"sags" poems
Old people's skin sags
Because it is being pulled
To the Underworld.
Mar 21, 2015
Mar 21, 2015 at 8:36 AM UTC
the bed is not very big
a sufficient pillow shoveling
her small manure-shaped head
one sheet on which distinctly wags
at times the weary twig
of a neckless ******
(very occasionally budding
a flabby algebraic odour
jigs
et tout en face
always wiggles the perfectly dead
finger of thitherhithering gas.
clothed with a luminous fur
poilu
a Jesus sags
in frolicsome wooden agony).
25.4k
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
7.6k
If there are infinite worlds,
there must be one where umbrellas never close-
hinges locked open like stubborn jaws,
gape-mouthed against walls in patient herds.
No one in their twenties owns one,
their hamster-cage apartments
too small for such luxuries.
They ask for rain jackets on birthdays.
Mary Poppins still drifts down Cherry Tree Lane,
her umbrella never folding,
only floating.
Children carry slips home
for violating umbrella laws,
forging signatures in loopy ink.
The Morton Salt girl wears a slicker,
yellow as a warning flare before the flood.
My mother walking me to kindergarten in rain,
transparent vinyl dome above our heads-
I, the opposite of a fish in its tank.
Her hair plastered to her forehead
by the time we reached the door.
Everyone looks most beautiful
with rainwater running down their face.
In the open-umbrella reality,
time can walk backward-
you can unwater a plant,
unpeel a clementine,
un-kiss someone.
Endings lift again,
fabric billowing, as if the story
had been left open in the wind.
Heather and Mike find the road out.
Rosemary tips the bassinet.
There, perhaps, neither of us was born.
What lay between us
stays open too long,
collecting rain until it sags,
slow and certain, like sugar
in the first storm.
Aug 12, 2025
Aug 12, 2025 at 8:06 PM UTC
The skin
Folds
The body
Sags
The soul
Remains.
She tasted
Like candy.
But she
Looked like
Plastic.
Fix me
Doctor.
She said
Those words,
As she come
Undone.
She carved
A mask
Out of money,
Out of misery.
She kicked
And screamed,
At youths door.
But it was gone.
Her face was still,
But her heart was broke.
She looked like plastic.
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 5:47 PM UTC
The porch bends beneath me,
its gray boards sighing.
I light a cigarette,
send my breath to the wind-
maybe White‑Shell Woman
will carry it to the horizon.
He's fired again,
last kitchen inside forty miles
that could stand him,
bridge burned behind.
At lunch I’ll call,
say get out
or Daddy and Jimbo
will haul your whiskey bones
to lie with the rattlesnakes.
I swore to Mama and to Owl,
I will keep the night honest,
I wouldn’t spend my years
driving a man to dialysis,
watching Irish blood unravel
like wet lace.
But I remember the long Covid winter-
two bears in one den,
one soft, one starved-
when Spider Grandmother
wove us together
in the dim blue light
of tele-novellas and snow.
I almost believed
it was love again.
He pops up like a coyote
in the truck’s passenger door,
smelling of smoke and ruin.
Eighty‑five down the prairie road,
bug‑spattered glass,
sky bending blue,
fields gold as escape.
This isn’t working, I whisper.
We want different things.
Don’t, he says,
fingers crawling my thigh
No-
I shove.
Sweetness peels,
the sleeping volcano wakes.
Before his hand
can teach me the rest,
I already know:
there is no leaving.
The road is long,
lined with white crosses,
and the Ghost Buffalo
that's been leading me
down it
all my life.
Aug 5, 2025
Aug 5, 2025 at 3:41 PM UTC
A gentleman is a guy who'll treat a girl right
But s thugg only wants to hit it for one night
A gentleman is romantic and sweet
A thugg is only nice to get in the sheets
The gentleman will open his lady door
And address her by her name of dear
A thugg will leave her and even more
But they say they bring a lady to cheer
A gentleman is faithful
Thugs are ungreatful
Calling girls ******* and hoes can be hateful
Thuggs are winning
Gentlemen are losing
The **** keeps lots of girls choosing
A gentleman dresses professional and neat
While a thugg sags and eorks the streets
You choose which one is best
Which one will win and put other to rest
A gentleman classifies me
But which one would yoh rather be
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 12:30 PM UTC
Around the table,
Literacy discussion turned elitist...
Bemoaning some poor Johnny,
Son of a plumber who does not read
Beyond the practical need,
And has no desire to.
I stopped to check my sense of what I had just heard...
Was transported to a prairie farm;
Thought of my Father, then in his eighties
Who felt no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare nor Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.
Every morning, he read his Bible;
Some nights he read the mail's
Motley collection of literature:
Ads and politicians and fanatics,
Demanding money and his time,
But mostly money.
"I don't have time to read!"
He'd shout when I suggested a novel.
What literature he had was in his head,
Poems memorized when he was a boy
In a two room school, or
His own lines, written as a young man,
Describing work and friends
Long distant now, but still alive
In memory.
Dad taught me how to read
In different literacies and different texts:
Nuances of sky to read the weather -
What chill or storm or drought was on its way
("Storm's coming, boys! Let's get that hay!");
Cows and calves and bulls,
(Which one was sick or well, dry or bred);
Ways to diagnose mechanical ailments
("Start with the easiest options first");
Metals, to know which welding rod applied
("Aluminum sags, and cast iron cracks");
Grain, rolled crisp between hard hands,
(a test of ripeness);
Cement, to blend the perfect mix,
("Clean gravel/sand, no dirt, not too much water!);
Conservation,
("Always keep some grain on hand" &
"Keep your fuel above half-tank").
So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.
Dec 20, 2011
Dec 20, 2011 at 9:26 PM UTC
I don't know man. It just has been different lately, you know?
No not really. What do you mean? Like, explain it.
Okay so you know how you do it and you feel everything dissolve? You know? And that warm fuzzy light fills you up and the back of your head sags all the way to the floor? You know how you can't stop smiling? How nothing matters because everything is going to be chill in the end? You know?
Yeah? So what's the issue?
Well recently, and I mean very recently, I just got this feeling. This ******* feeling for two hours and all I want is for it all to be over.
The thing is - I know that everything is fine. That it's all chill and that I'm just geeking out, but still, the way it makes me feel. I can't do that anymore.
How the hell does it make you feel dude? Jesus can we get to the point sometime soon?
Right, my bad. It's my heart first. I feel my heart going at a thousand ******* miles a minute but when I check my pulse or heart beat - everything is normal. But still I feel it in my chest yapping like a dog at the front door and I can't convince myself that this is chill. Then it's my chest. You know how Jesus died of suffocation on the cross?
I thought they stabbed him before they suffocated?
Whatever, you know what I mean, how people on crosses couldn't breathe because of their arms and lungs and chest or whatever? Well I get this feeling that my chest is thinner than a sheet of printer paper. That every single time that I inhale it's never enough. Then I get this electricity in the back of my head. It creeps up from my sternum, through my throat and then to my brain stem. Like an itch you can't ******* scratch no matter how many layers of skin you go through?
Jesus dude.
Then I convince myself that I can't move my right hand. Convince myself I'm partially paralyzed. Only I'm watching my right hand move. But I feel like it has to be an illusion, because how the hell am I moving a paralyzed hand? It's all gotten so ******* twisted that I don't know which sense I can trust.
Well are you sure that that's the reason? Why don't you take a small geeb or something? For the sake of the scientific method?
Listen to me you fool. There is no method to this. Just madness. But I suppose, in the name of fairness, I should do some more research. Maybe just this one last time. Just to be sure.
Exactly... So you wanna smoke some ****
Yes. I want to smoke some **** Just for science and all that. I kinda have to. It'd be unamerican to not smoke, right?
Right.
Jan 3, 2014
Jan 3, 2014 at 10:41 PM UTC
No one chose to iterate
Or elaborate to me
The vast unending sea of grief
We tred; trying to breathe
Our paths bisect and weave to form
A beautiful tapestry
That on the surface gleams and glows
With possibility.
Beneath, time tugs each thin line
Until one snaps and breaks
One little thread removed and gone
Left havoc in its wake.
Something once so beautiful
Unravels, sags and fades
Parallel to how the Sun
Sets each dying day.
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 4:07 PM UTC
Pocket watch, I tick well.
The streets are lizardly crevices
Sheer-sided, with holes where to hide.
It is best to meet in a cul-de-sac,
A palace of velvet
With windows of mirrors.
There one is safe,
There are no family photographs,
No rings through the nose, no cries.
Bright fish hooks, the smiles of women
Gulp at my bulk
And I, in my snazzy blacks,
Mill a litter of ******* like jellyfish.
To nourish
The cellos of moans I eat eggs --
Eggs and fish, the essentials,
The aphrodisiac squid.
My mouth sags,
The mouth of Christ
When my engine reaches the end of it.
The tattle of my
Gold joints, my way of turning
******* to ripples of silver
Rolls out a carpet, a hush.
And there is no end, no end of it.
I shall never grow old. New oysters
Shriek in the sea and I
Glitter like Fontainebleu
Gratified,
All the fall of water an eye
Over whose pool I tenderly
Lean and see me.
3.7k
“A man is about as likely to ask for help for depression as to ask for directions, and for much the same reason,” said Real, who struggled with his own depression issues. “It's part of the male code, part of masculine culture.”
~~~
when they ask,
I say, parrying fast,
how you doing?
to the persisters, I mutter fine
which is 100% correct...
been fined for the accumulated
made-mistakes, wrong forks taken,
the weight invisible but the
body sags, nonetheless...
you know they know,
you know their thoughts,
why doesn't he snap out of it,
after all he is a man,
he has always been
what we needed,
why can't he
just go back to the person prior...
this code, is not law,
ten times worse,
genetic and culture passed,
double ******
code so real, like the headaches,
the nightmares, that forbid equanimity...
not true,
we don't expect that of you,
thankful for all you have done,
but eyes betray,
a simpatico misunderstanding,
the instillers, can't take back
what they celebrated previous...
the signals everywhere, few ascertain,
cause the rule is never complain,
don't go near windows,
lest the sunlight diffused, offers no cheer,
but escape temptation ever on offer...
forgive yourself, someone intones,
but what infects my bones,
is non-responsive to the forget antibiotic,
which does not come in pill format
ask me for directions,
I will talk/walk you to your destination,
but when I'm lost,
I'm just a lost man,
who needs to do better,
forgetting is not in my DNA,
but lost is...choking on expectations
of being everyone's savior,
with no one to save you from yourself...
Jan 9, 2015
Jan 9, 2015 at 6:51 AM UTC
The summer sun ray
shifts through a suspicious tree.
though I walk through the valley of the shadow
It ***** the air
and looks around for me.
The grass speaks.
I hear green chanting all day.
I will fear no evil, fear no evil
The blades extend
and reach my way.
The sky breaks.
It sags and breathes upon my face.
In the presence of mine enemies, mine enemies
The world is full of enemies.
There is no safe place.
3.2k
you love him
you love his smooth hands and his rough cheek
you love your hands in his denim shirt
and the cinematography of you together
everything else is an afterthought
the knife in his eyes that is not always pointed at you
but when it is
you kiss the fist that rattles plates
the lips that wrap around clenched teeth
melt him
fail to understand his poison tipped arrows
that are aimed at the mother who threw bottles
if he could only pick one more fight it'd be with his father
you kiss him when he knocks his brother's teeth out
he leaves in the morning for coffee and comes back a day later
welcome him with open arms and abundant questions
he will be a tower of irritation and concrete
he will point fingers that will curl into fists
but they are not fists for you
they are for the devils that dance within him
and behind his wild eyes
and in his childhood home
you will not be fooled
he loves you
you know by every sweetheart and the lips on your forehead and the way he smells in between the sheets each night
he leaves
he comes back
purple flowers that bloom around his eyes are the bouquets he brings home for you
the front porch sags when he puts his hands in his pockets
his face buried in your chest
on nights when the lamp swings a little too low
and his body is wracked with sobbing and shoulders shaking
he mourns the gentle temper he never had
he mourns what he would be like without you
he mourns what you would be like without him
this is how he loves you
your hands in his hair easing soothing shh shh
you are the mother who left
you are better than every last ex-girlfriend
for reasons he will be happy to name
this is how you love him
you came because you are drawn to the shipwrecks
but you stayed in the water for him
ancient child
furious soul
you salt his wounds
and then you clean them
this is how you love him
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 12:46 AM UTC
Things sometimes fall apart
Among sisters and brothers,
No matter what they once were.
Childhood picnics and dreamy games,
Memories of trips with Dad,
Since Mom was tired of us.
We would climb Appalachian peaks
Or drive to look at the Mayflower.
Every summer there was a golden week
A lakeside cottage and all-day swims
In crystal water, becoming mermaids.
But time passes and bitterness accrues.
Imagined slights grow like slow tumors,
Never excised but nurtured by some.
I go to college and am freed
From the poison of ignorant rage,
From the creeping depression left
Like diesel fog on an endless floor.
Four or five years of delight pass
With only hints here or there
Of a sibling’s misery at home.
Of a once close sister, Maggie,
Who is ignored and never loved
By any man she pursues.
She blames me for it, for reasons
I have yet to fathom.
Of a brother, Francis, deluded, drugged,
Steals the family car in a rage
And drives to New York City.
Of Deirdre, the middle sister,
Whose friend who knows men who feed
On her ignorance and rebellion.
Only Susannah tries to rise above
The maelstrom of misery.
I send her to a school far away
And she sheds despair, at least.
Decades drawl, children are born to us,
While the bridge between us, obscured,
Sags and frays under weight of rancor.
Christmas dinners and birthday parties
Turn into chores, invitations kept as scores.
Petty grudges, like acid, sever the bridge
At last, all ties are abandoned.
When we are all grown and scattered,
No one speaking to anyone else,
Unaware, uncaring about the others.
Only Susannah visits me and smiles,
With no ulterior plan for insane revenge,
Or accusations for errant slights.
Her once dark hair is grizzled and wild
And her girlish skin now creased.
But her treacle eyes, “black aggies”,
I used to call them, still shine.
Only Susannah writes a letter,
Wishing us well and
Healing scars made by others,
Returning the word “family”.
To my basket of small treasures,
I carry with me
Into the twilight.
Oct 10, 2021
Oct 10, 2021 at 10:52 AM UTC
Hate is a coiling gust of air seeking it's way out
Apathy sags,
murky and cold
in complacent instinct.
While hate can be tofu to a child expecting sweets,
apathy is nothing but the silent flickering of a neon vacancy sign.
Hate is bottled
yet bursting.
Apathy is free,
but sedentary.
Hate is muscular
it shouts and threatens
while the other beckons,
just to push you away.
One: lava fit into a mold.
Two: so hot it becomes cold.
Hate is the fire
and apathy the barren field of ash
from which no phoenix shall rise.
May 9, 2017
May 9, 2017 at 1:22 PM UTC
Out on the marsh on a lonely night
The wind soughs through his rags,
The hat that’s pinned to his painted face,
Flutters and soars, then sags,
His eyes are wide and his mouth is grim
As an owl is put to flight,
And nothing but shadows will venture there
For the Scarecrow rules the night.
And back in the manse in a window seat
The Parson’s daughter sits,
She stares at the fluttering coat-tails, but
In truth, is scared to bits,
She watches the sails of the windmill turn
And creak and groan in the gloom,
As clouds come stuttering over the marsh
In the rays of a Harvest Moon.
The father is out in the donkey cart
To tend to his aging flock,
He’s left Elizabeth waiting there
By the tick of the hallway clock,
But out on the moors and beyond the marsh
There rides one Highway Jack,
A frock coat topped with a bunch of lace
And a gold trimmed tricorne hat.
He’s whipped the horse to a lather
In a retreat from a new affray,
For the magistrates have gathered
Vowing to ride him down that day,
The redcoats wait in the village Inn
For the sound that they know too well,
When the curate sees the approaching horse
He’s to toll the old church bell.
But the curate lies in a drunken fit
On the floor of the old church nave,
And soon, by matins his soul will flit
From life to an early grave,
Elizabeth sits in the window seat
And thinks of the coin and plate,
As the highwayman dismounts, and ties
His horse to the manse’s gate.
He beats on the door, ‘Please let me in,
I’m weary and faint, that’s all.
I wouldn’t abuse your person, but
I fear my back’s to the wall.’
She leaves the seat and she slides the bar
For bracing the oaken door,
‘I dare not, sir, I fear for my life,
You’re safer out on the moor!’
Their voices echo across the marsh
Like fear, distilled in the night,
And something shudders out in the gloom
And lurches to left and right,
It seems forever, but now a sound
Tolls out, like a final knell,
For something, out in the church tonight,
Is tolling the steeple bell.
He barely makes it back to his horse
When the redcoats stand in line,
Their muskets fire a volley of shot
And his coat turns red, like wine.
They go to the church when the deed is done
To say, ‘You have done well!’
But the curate lies on the cold stone floor,
The Scarecrow tolled the bell!
David Lewis Paget
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 10:30 PM UTC
Night beckons to strange people.
Actually, if you can accept this premise,
then the mind makes everyone strange.
And still yet, there is something specific about darkness,
I cannot put my finger on it,
that sends odd sparks of real life
on a mission to city street corners.
I hide in my car after leaving the café
with the hope of seeing, "The Pigtailed Man."
This isn't his name.
However, I need say no more to any stranger
for him to envision my character.
We objectify him and his image becomes clear
even when spotted in narrowed alleyway darkness.
He has a beautiful wife
with locks past her shoulder
of auburn and lillies,
and two wonderfully bright children
who sit on his knee when listening
to nighty-night, bedtime stories.
Their ringing laughter illuminates
the darkest corners of their happy home.
They'll never know why he needs
to go bye-bye at dangerous evening hours,
hunting sour scowls from passers-by.
He's unkempt: legs unshaven, chin covered
by midnight shadow, beer belly hanging over his
plaid picnic-basket red schoolgirl skirt,
and his face sags as if a topical novocaine
was applied generously to his chubby, rosy cheeks.
Upon seeing his aimless strut
and dead-to-self eyes, I wonder: Where does he dress?
Does he put his outfit on from plastic grocery bag
around the block from the lamp-lit looks of
the neighbors' friendly daytime greetings?
More importantly, if I were friend
and was to catch him in the act,
would I say anything?
Darkness calls out the most intriguing creatures.
We're afraid to call them "human beings,"
because being human most certainly
does not look like this.
Or, does it not look like this?
Shadows claw walls around all
because not one body projects light.
There are some who know, and some who appease.
The pigtails hang to his knees as he stares
at the mannequins of pretty women
in the window of the closed department store.
Aug 17, 2012
Aug 17, 2012 at 4:05 AM UTC
three ripe figs: maiden-mother-crone
fresh and green, not fully grown
gravid, blushing, ripe allure
nut-brown, wrinkled, sun-matured.
which of these the sweetest be?
high upon this old fig tree
maiden tartness bright and young
full womanhood upon the tongue.
drooping breast and brown age-spots
spurned by youthful hungry thoughts.
adolescent, first one picked
complex taste is not quite fixed.
plump and ready, sun-touched mother
ripe fig flavor like no other
ignored by most, her dried-up skin
sags dessicated on the limb.
with sweetest nectar deep inside.
never plucked and never tried.
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 1:22 PM UTC
I.
Everything meets
in the middle,
all that is
and was
and done
or said
eventually.
So they say while
the fulcrum creaks
and the lever sags.
That’s where
they’ve
lost there way.
Take two magnets and
try to push them together
to meet at center, instead
they slide from side to side
and go around, no force
can bring them together.
I say everything
that goes around
comes back this way,
the wrong way,
to haunt or remind us
but never to the middle,
never offering peace.
Maybe that's why
some say suicide
is a valid option,
as if to trick
the sacred balance,
sneak up on
magnetic rejection
and force your way
to center.
Sometimes I dwell
on the mystery of
Golden Gate.
Such a sacred place,
the breeze, the sun,
her hypnotic beauty
and the fact that
no one jumps at
night.
II.
Nero: "Jax, do you believe in Karma?"
Jax: "Not today"
But I believe.
I believe because
I have lived it.
My Karma is Grace
and I can’t tell you
how many times she
has found me,
always where I didn’t go willingly,
dragged by a massive darkness
and held up high while the weight
of death sat across the divide
on the other end of the teeter-totter.
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 4:36 PM UTC
Not from this anger, anticlimax after
Refusal struck her **** and the lame flower
Bent like a beast to lap the singular floods
In a land strapped by hunger
Shall she receive a bellyful of weeds
And bear those tendril hands I touch across
The agonized, two seas.
Behind my head a square of sky sags over
The circular smile tossed from lover to lover
And the golden ball spins out of the skies;
Not from this anger after
Refusal struck like a bell under water
Shall her smile breed that mouth, behind the mirror,
That burns along my eyes.
2.2k
Hey there little puppet girl,
Sowing at your broken heart,
Puppeteer can’t pay his bill,
While you just fall apart,
Hey there little puppet girl,
I bet you where once new,
But now your cloth begins to furl,
And that heart of yours is two,
I see your dusty rags,
And patches of different cloths,
Your mouth it sags,
And you’ve been nibbled by moths,
Hey there little puppet girl,
Puppeteer he neglects you,
Once kept you shiny-now keeps you dull,
Puppeteer he forgets you,
But I see you reaching out,
Begging for his touch,
Mouths sown shut can’t shout,
And only one button eye can watch,
Hey there little puppet girl,
I know that you can’t cry,
But you reek of lost will,
And a need you can’t gratify,
Hey there little puppet girl,
I bet you where once new,
But now your cloth begins to furl,
And that heart of yours is two,
I see you little puppet girl,
Ripping at your stiches,
You’re no longer rational,
Your mind is specious,
Hey there little puppet girl,
Ripped to little pieces,
Puppeteers little pearl,
Your value he decreased it.
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 1:00 PM UTC
**I want a home without walls -
I want the prison of your fierce embrace
One of us hears pretty lies,
the other swears they're true..
One of us measures time
in wrinkles, lines and sags.
The other quantifies
with kisses, laughs and shags.
One of us in the mirror
sees a sorry story.
The other only beauty
there, splendid in its glory
Thoughts enamor me no end
they tug at my soul
In their depth i blend.**
Apr 25, 2015
Apr 25, 2015 at 4:12 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