"roils" poems
I commit myself to the homicide
of my thought-flowers.
I indulge in the **** -
Killing my darlings
for the sake of art and sanity.
What a paradox.
I have bloodied my hands
with it even so.
No more love-lite poetry!
No more adolescent chinks of the
pseudo-heart!
No more infantile fork-stabs
at the plate of kid-intellectualism!
No more Wikipedia pages
on thoughts
that can swallow computers
whole!
I'm killing my darlings
for the sake of art,
for the sake of sanity -
what a paradox.
Blood is flowing.
I'm a murderer of ideas tonight -
today I will write
about many of life's very few truths.
Like trees.
Like soil.
These are the only constants in mathematics.
These are the identities.
In my garden, I reach out
to crush an
almost-crimson hibiscus.
Petals squelching with skin and nectar -
no perfume.
The hibiscus roils, unliving.
Red pulpy mess;
heart out of chest.
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 5:09 PM UTC
When he comes home, I go into panic mode,
The walls in my brain closing in,
The bile in my throat rising,
My teeth sweating in anticipation of what is to come
When he comes home,
I hope to god that I pass beneath the radar,
Nothing more than a sigh on the breeze,
Nothing more than a ripple in a pond
Nothing for him to notice
When he comes home, I make myself as small as I can,
Hoping that he’ll ignore me like he has all these years,
But knowing that it’s a futile attempt,
Like trying to avoid the burning sun
When he comes home,
The nausea roils in my gut,
Reminding me that I am nothing,
That I will never be anything more than what he paints me to be
When he comes home,
I am reduced to “yes sir” and “no sir,”
To eyes that are glued to the ceiling or floors,
To fidgeting hands and twisting fingers
To nothing more than a decoration to stand in the corner
When he comes home,
I try to retreat to my room,
I try to give him the space that he seems to need,
I try to leave him be and let him sleep,
But nothing seems to work, and he yells all the same
When he comes home,
My home becomes nothing more than a battlefield,
One that I cannot escape,
One that there is no running from,
One from which the injuries are only seen in the trauma that is left behind
When he comes home,
My life becomes nothing more than a play,
A tragedy in which no one survives,
A performance that I am supposed to know,
But stage fright has taken over and the lines mean nothing to me now
And I am frozen, hoping for the curtains to fall to cover my fear
When he comes home,
I quietly
Exit
Stage left.
Jun 17, 2023
Jun 17, 2023 at 9:15 PM UTC
Why do poets and photographers love fleeting things?
Angled shafts of sunlight piercing a mass
of clouds. A rainbow flashing from dragonfly wings.
Water drops beading like shards of glass.
The fluttering shape of a sycamore’s shade.
The sun sinking into its reflection
In a purple bay. Smoke’s shadow. The rayed
Curve of a finger reaching for perfection.
Whatever churns, bursts, rocks, flies,
Foams, flickers, roils, evades
In pigments of impermanent dyes
We try to fix before it fades
Once I mourned the endless dying
Of here and now, the present always past
Elegized each moment, sighing
Beauty is loss and can never last.
But now I think I had it wrong. In fact
(I learned this from an artist’s eye)
Fleeting beauty reappears faster than we react,
At the speed of a daydream flashing by.
All around, light coalesces into form,
Form explodes into light,
And we live lavishly inside this storm
If we can learn to see it right.
Beauty multiplies, tapering, swelling:
Reshaping, reforming, now familiar, now strange.
This gaudy blur in which we’re dwelling
Is the permanence of change.
Jul 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015 at 8:32 AM UTC
In the middle of weekends
of drunkenness
I cry
over what I see.
I cry
over the man
I gave a marlboro
too,
as he bumbled
and shook
to get it too his mouth,
I leaned in
and gave him a cover
for his light.
I cry
over the deaths
and vigils
in the projects,
cry
over the fact
that there are men
who have been
killed
over menial ****
I cry
over my mother
and grandmother,
because my love
tools away
in the darkness
of my soul
and I am not useful.
I cry
because I have not
seen my best friend
in years,
and I will perhaps
never see him again,
even when
we kept neighborhood ******
away,
back to back
swinging at the world
just to keep our
heads clean.
I cry
over love.
I cry
because there
is something warm
inside me,
as warm
as this gin.
So keep me in your prayers
I am a man crying,
because it roils
inside of me,
because I can't keep my emotions
in check, and don't want to.
I was raised around
a strong woman
with even
stronger emotions
that could be felt like
velvet
and pebbles,
and she taught me
how to be a man
and not lose my heart.
Feb 25, 2012
Feb 25, 2012 at 7:39 PM UTC
He knows what lies below.
This is where it all began: here
Beneath the bubbling sludge and ******* mud.
This is the home brew, the cocooning grounds.
His sturdy boots trudge through,
Hefting questions and glasses askew.
Somewhere to the side a fat swamp prince
Composes bog rhymes in ribbit meter.
Each squelching step sets a buzzing bunch
Of crystal dragons zipping away to
Slick peridot pontoons. A loon swoons
The expeditioner with a sobbing cry. He
Has said goodbye to reservations, to the
Long-dead preservation rights. He slogs through
The buzzing night. Yellow daggers clench
Between scaly steeltrap snappers and stones
With eyes blink in languid surprise, unnoticed.
He is lost, dying, unsure of his quest. He needs a
Cure. He knows it lies here, in the beginning place.
Their faces haunt his deathly guts and crush
His straining heart with need - need for the solution.
Need to survive, to prolong his life - alone!
So alone: the last. If only he could rest.
His nostrils quiver with the homesick stench
Of tails becoming legs and nipping lips sprouting
Sticky tongues. The answer, he is here for the
Only answer. Something below, below, down
In the dredges of history - in the slime of
Centuries, rotless and preserved. He will find it:
Some link, some closer thing he can revive
And test and rest as bedrock for his life.
A foot sticks in the overfriendly tar. No,
He will not pause. He has come too far.
In the birthing grime, some hungry memory wakes.
It knows what lies above, it thirsts to cease it.
It reaches, roils, pulls, rips with smelly squish-fingers -
Thirsting and thirsting to slake. It longs to reveal
To show, to make known to the traveler.
(All he has searched for is found here, it knows,
Organized and close. Held and safe below)
It reaches, grabs - thirsty - presses him into
A false step. A slip. A skritching clipboard
Of statistics curses in rustling indignance
As it flutters to the mud above a splattered head.
Science-frozen lungs fill with dread -
With life-giving peat. (It will show him) He ***** in
And burbles out a scream. (what he wants, show him)
This is where it begins, (this is his dream!) where it ends.
Now he knows what lies below. He lies - curled -
Quenched from growth. The eyes of unnoticed
Stones blink in surprise. Soaring swamp lyrics
Rise, a loon swoons with a sobbing cry.
He curls in peace and drifts alone
Now he knows what lies below.
Sep 30, 2010
Sep 30, 2010 at 7:10 PM UTC
Thunder roils the sky—
Under Olympus, bolts hail,
Angry cries of Zeus.
Aug 8, 2012
Aug 8, 2012 at 12:35 AM UTC
read it in the leaves of grass
withering as the time goes
marching past
we've sung of ourselves,
total selves, man and woman one,
*********** plumes of white cloudy
dreams into the holy skies,
total consummation,
writhing pleasure lips,
part smile, part begging,
total self-adulation
but,
the grass withers my old friend
those fields, tepid pools of oil
our skies, churning ebbs of burning progress
a civil war roils,
just beyond our yard
remnants of it tumbling within the square boxes
we worship for their divertive power
no longer brothers and fathers
north and south, pounding powder death
but,
mothers killing mothers,
fathers murdering their unborn
sons and daughters
a generation of human flesh
eats the soil of the earth,
drinks the blood of its rivers,
plunges its arms deep within
the arteries of the land pulling
forth trinkets and black milk
to feed our steel cattle
to ***** towering mirrors of our
false power and prestige and progress
and prowess of mind and prudence of judgment
no, no, no! lies of a blathering ***** unhinged,
we scream at our total selves, man and woman one,
this is not the song i intended to sing
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 9:07 AM UTC
So many words between us—
The caustic breech of abatement, ruin
Runs atonal, in recitals of indifference,
How even the ****** birds now sound
Discordant and rain crushes as it falls,
Ballistic.
The pinprick stars are merely eyes
Undraped to the worn soul's veil
And gorgon time roils setting our feet
In the crust of wishes and delusions
Kept.
The bullet riddled skies in absence
Of colour are but particulates of lime
To the moonless night. Words have no
Eyes, they can only finger.
O the sorrows of the untouched—
The cruelty of the sightless and bent blind,
Drab vermillion stars felled like forced tears.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 10:57 AM UTC
there’s a deep, visceral anger that I seem to feel everyday
that no one ever talks about.
i wake up and my stomach roils with fury, wild and burning.
i eat breakfast and watch as my hand grips the mug, wishing I could shatter it against the floor.
conversation hurts with the acid I want to spit at my mother.
i watch action movies and ride roller coasters and go to haunted mazes and every scream I’m allowed feels like the briefest, most beautiful respite.
i look out at crowds of people and it feels like I’m breathing concrete.
i sit in my car and scream and cry and scream because it’s the only place I’m really alone and the guy in front of me stares through his rearview mirror.
i say that I’m tired but I really mean angry but I don’t know how to say angry so I just say tired and everyone is getting really tired of me being tired.
i remember when the anger was so big and I was so small and I only knew how to close the hatch of my mouth to keep it all inside because one time I let it out and then everyone knew about the anger and I came to the sudden terrifying realization that the anger wasn’t supposed to be evoked.
i am so angry and I thought everyone else was too and we were all in on some joke where we’re constantly hiding fury behind our eyes.
but I think, recently, I’ve realized that this deep, hot, painful, crippling, paralyzing anger isn’t entirely normal.
that not everyone wants to scream at their loved ones one moment and then stick a knife in their head the next.
instead the joke is on me, like I missed orientation and everyone seems to run like clockwork and I’m an angry little gear that’s rusted and out of place.
everything is so practiced and planned and poised and perfect and I just want to sink my teeth into it and rip it all to shreds, screaming and baring my throat to the sky, daring god to face me and bear witness to my unholy wrath as the blood of his creation runs down my neck.
anger grips me like a vice and lives in my stomach and I just want to have a conversation where I’m not trying to not throw the bottle in my hand.
Sep 6, 2022
Sep 6, 2022 at 3:06 AM UTC
the pyre of my soul
incinerates my interior
as I watch our flames burn
relentlessly from my lips
like the words that removed
love from around my heart
who would have believed
your whispers would burn
like the sun; singeing my
entirety with venomous
blisters flung with displeasure
bafflement sears...
there's no more emotions,
forgiveness is shamefaced
a misdirection of affections
your misunderstanding
leaves me naked in this
moment, heated in affront
this second fore, nothing
matters anymore
inner abashed turmoil...
roils like a cauldron upon
a campfire, its embered particles
I breathe and ingest for naught
in whimpering gasps
wanting to desecrate that
smirk rising upon your
handsome features; a look
I once found to be endearing
once in awhile
that you took away, too...
your total disdain; dousing
our flame of eternal love of
all that beheld us in God's
light; which, now leaves me
awash in bile, dazed, open-mouth
stares from dimming eyes
is all that looks upon my beauty
with such pain; makes me want
to scream, take me
want me, love me as once
before
re-ignite our flame...
those thoughtful embers are
undirected words drenched upon
an uncaring mind, directing
my soul and heart towards
the moon and the burn of stars
that light up the sky of my
heart and mind as if I could
have altered the course
of your bitterness, until
I can no longer sigh in want
of your love
thoughts of me gone asunder...
filling my lungs with silent
animosity towards all that you
stand for, my only want now
is for you to stay away from me,
allowing me to live in solitude
inside the hunger that pours
like stinging tears from my eyes,
let me be without changing
the sound of love still singing
within my heart
Jun 12, 2012
Jun 12, 2012 at 3:22 AM UTC
In the house of the unsaid
Tears are glass beads that drop
The ***** on the bone china
Blood spittles the lips, hair
Raises the dead the cut
Rosary roils and dents
Harmony’s rumour spouts
In the sink. The clock’s twitching
Strikes a mongoosed hour.
And the scattered stations run
The rude wood splinters
As the unsaying are floored
Clouded eyes pain the glass
Outside the house, bare
Trees are leaved with ravens.
Mar 2, 2013
Mar 2, 2013 at 4:26 PM UTC
Thunder roils the sky—
Under Olympus, bolts hail,
Angry cries of Zeus.
Aug 24, 2013
Aug 24, 2013 at 10:05 PM UTC
In the house of the unsaid
Tears are glass beads that drop
The ***** on the bone china
Blood spittles the lips, hair
Raises the dead the cut
Rosary roils and dents
Harmony’s rumour spouts
In the sink. The clock’s twitching
Strikes a mongoosed hour.
And the scattered stations run
The rude wood splinters
As the unsaying are floored
Clouded eyes pain the glass
Outside the house, bare
Trees are leaved with ravens.
Sep 6, 2013
Sep 6, 2013 at 12:31 PM UTC
calm the beautiful blue mornings, green calm growing pastures
I meditate passionately viewing, white visions floating on
until some afternoons, on a horizon unexpectantly, out of the prettiest
cyan grows grey storms.
Heat builds, rises rapidly condensing moisture, particles charge,
cyan dims to black; the world arises angrily.
Me and the sun hide hidden, the dark horizon growls. Flashes,
and thunder roils on awakening fears.
When she calms down, I meekly peek again, see a peaceful cloud and cyan
calmness.
Summer calm blue green.
Red blonde clouds blowing free.
Again.
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 7:08 PM UTC
Thunder roils the sky—
Under Olympus, bolts hail,
Angry cries of Zeus.
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 12:52 PM UTC
There is a sea in me
It roils and boils
And churns and swallows
And breaks on the jagged teeth
Of the coastline
It crashes and comes
With a force untold
And lays waste to the dry land
Sometimes it calms to a hush
Only to rush my lungs with brine
There is an anxious sea in me
Aug 15, 2014
Aug 15, 2014 at 7:59 AM UTC
In the house of the unsaid
Tears are glass beads that drop
The ***** on the bone china
Blood spittles the lips, hair
Raises the dead the cut
Rosary roils and dents
Harmony’s rumour spouts
In the sink. The clock’s twitching
Strikes a mongoosed hour.
And the scattered stations run
The rude wood splinters
As the unsaying are floored
Clouded eyes pain the glass
Outside the house, bare
Trees are leaved with ravens.
Jun 22, 2012
Jun 22, 2012 at 2:22 PM UTC
I wonder what it is that sends us
looking out to sea,
amidst the pounding breakers
and that blue transparency?
There is a certain colour
that roils up from deep below,
and something's stirred within me too;
from where? I do not know.
From shore, I find that I am
just as troubled in my mind.
I cast my thoughts out to the waves
I know, are far from kind.
A sea within. A sea without.
I am so lost at sea!
My wildest thoughts search for a boat
for both realities.
With feelings tossed, I am confused
and wait now for the tide,
to put me back on solid ground,
there is no place to hide.
Where could I go, if going forth
there only is the sea,
and turning inward, I am lost,
within the sea of me?
Oct 4, 2011
Oct 4, 2011 at 2:17 PM UTC
I am frightened like a child lost upon a day trip
And angry, vengeant upon who I do not know
O, but I am no calm saint of a man!
For there is a surge and a storm in my gut
It spins and roils, this queasy gyre
Circling my hate and my love and all the anguish and fury of the seas!
And my fingers they tremble with the potent rage of apocalypse wind!
My arms pulse with sickening static by
The lightning pounding through my veins
And I wail and sway and groan
As if I were casting a hex upon the entire world
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 6:41 PM UTC
Abstracted Painting
.
print in
.
black and white
,
as if
,
they paint
,
the page
.
hues of blues
.
or of
.
Langston Hughes
.
the page roils the spirits
.
to anger red
.
that fades
.
to shades
.
to purples and blues
Avante-Garde, Hipster, Beat Poet Words and sound of Celebration
Graphic Painting done by me Shamus.Media,Arts
www,shamusmediarts.com © a month ago, SilverSilkenTongue
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016 at 4:47 AM UTC
You don't know
What a genius I am
Pontificating stuffed shirt
At the head of the classroom
With your precious red ink
And credentialed soul
Do you bleed as I do?
Do you dream in words
So painfully beautiful
You marvel at belonging to them?
You don't know
Who I am or will be
Call it egotism or delusion
But behind this meek acceptance
Of your measures and jibes
My pride roils like lava
For once, I will not speak my mind
I must show you instead
And show you, I shall
Feb 11, 2010
Feb 11, 2010 at 8:40 PM UTC
In the house of the unsaid
Tears are glass beads that drop
The ***** on the bone china
Blood spittles the lips, hair
Raises the dead the cut
Rosary roils and dents
Harmony’s rumour spouts
In the sink. The clock’s twitching
Strikes a mongoosed hour.
And the scattered stations run
The rude wood splinters
As the unsaying are floored
Clouded eyes pain the glass
Outside the house, bare
Trees are leaved with ravens.
Oct 12, 2012
Oct 12, 2012 at 9:45 PM UTC
.
So many words between us—
The caustic breech of abatement, ruin
Runs atonal, in recitals of indifference,
How even the ****** birds now sound
Discordant and rain crushes as it falls,
Ballistic.
The pinprick stars are merely eyes
Undraped to the worn soul's veil
And gorgon time roils setting our feet
In the crust of wishes and delusions
Kept.
The bullet riddled skies in absence
Of colour are but particulates of lime
To the moonless night. Words have no
Eyes, they can only finger.
O the sorrows of the untouched—
The cruelty of the sightless and bent blind,
Drab vermillion stars felled like forced tears.
.
Jan 10, 2022
Jan 10, 2022 at 5:07 PM UTC
grinning(green clad)devil
satted silent in
a sharp cafe
waiting eternal
in walks man
sighing sadly sits
across from greengrin devil
forked tongue river
roils implications
"thou art the skin of weak **********
drips emerald
"this i know, yet unable to face its truth, i find my i"
ripples trite man
in this way satting
supping murky fluid
sin gestates
in celadonian
lips
May 11, 2010
May 11, 2010 at 12:34 PM UTC