"scalpels" poems
Perhaps the earth is floating,
I do not know.
Perhaps the stars are little paper cutups
made by some giant scissors,
I do not know.
Perhaps the moon is a frozen tear,
I do not know.
Perhaps God is only a deep voice
heard by the deaf,
I do not know.
Perhaps I am no one.
True, I have a body
and I cannot escape from it.
I would like to fly out of my head,
but that is out of the question.
It is written on the tablet of destiny
that I am stuck here in this human form.
That being the case
I would like to call attention to my problem.
There is an animal inside me,
clutiching fast to my heart,
a huge carb.
The doctors of Boston
have thrown up their hands.
They have tried scalpels,
needles, poison gasses adn the like.
The crab remains.
It is a great weight.
I try to forget it, go about my business,
cook the broccoli, open the shut books,
brush my teeth and tie my shoes.
I have tried prayer
but as I pray the crab grips harder
and the pain enlarges.
I had a dream once,
perhaps it was a dream,
that the crab was my ignorance of God.
But who am I to believe in dreams?
14.1k
yesterday i saw dolphins
i swam with dolphins
their black knife jackknife dorsal-whatevers
slicing the water, scalpels into flesh,
disappearing, reappearing, disappearing,
reappearing
a herd of silent Lamborghini cracking jokes at my expense
(looks plural to me)
yesterday i saw dolphins
i chatted with an old man
who said they're laughing all the time, diving for *******
"Oh yeah, we get dolphins here,"
he might as well tell me Jesus lives there, too
or some kind of black magic came through
making these creatures appear
his nonchalance is weird
yesterday i swam with dolphins
well, saw, not swam, viewed, not caressed
but
all i want to do is see them
all i want to do is breathe with them
all i want to do is float in the same sea with them
my heart ripped to pieces in appreciation
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 11:29 AM UTC
#teamara
As in the nub of the remains of crayola crayon that’s been used to color in so many smiling cartoon suns on a piece of paper-
Her favorite color is yellow.
And I don’t mean a wimpy *** pastel yellow or sometimes a pale yellow
I mean her favorite color is bright *** yellow.
Like Pikachu yellow.
Like she’s almost nineteen but she’s still willing to play Gameboy Pokemon yellow.
There’s something innocent yet corny kind of yellow about her.
She’s beautiful like yellow jirasol petals
She’s intricate as yellow thread woven in a Rasta Dom
She’s yellow like gold and Africa
She’s sweet like pineapples and delicate like daffodils
I still don’t know why her favorite color is yellow
Maybe it has to do with her fascination of Asian men…
I mean! ...with the continent of Asia
She thinks she’s more like pink Japanese cherry blossom trees in the summer
But I know she’s truly yellow petals on Paolo Verde trees blowing in the wind spreading around Tucson
A metaphor for her love
She’s yellow like the color in the middle of my pride rainbow- She supports me
She’s yellow like the big painted sun at the hospital with a big grin
I wonder why nobody smiles at hospitals
The place where life is easily given as taken
Where we are reminded that our health is sometimes taken for granted
Other than that great big yellow sun
She is the only that radiates yellow and smiles
In waiting rooms, she seems like she’s the calmest
Even though she’s the only one going through surgery
She’s so beautiful on the inside her body can’t even take it
She doesn’t deserve scions or scalpels to even be considered touching her bronze skin
I wish instead they would strip down the color yellow from my life
And give it to her to make her smile so bright that even word “cancer” would cease to exist
But still. Even through pain and hardships
She still smiles. Not only is she yellow when she’s happy
She tends to radiate yellow even when she’s gloomy
When I’m upset, her aura has way of rubbing off on mine
And I get insight to why her favorite color is yellow
*** she’s the kind of yellow that represents strength
She’s yellow like tall forts made from gold bars
She’s yellow like flames that roll of her tongue when she spits fire
She’s yellow like a crayola-crayon… except she can’t be broken
From her, I’m learning
That even when you’re hurting
You can still shine bright like your favorite color.
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 3:55 PM UTC
We are a deeply entwined vine
Growing ever more far apart,
But still attached at the roots.
He has rooted himself in myself,
And has become a part of me.
I dissected worms in high school,
But I don't feel qualified
To dissect our conjointment.
He has asked me to hand him the scalpel,
And I have become too accustomed
To his requests to decline.
We stare at each other,
Both of us too timid to cut the ties,
And go to bed side by side
With scalpels in hand.
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 1:51 PM UTC
From a fifth storey bachelor’s window
pondering shadows in the car park below,
Johnny opens another can.
I stuff another pipe.
We talk about our trip to Brazil
and how great it would’ve been had we gone;
Johnny turns up the radio.
I take the first drag.
Old girlfriends swing by in our conversation,
most of them giving us the finger, mind you;
Johnny dabs at his tears.
I pass him the pipe.
Dusk-scalpels are slicing through the curtains now,
they scrape over coffee table dust,
through Irish coffee stains,
cut open Johnny’s frown:
The neighbours are at it again, arguing;
he accuses her of seeing someone else,
she tells him *correct,
it’s your ****** sister.*
Johnny taps out the pipe in the ashtray,
says he has to do someone a favour;
throws on his jacket,
says take it easy.
Johnny’s shadow tiptoes into evening,
a car alarm screams and a gunshot cries.
I convince myself
this is Brazil.
Feb 3, 2011
Feb 3, 2011 at 7:59 PM UTC
*So many spiderwebs
each with individual suction cups
******* blood and injecting poison....
a collapse lung....
withered and black....
festering in the hot sun
kissing silver scalpels
and *********** yellow pus
into crunchy white tarp....
capsules that release toxins
into a parched mouth
spiderwebs.... make love to my arm*
Jan 3, 2016
Jan 3, 2016 at 3:03 PM UTC
Consciousness,
mindfulness,
philosophical enlightenment -
Live for the **** of it.
Camus was right to breathe in spite of the tide of crushing emptiness.
The boulder gets heavy,
the bones grow weary,
the mountain is steep and we are steeped in irony.
For life can be deadly and death's rows of gravestones mark homes for freed slaves,
their crossed arms hiding scars
left by the teeth of nihilistic grief beatings and
surgery scalpels set to carve by
frequent false
alarms.
Sisyphus took but one break,
to hear the chains rattled from the gates,
hellish obsidian, vermilion flames licking lumps of silica grains
mixed with ash and a black tar splash.
And Orpheus sighed on the lyre and brought tears to the eyes of the most vile,
while Sisyphus
paused -
not long,
but a lifetime for those still free to subside
to dust, from blood and guts,
when their time arrives.
The trials of life,
the striving rites and lavish gifts of light to defy
the black and empty dusk still fail.
Eurydice grows pale as Orpheus turns to see her cheeks
losing every trace of peach hue,
eyes emptying,
lungs leaking their
last gale.
Struggling again, Sisyphus is sent
tumbling down the face of the great mountain,
grabbing gravel and sand and gashing gaps in his hard leather hands.
Bleeding ash,
not blood,
hot red mud dripping from the thick lacerations,
mixing with the sickening avalanche of wasted effort and waylaid plans.
Repeating the climb up the steep peak,
bones creaking like a clock's gears,
rattling off the seconds,
minutes,
hours,
years
until the watch stops its
panicked hands.
Until then we will toil unswayed
as we wear stones to clay,
carving winding paths in spirals up the mountain's waist.
No calm for those with breath,
no rest for beating hearts.
We must live in spite of life,
and then sink silent
to the earth.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 5:33 AM UTC
.
The menace emerges from the shadows,
a barked order, but unintelligible.
Then the soft steel kiss
slicing through flesh into entrails.
A fist connects with a crunching face,
legs buckle with pain and blood-loss.
And the Darkness of Death takes me,
like a comfort blanket of soft wool.
My Temple violated and de-sanctified,
the blade withdraws with a whisper.
Darkness cuddles
and welcomes me with a smile.
The morphine haze
keeps me inert and motionless,
but makes my mind giggle.
It wanders aimless
through psychedelic chapters …
This place is sterile, white, drab.
My eyes move slowly left.
There is something in a doorway.
The door.
… my head flies to a Poets Banquet,
where I am the bones thrown to the dogs.
And the wood grain in the door moves,
a cascading chocolate fountain,
over and over again,
flowing, melting like molten lava.
They taught me to write,
then cut off my hands.
Obscurity is purity;
fame is pain.
So I penned a letter to the dead.
My eyeballs are all that move,
floating in mid-air,
but still connected and transmitting
drug induced images.
I remember the assassin, the blade,
the darkness, the sirens, but no pain.
Images but no feeling.
They move right to a cold bedside table,
and then I think I cried.
Somebody Knows me.
No chocolates, no flowers.
Somebody Knows me.
No fruit. No magazines.
Just …
a pen and a pad.
Somebody Knows me.
I did cry, someone remembers me.
And each teardrop contained a thousand images,
a thousand stories, a thousand poems.
Inspiration. Illusion. Insight.
And the Darkness of Sleep takes me
like a comfort blanket of soft wool.
The morphine haze retreats
further into my mind and I dream …
of ambulances and white walls
of green gowns and bright lights
of scalpels and scissors and surgery
of needles and nurses and nightmares
… I dream of Poetry
in colour.
I see worlds in the sky
and words painted on clouds.
A kaleidoscope of teardrops
dripping images into my mind.
A fountain of mist cascading,
seeping into a memory sponge.
And I feel; somebody who Knows me
gently wipe away the tears.
© Pagan Paul (04/06/17)
Jun 4, 2017
Jun 4, 2017 at 7:14 PM UTC
Your words cut like scalpels
Through hair skull and scalp
Culling the cunning thoughts
My Foolish heart has bought
But your blade is truth
No anesthetic
Can dull, numb or soothe
Unsympathetic
It removes the lie
Like a tumor
Until my life's
A rumor
Sep 12, 2014
Sep 12, 2014 at 12:28 AM UTC
Raw flesh drenched in alcohol
Burning numbing till paralyzed, keeps me still
Power you have over my being, keeps me fearing
Your presence destroys me, shatters me
Feeling naked, inadequate when my eyes see
My reflection's negation in you
Cannot hide anything when you expose all of me
Wounded animal beaten without avail
Knowing, proprietor of my pain
You don't understand my whimper, wail?
My blood being diluted by the sweat of your laborious efforts
Precociously tactful, inhumanly strangling my will
Ever-becoming antithesis to facades, fears, farces in me
Facing scalpels and clamps to my insecurities, my tactics, my pride
Leaving me open not caring if I'll die from exposure
Caring only that you're exposing the real me
I-nvoluntarily l-acerated, o-n the v-erge of e-nding u-ndone
Somberly Always Unsettling Leaving me bare
Feb 4, 2013
Feb 4, 2013 at 10:50 AM UTC
Poets, like doctors, know the anatomy of suffering... tearing the paper with rusty carving knives...
We see scarlet scratches and eggplant colored bruises on every square inch of foolscap... we open scars with words... stainless steel scalpels which we never sanitize...
We perform open heart surgery with blunt instruments... We cauterize the wounds with coals of Fire...
We are civil war sawbones, removing the gangrenous leg to save the body... Carrying out our task with whiskey bottle anaesthesia.
So have a care... The Doctor Is In.
SoulSurvivor
(C) 5/30/2016
May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016 at 11:43 PM UTC
Like sad deflated sacs
Scars webbing keloid
Across the flattened chest
Where ******* were saved
From slashing scalpels
Not to become medical waste
But reminders
That a life that must go on
Compromised
By the toll of life.
And now I have lost you
You being my lust
To kiss and caress
The body I desired
(But mainly your ****
And now I am left with a person I despise
For your beautiful *******
Made me forget
Your empty soul.
May 15, 2013
May 15, 2013 at 9:02 AM UTC
All estuaries flow eastbound, and the subterranean rail tracks keep forcing against the estuaries’ grain and dust foundations perpendicularly to them.
How can a sane proposition -- a quantification of syntax execution (those squirming cuticles through bonds of regression)— an excessive reflection, reflexive inspection,
Prove its sanity through continued suggestion?
Deductive insurrections stirred in memory,
A rumble, causing sediments to crumble,
Wineglasses balanced atop countertops tumble.
Spilling contents upon the grained wooden, elitists' floors.
"Anesthetic, onsetting tuberculosis in breath patterns,
Gavels ringing on rigged tolling tongs in caverns,
Dark tolerances to Copernican astronomy in shadows,
And the handle grinds as boxcar wheels' flints and steels catch and spark in addled locks," I mumbled from a half-nap.
It was surgery, the smooth procedures on the moving trains,
The gains and plectrums scraped against the brains' spider veins,
To reorganize the sane, to bridge the broken definitions changed,
To prevent arguments' bone structure from fractures and sprains.
"Use gavels against the scalpels, sculpt with their judgment," a corona dream's habitant corrugated.
He pounded the gavel's end against the knife to chisel at the pituitary gland pulsing in his subject,
And her arms flailed like a horse's legs in heat-induced convulsion.
I thought it was done.
The Canson Merue train screamed in the night under earth to Yellowknife to meet Canadian soil as the Heavy Breather pounded his gavel.
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 5:06 PM UTC
i.
a girl once told me that sad people close their eyes
so they do not see the world anymore,
and that i should count sheep when i cannot fall
asleep and that her favourite flowers were azaleas.
she also told me that she keeps scabs
on her knees, and on sundays
she comes to me with bleeding wrists.
another girl paints artifice out
of artlessness and human flesh. she
has scalpels for arms and a tempest on
her thighs and she lives in the
mirror and when i blow
ii.
on her i understand, through air condensation
and self- anathema, that i am the girl that she
de-fleshed maliciously herself, slit out of the cardboard
and painted out in artifice and artlessness and
i am the girl that once told another girl to ******* cut
her arm off and i meant it so she would not hurt herself
again because
i am the kind of the girl with scabs on the bone
of her halo, because i believe halos are made of
nothing but cartilage and helium bones, and a heart
as transparent as a vampire and its split opened like a monarch
butterfly, ******* off
azaleas or malarias or other pathogens
giving infants cancerous proclivities and my eyes are
swollen in mauve from divestiture because i know too well
those sheep won't jump over the fence
anymore because they have been ****** raw
in the *** by inhumane prospensity and i understand that
sad people close their eyes because it reminds them of death.
iii.
death is a scientist that theorises the
duality of elusive particles in artificial marrows
and mediocre decolourised melancholia in discordance,
it is the finger forced into our tiny vein and
it is nothing but a dream within a dream
but i could care less and this poem
is not about death, it is about how i
like ugly girls and how i'm just sorry
that i do not taste as corrosive
as the bleach in her mouth.
iv.
when people are dying, they almost sound poetic.
v.
i am the girl humanised by ribbons of
flesh and bile and atrocity, and i am the girl who
understands that a 'broken heart' is
nothing but a metaphor for utter
disappointment.
i am the sleep that dreams long for,
hope for, phlebotomise for
and i am bitter.
vi.
i am bitter because i will not believe in sundays
unless one day, fortuitously, the sun osscilates,
in the most serene of all mannerisms, down the earth
and kills us all.
i am bitter because semantics does not authenticate
the abiding human apathy towards death
and all the flowers in her hair.
i am bitter because people only read my poetry
because they think it is about them.
i am bitter because of other horrible
reasons that words can simply not express.
vii.
ugly girls are always prettier
because god loves ugly
girls, because he ***** them harder than the
rest, and because they know how to
make others feel ugly.
Nov 1, 2010
Nov 1, 2010 at 6:40 AM UTC
what is a telescope
-a tyrannosaurus skeleton
-a reluctant birthright
what are *****
-a state line
-an obsolete receipt
what is a wave
-grandmother says: she will never forget as long as she lives
-a forest trail in thick fog
what is sea sick
-he ran over a dog
-wettest March of the century
what is an hour
-no smoking allowed
-the fuming face of a buffalo
what is sunburn
-inedible black toast
-I think she slanders me
what is wine
-overnight contact lens solution
-a humble canal
what is a mirror
(child | beluga)
~(ham):o + ¥ineapple
what is travel
-a last minute thing
-warmth within a windshield
what is revision
-a slow explode
-milk in coffee
what is antacid/calcium supplement
-a bottle cap
-handy clutter
what is a fist
-something to try eating when in circles
-flour, 1-to-20 eggs, some ennui, expiration dates
what is a sigh
-a fresh seismograph sheet
-sound mechanical in early morning
what is skin
-a shoelace
-child labor
what is a workshop
-scalpels, piñata bats
-a lunar module
what is that shiny dead thing in the green eyed river
-New Year’s Eve ball drop
-otherworldly return to beginning
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 8:33 PM UTC
The foggy harbor buries itself into the bricks,
misty fingers make their way into thick brain threads,
causing invisible skyscrapers to erupt from natural terrain.
Lackadaisical loneliness producing nothing but infertile hands;
You are wasting the precious prayer of earths' life in your lungs,
while saltwater slips into the crevice of your sorrowful joy.
The masks begins to bleed and life carves itself into your skin.
Nothing can be done to stop this carpenter of time,
for even if mortal scalpels disguise,
the knowledge of dying will coat your soul.
Nov 21, 2011
Nov 21, 2011 at 5:55 PM UTC
Slowly changing the scalpels blade while peering down at your neck
A number four stainless steel handle is now gripped in my claw
Racing thoughts of how it will feel now rush through my mind
Circling around high in the sky, I’m looking hard and hard I inspect.
I hungered for this day and it seemed I waited for it O’ so long
It will surely be different, and I bet it’s only a one of a kind
So clean the cut, it has to be, no mistakes will they ever see
I saw it done many times now, my mentor taught me well
Regurgitated one last time he then nudged me out the nest
It’s now my first time and believe me, he always puts me to the test.
With my hand held up high I swoop down like an eagle on the attack
When calling hours come I’ll prove to you I’ll get an A for my grade
You only get one chance, I can’t afford to fail, and I’m not staying back.
Friends now gather around and the mourners they all weep
As you laid there in your music box…
I heard someone say…
That she looks, peacefully asleep
(SirCARSr. 1-28-13)
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 8:51 AM UTC
Oh, sweet calico
You flittered and you fluttered
Before the cruel men
Pinned your wings, and held you
Under
Examining, every colour
And stripe, on your surface
Comparing, every pattern
You made
To a control they deemed
Ordinary
Their tongues were as rough
As their calloused hands
Yet their minds were like sharp knives
Or scalpels
Dissecting your
Entirety
Three green dots
You were marked with, before they placed you
Into a four by four
Box
And promptly
Forgotten about
May 14, 2013
May 14, 2013 at 10:24 PM UTC
creating invisible lines
across my scalp
grinding dead fingernails
down to the living skin
slowing peeling the cells
trying to reach my brain
performing surgery
my bed the operating table
pulling and yanking
blindly putting nerves
back in their places
feeling with sore fingers
struggling
to find the bad spot
the chunk of my mind
containing you
aiming and seeking
to yank from my thoughts
the fragment
that makes my blood boil
and
forces me to text you
when my ten scalpels tire
and i finally fatigue
no molecule, particle, or
flaw
can i find
you have infected my brain
down to the core
and every atom in between
but still
the capacity of my conscious surgery
can find no defect
sensing sanity return
i put back every nerve and neutron
and use my ten tired needles
to stitch back my scalp
hiding my work
beneath many blood hairs
deeming myself rational
sound and levelheaded
i use electricity to connect
my disorganize mind to yours
ten tired tools helping me along
and when I'm done
when the message has left
...i question my health
and the process begins again
Mar 27, 2010
Mar 27, 2010 at 1:08 PM UTC
This ******* heart beats thrice per second
Pumping in and pumping out the black tar from my lungs.
If the body is a temple,
Then I have abandoned mine
No one now kneels in this void.
Baptized in whiskey,
Circumcised with a machete.
It’s no coincidence that,
I was born on the full moon
In the midst of a hurricane.
Learning how to eat with no spoon
But this is who I am.
We each have a cross to bare
Mine’s just covered in scalpels
Sharpened bread knives,
That draw wrinkles on my face.
May 29, 2013
May 29, 2013 at 10:45 AM UTC
take rain from sky
take the way tall men straighten your stance
take the students of dance
see the little ballerina stretch her toes
see her mother warm with the floodlight
take your plea to the judiciary
take your eye to the statue of David
smear on the dust of Somalia
rub raw the frost of Croatia
refresh your aim in the heights of Angola
but do not stop only at this
breathe every impediment
trust every promise of clemency
stumble if you will
fall under cease-fire
take it all
take the watchmaker
bent over time
with fine tools
clasp each second
take the sculptor who
chisels and scalpels for the grandiose
later in your armchair
fold creases in your newspaper with care
be with every nourishment
be with the cloth of your nakedness
make sail for your harbour of origin
remember the milk of your mother
warm or cold or sweet if it is so
appease hunger
with the ambidextrous mouth
of a soldier
fed with death in his jungle
be the bystander, be the bi-partisan,
the ******* the timeless,
the dancer
be it all
breathe each increment
do it now
measure the infinite
the possible
MChallis © 2015
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 8:02 PM UTC
My tongue
A sweet silvery dagger's blade
The cool flat of it slipping over you like some archaic inhuman magic
Sometimes, however, it slips
The keening edge moves into the flesh of your soul
Like so many scalpels into mastectomy patients
And you bleed in ways
I never meant you to
I understand that the ache falls deep
That it's hard to forgive those who slash you
But hear me out
Because my arms are the deftest needles
That mend the human heart
From the inside out
They can do anything you need
But only you decide
If there will be
A scar
Jul 7, 2015
Jul 7, 2015 at 10:50 AM UTC
Translucent, red traffic light
Belongs so comfortably
No one made a fuss over its colour
Just an instinct for the shade
The perfect pigment
No hustle, no alarm
Being the man who ponders this
Am I not allowed the breeze or the brevity?
Are we blessed to fidget the cigarette?
Cursed to be tense
I imagine a mellow, white man
Prancing on a set of traffic lights
Naturally pristine and silky
He plays in an explorative band
Rock and roll on scalpels
So smooth, that breathing
Not a single itch
I’m going to achieve such a feat
One day
I’ll be a queen *****
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 8:04 PM UTC
they do not speak
mouths sutured shut
their words, thoughts, appear on their skin
like some curious cuneiform, deciphered not
by those who wield the scurrilous scalpels
that maimed them
they do not speak
though their screams appear
as a rapacious rash of cocky consonants,
their whispers as smooth vowels
on their exposed hides
they do not speak
but hear the flapping of butterflies’ wings
the blinking of a dead dogs’ eyes
and the sound stars made
upon colossal collapse
they do not speak
but emit eerie odors in fecund olfactory code
“lesser beasts” read with feral snouts
and see on the breached breaths
the silenced try
to conceal
they do not speak
though they see the mocking mouths of their captors
and their words that fly through the air
slicing through these mutes, as if
they were never there
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 11:17 PM UTC
We buy bags and shoes for money that could feed us for weeks
We use Botox and scalpels to fix our imperfections
We never leave the house or the room without checking our reflection
or taking a selfie
We make sure there’s never a hair out of place or a flaw to be seen
We are the lost generation
Our appearances are nothing but shells
But that’s fine
No one ever sees the empty insides
We are the lost generation
We are empty inside
But we don’t care
All we have ever wanted
All we have ever craved
is to be beautiful corpses
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 6:03 AM UTC