why?
Come on, I think you know!
I’ll help you out!
The
runny then crusty,
gushing then sealed,
but always
thick,
oozing,
smooth
kind of red is my favorite.
Can you figure it out yet?
That red that only flows with punctures,
but then cannot stop.
At least for a while.
Sometimes it cascades
like
a
waterfall.
Sometimes a soft trickle
like
a
calm
stream.
But, sadly,
overtime,
just like an artist with his paint,
it gets dry and flaky.
Now you know what I’m talking about!
I’m positive!
Haha yes, I know I’ve gone mad.
I love it.
Embrace it with my entire being!
I think thats why I'm here.
I never get to see red anymore.
They keep me locked away in these
padded
bleached
blinding
white
walls.
Surrounded by plain.
I really do miss the color red.
i used to see so much of it.
It was a masterpiece.
And I was the mysterious maestro.
Until someone ratted me out!
Not so anonymous anymore!
Gotta tell everybody!
Hmmm, shoulda turned them red too.
Didn't have the time……
Why are you still there?
Have I not made you insane yet?
Good luck sleeping tonight.
Don’t close both eyes.
Thats when I visit.
I make sure you are not looking.
Before you leave and never see your life again.
Sadly, I’m in here.
And you are out there.
Not so many white walls where you are.
Do me a favor, will you?
See some red tonight.
I have lost count of how many days since my last masterpiece.
I really do miss it….
Anyway!
This has been the most pleasant of visits!
Please come again!
Just one thing to remember:
Don’t close both eyes.
That’s when I come.
And I won’t let you go like last time.
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 4:21 PM UTC
I just received a letter of warning
From the people of PETA no doubt
Informing me they've seen my new picture
I think the chicken must have ratted me out
Well you can rest cause I can assure you
In the picture no poultry was harmed
And the chicken also was taken
From a free range organic natural farm
The letter held all the usual jargon
About lawyers and lawsuits and such
It's not like the chicken was wasted
After filming I had her over for lunch
So let me tell all you people at PETA
Don't get your ******* all up in a ***
Right after my head she laid, I supplied the Preparation H
Then carried her gently to the chopping block
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 7:46 PM UTC
Infectious wounded words, gargled grief,
ring leaders in foul filled filth,
door opening to the left of the blackened
wallpaper, stooping from its support
Floor, a waterlogged mess of yellowed
**** stabbing stink, suffocating, like flayed
corpses, acidity burning in the back alleys
of wounded worn out hearts on sick leave
Cowering in crumbled crevices, filmy outlines
of themselves, insides outgrown fulfillment,
faded, grasped their gasp and sold it,
folded into walls....gross with age
I would have cried but, energyless, I'd fallen
out of my body long ago, beat the light from
my eyes, layed down in yellowed tears of ****
alongside the ratted out corridors of squalor
Apr 27, 2013
Apr 27, 2013 at 7:40 AM UTC
*The eggplant baby ***** of this ceiling seems to swirl.
I am consumed in my own rhythm,
My own longing...
Just pull my ratted hair,
Tie me to the chair and make me shake in anticipation...*
You don't.
Just a delicious little daydream to keep me company.
Wallowing in my ecstasy with no relief.
Watching the wallpaper peel slowly with my heavy breathes.
*A chill runs down my spine,
As my head rolls back,
Eyes sigh,
I bite my lip.*
Waiting.
*Cutting into my fingertips,
Trying to stagger this urge,
This urge to let go.*
To feel relief.
*Bliss.
Kiss my eyes,
Roll my shoulders and extend your hand...*
*Build me up baby,
Watch me break you down.
Lose myself in your smell,
In your arms,
Your smile...*
This is a mere desire.
A naughty little line,
Consumed in pure need.
I'll wander for now...
Until you feel the need,
To come and play....
Once again...
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 8:16 PM UTC
Benedict's mother
stood by the twin tub
washing machine
lifting the steaming wash
from the washer
to the spinner
with wooden tongs,
her eyes focused,
her arm straining.
He watched her;
a book, Plato's Republic,
lay open
on the table
by his hand.
He studied
the red hands,
the worn fingers,
how she wiped the wet
from her forehead
with the back
of her hand.
Plato’s Philosopher Kings
seemed too hard
for his delicate mind
at that stage,
the Greek world
too far off
in the past
to give him comfort.
Maybe you ought
to read something lighter,
his mother said,
pushing down
the washing
with the end
of the tongs.
Find it hard to read
at all at present,
he said,
everything’s
an effort.
Making the effort
is part of the effort,
she said.
You don’t want to be
in the hospital again,
do you?
He closed up
the Plato book.
He wondered
how Julie was.
He’d not seen her
for months.
Good job too
his mother
would have said
if she had known
about her.
No, he said,
not there again.
His mother spun
the washing,
the noise ratted
the machine.
He rose from the table
and walked down
the passage way.
The machine rattled still.
He went in the back room
and put Miles Davis
on the hifi.
The muted horn,
the saxophone weaving,
the drummer
keeping pace,
jazz on a highway,
he closed his eyes,
head full of darkness,
breath full of sighs.
Jun 9, 2013
Jun 9, 2013 at 7:16 PM UTC
***** fission
ringwormed and worn
in a fetal position
blue blood(less) and opaque partly venus partly awake
brittle smoke the basement of youth
from the lower
drifting street outlined by morning
gashed translucent wings and braid
empties out the milk brigade
(ice water hymns collided gaze rescinded unto twitching haze)
dried rose thorns upon her head
yourself the queen denied the dead
footsteps 'neath the ardent wonder
shy gaze threaded 'tween the thunder
20 numbers in a pin ***** line
wishing they were pierced by 9
if 13 could he'd lick your prime but 13's 0 next to 9
(number 9 in its prime was nothing less
if not divine)
pulsing thorough the line is fine
young of spirit and sanguine
1-10 were neighbor kinds
11-20 like grapes upon an earthen vine...
but they all shied away from
0....because
0 led a life of crime
was going away
then dropped a dime
he ratted out his old friend 9
then skipped this town
due for the rhine
Aug 11, 2013
Aug 11, 2013 at 12:00 AM UTC
Sometimes i think i am incapable of caring about anyone. Like, all that i am, is constructed of guilt and emotions i never wished to be mine in the first place.
There will never be a part of me i would offer up to be handled, because every limb, every ***** every slab of flesh worth holding, has been grabbed too hard and forced into positions that paralyzed me.
When i think of hands, i think of HIS hands and how they took, seized my fatless chest; like if he pulled hard enough and if he pinched to the point of blood, it would resemble the gutting of a fish and I would be pliant in his hold.
Hands don’t feel the same anymore, they don’t look the same. ‘Cause when I think of hands, i think of the print that was left behind and how it dyed parts of me a shade pink i had never before seen. I think of how i couldn’t breathe because of it, too scared to leave my room for days, and when I finally did, i tiptoed around him like i was on thin ice and he was the cold water underneath it.
I slept two hours last night, i’m okay with it. I was too scared to close my eyes, convinced that time would pass by without me in it. Woke up, didn’t brush my hair, just tied it back; ratted up knot things clinging to over-stretched hair ties.
And I can’t tell anymore, if these words are just emotions i’m trying to toss out so i wouldn’t have to feel them anymore, or if they are perhaps freed things - open to the page to understand myself better.
How will I ever know?
Jan 13, 2018
Jan 13, 2018 at 1:47 AM UTC
There was a little, stuffed, ratted lamb
I used to carry around.
they found it in my closet hidden away.
What they don't know
Is that's where I used to stay.
Hidden and safe
From the war outside,
Forbidden to come out; I promised I wouldn't, But I lied.
Certain things you can't unsee
But I didn't take the ratted lamb with me.
I left it hidden away like I should have been.
Instead, I instilled a fear of men in my head.
that was the first night I didn't bring my little lamb to bed.
The old ratted thing was all I could protect.
Sure her little life wasn't perfect, always hidden out of sight.
clothes pins on her ears so she didn't hear the fights.
But I did my best to give her all I could.
Taking care of her the way I knew I should have been given care.
I became a Mom to the ratted lamb, because my Mom wasn't there.
She never once closed my ears with clothes pins.
I'd forgive her if she did.
But what's unforgivable, is that she didn't like how I hid.
I guess she wanted me to live in reality and not to be sheltered.
But I sweltered in the heat of truth.
so my little lamb I sheltered, my little lamb I soothed.
I still have the ratted thing, we sit side by side.
But now neither one of us has to hide.
Except for from time to time
When I hide from the memories
That brew
Inside.
© copyrighted Nicole Ann Osborn
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 2:40 PM UTC
Safe saved metaphors
All clear in third age
Forming tried foams
On the hallway of ties
The alleyways tiptoed
The only lifeline we hold
The ghost that loves me
It tickles my toes and glows
The massive shadowy face
The hanged erred earlobe
Yet it claimed me from birth
Dented in a cast ratted tribe
A reminder of evolvement
As I crawled to run away
It pulls in seductive destination
I shall never win this battle
I shall ever learn the meaning
A reevaluation of a patron
A tune of comfortness chaos
This ghost that claims me
It made me grieve and revealed
A long left pain of the lost
It made love to me on and on
The ghost that raised me
Shoot me from gravity to its era
It shall forever be the flavour
May 5, 2016
May 5, 2016 at 6:28 PM UTC
standing in front of the mirror
she begins to design
*blood red around the mouth
dark, dark smears of black for her eyes
spider like lashes
piercings filled with baubles
of all shapes, sizes and colors
bluish black hair ratted
spiked
hardened
and lacquered
chalk blue and turquoise added to the tips
black silky tunic over black ripped leggings
battered black boots
laced up and over the knee
chains
belts
thorny bracelets
silver rings on most fingers
her favorite being a thick skull with eyes of red ruby
and last, but definitely not least,
worn to just the right softness,
a black leather motorcycle jacket
unzipped*
checking herself in the mirror
she lights a marlboro and nods
satisfied
*maiden of the night
party girl
hipster
punk
cool
confident*
this girl's got it
many girl's want it
me?
i admire it.
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 8:19 PM UTC
We told our stories to the demons
that hid in our ratted hair
and carved out secrets beneath the black bark
of trees, They bled every stroke and our secrets
were never told.
In the night we collected the broken
pieces of corvine hearts and kept them
warm within the casing of our pillows
Every night that our mascara fell became a lullaby
for the love birds to sing in their
mourning.
We danced with lilac vines
we kissed endangered ivory
we loved evergreens
we flirted with death
Monarchs came to our slumber and
whispered sweet nothings to the demons
and in the morning the bark regrew on the
trees
and ever since
it hasn't been quite the same
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 4:11 AM UTC
It was 12:50 in the morning and I finally chose to go to bed. Naturally, I did my routine. I blindly stumbled and got a cup of water, turned on the fan, and stumbled back through the black door. It was 12:59. As I entered, I made sure that the door was open wide for fluid air to refresh my room. I knocked my knees on the side of my bed and crawled into my ratted red blanket. As I finally got settled, the oddly shaped plastic handle for the raising of the ***** teal window shades started to tap at an easy, slow rhythm, and never seemed to slow down. Gradually, the handle started to quiet down. There was a faint creaking sound from somewhere in my room and it almost seemed in time with the distant tapping. As the tapping got quieter and the creaking grew louder, I started to sweat and my mind was racing uncontrollably. Suddenly the black door slammed, and the fluid air shut down. All was quiet, even the cars seemed to stop moving outside. I closed my eyes for some reason I’m still not sure. Maybe I was scared, maybe I was trying to face fear, maybe, just maybe, I was waiting for the right moment. All I know is that door is not open. It is 1:00 in the morning
Jun 20, 2012
Jun 20, 2012 at 1:58 AM UTC
All I wanted was Peanut Butter Waffles.
This place? Yes, it looks like the place...
Scary waitress.
Ratted blonde hair. Walked out of the seventies. Cigarette cough. Sniffles.
Should we stay?
No Peanut Butter Waffles.
Stay anyway.
Strong coffee.
Lipstick on your napkin from our kisses.
We laugh. Your smiling eyes.
The beard you grew for me.
Handsome as ever.
Great breakfast. Check arrives.
God bless you.
Amazing waitress.
My five dollar tip. You go up to pay.
Slip my arms around your waist.
You take my hands. Rest my head on your back. Breathe in your scent.
Listen to you heart beating and mine is calm.
Feels so right.
I could stay here forever.
Back into the pouring rain. My hand in yours.
Last day together. Off to the airport.
This is going to hurt.
Waffle Shack. Not Waffle House.
Same yellow tiles.
Lies.
Were our feelings?
Dec 12, 2021
Dec 12, 2021 at 8:29 PM UTC