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Graff1980 Nov 2014
“There is a bitter sting to reality, an unfairness to it all.” These words echo in the young boys ears. Holding what is left of his sanity, he traces the damage; rubbing the now forming bump on his forehead. Fingers circle the discolored flesh then press hard against it till he winces in a jagged remembrance.

He still feels the full force of her bible belt beating down upon him. Open hands smacking him with the made up words of her own book of revelations.

“And the dead shall rise. To feast upon the unclean. “She ranted.

Now, the yellow superhero tee comes off slowly enough. She has stretched the neck of his favorite shirt. Of course he is partly to blame. He never should have had a favorite shirt. He tries to swallow, but his nerves force him to take two swallows for one. The first one descends halfway down his throat.  Catching his anxious breath the second swallow finally goes all the way, followed by a trickle of blood.

“It is what it is.” He thinks.

With soft poet hands he pulls a different shirt from the closet. His brown hair slides messily from the neck hole as the red wool rolls gently over is sore skin providing a small degree of comfort. Then he put his long goofy looking brown and darker brown jacket on.

“I’m done” he mumbles to himself, as he stuffs his journal, sketchpad, the book he is currently reading, and an extra set of cloths in his black back pack.

The white window pane vibrates with October winds. He slides it open, shimmying over and out into the frigid autumn night. A shiver crosses his skin. Then he closes the window as quietly as possible to avoid any more drama. His sad eyes scan the night trying to decide which direction is the right way for him to run away in. With no indication of which way will work best for him he turns left and starts walking.

A mile down the road he stumbles upon the remains of a partly chewed up possum. Empty eyes point deeply into the pine forest. The moist matted fur almost matches the road’s color perfectly.  Dark dry stains mark the grey road. Chunks of slimy viscera lay displayed from the flayed features of the decomposing creature.

In the distance he hears the howls of teenage boys.
“A bunch of screaming fools ******* around,’ he thinks. “I don’t need this ****.”

So, he turns off the road and heads into the trees. Brown pine needles break under his feet. The soft forest bed gives slightly beneath his treads leaving little footprints. As he scans the ground he notices that the earth is swimming with strange footprints.

With a little daylight left he finds the perfect spot to stop. A tree plays backboard to his tense and tired frame as he sits down to rest.

His mind turns to dreams of love. A female figure fills his thoughts. She is dark and lights. Pale skin, leather jacket, with raven black hair that shimmers in the night sparkling with the energy of infinity. She moves with all the destructive grace of Kali. She is a frozen skin scythe less death; Hopes and wonders mixed in with nightmare prophecies. Doom pervades his soul. He feels perfectly alone with no hope.

Which means it is the perfect time to write a poem. One line flits past then the next till almost the whole page is filled. Then he rewrites copying and improving. Till two pages later he is finally fixing the finished draft.

With the last bits of daylight he completes the poem’s final lines. Shivering and exhausted he decides it is time to find a place to sleep. He packs his backpack with all the finesse of a ninety year ******* boy and heads out into the night.

Suddenly he senses something moving behind him. A shadow crosses his path. Panic seizes him. Shady black tendrils run across the ground followed by the sounds of strangers moaning. He runs. The moonlight flickers fast behind the fading pines as he quickens his pace.
He stumbles into a clearing where the ground is punctuated by broken stones and white marble dust. Small monuments stand marking the past. Somewhere slightly off to the side a Sepulcher sits as a testament to a hundred years of death.

“How perfectly macabre, I’m in a cemetery at night in the bitter cold.” He thinks

The earth shifts and swirls beneath his feet like quicksand. Losing his footing he falls backwards. The contents of his backpack scatter haphazardly across the disturbed dirt.

A thin hand pierces the brown ground. Then an arm makes its way writhing from the soil searching for something. Boney fingers feel around until they fall upon a pen and paper. The pen scratches furiously on the pad.

The young man stutters trying to make out the horrible handwriting.

“g-g-get of-f-f m-m-y head.”

The earth tremors beneath his feet, causing him to jump back in fear. Then a skull ascends. Empty sockets stare menacingly at him. More of its body rises, until the full corpse form is free. The wind whistles through the rotten frame. The monstrosity turns his head and heads away. Shambling off into the night to frighten someone else.

A sigh of relief escapes the young man’s lips. His heart slows to a normal rhythm. The blank October sky fills his eyes. He laughs in gratitude, deciding to find a better spot to settle for the night.

Then a jaw chomps down on his skull. Rotten teeth shatter but the bony mouth still pierces his noggin. Red droplets drip soaking the journal pages. The poet screams. His voice fades slowly away, as he struggles. Dying in agony he becomes a feast for the undead horde. The red splattered page reads---




The Graveyard Poet
He walks without sleep
Restless and awake burning inside
With all of the secrets he keeps
His pen and his paper
Lay softly on broken ground
The dead are his keepers
Their stones stand scattered all around
So he put his pen to paper
Ink is turned to flesh
The words bleed into
Each other and start to mesh
Thus the graveyard poet is born
He writes with passion
His mind becomes a storm
His body begins to feel numb
But his heart is so warm
On and on from dusk till dawn
Words erupt from the poets pen
Still the cold bites bitterly
He stops only to turn the page and write again
Hours come and go in a blur
Until he can’t move his arm
Even he is unsure
Of what is wrong
His eyelids grow heavy
And soon he is asleep
Rest peacefully young poet
Now your secrets are mine to keep
Madison Brooke Nov 2015
oh, my god,
stop praising little girls for being "tiny" and "slender" and "willowy"
for being skinny.

because the scale offers validation
and eating cheetos and twizzlers and cookies and candy without gaining a pound becomes an accomplishment
a sharp and boasting laugh
ha, ha! i can eat all the **** i want
and still be /skinny!/

because a girl will feel pride
in her ballerina legs and bony joints
and guilt
in her best friend wishing she were as small.

because "skinny" stops being an adjective
and becomes a definition.

because being skinny becomes
owning stacks and stacks of size zero jeans
but ******* and shimmying and squeezing your *** into them
(god forbid you buy a size two.)

skinny becomes looking flat in the midsection
but only if you eat triscuits for lunch that day

becomes seeing the outlines of individual ribs
but grabbing with a grimace the layer of fat and skin that covers them

becomes standing with legs spread apart and back tilted and eyes squinted
and looking maybe kind of like a forever 21 model,
until you sit and your thighs melt into huge endless expanses of tissue

becomes avoiding the bathroom scale because you told yourself two years ago you'd never get above double digits.

becomes knowing that most girls would **** for your body, or for the absence of your body - for the carved out spaces where flesh could be.

becomes feeling guilty, feeling ridiculous, feeling ungrateful
becomes never admitting to anyone that you feel anything but skinny.
ELSIE FLIMMERWON, you got a job now with a jazz outfit in vaudeville.
  
The houses go wild when you finish the act shimmying a fast shimmy to The Livery Stable Blues.
  
It is long ago, Elsie Flimmerwon, I saw your mother over a washtub in a grape arbor when your father came with the locomotor ataxia shuffle.
  
It is long ago, Elsie, and now they spell your name with an electric sign.
  
Then you were a little thing in checked gingham and your mother wiped your nose and said: You little fool, keep off the streets.
  
Now you are a big girl at last and streetfuls of people read your name and a line of people shaped like a letter S stand at the box office hoping to see you shimmy.
Brycical Jul 2013
Sitting inside a cloud of shisha--
with subtle hints of strawberry shimmying
through the midnight moonlight,
the incandescent embers
radiate from their core
forming ancient runic shapes
reminding me of a time beyond the concept of before....

when elders spoke with ashes in their words
traveling to worlds within looking through
the windows to each other's souls
where the rhythm of a heartbeat
and the melody of breathing cacophonously echos
through our gray matter canyons.
A time when millennia passed by in milliseconds
as everyone danced like a flame grinding on a candle wick
wailing with ecstasy--
every bead of sweat slithering from head to feet
arousing like a maddening kundalini explosion--
a honey-like nectar glowing throughout our body
pouring out of us brilliantly brighter than any white-hot sun!

I think
this might be a reason for my fascination
when it comes to inhaling fire--
despite my earth-natured tendencies
I'm still hypnotized by the first gift to mankind;
light.
I look up at the skylight
Rain drops coalescing
The reflection of a few drops
Dancing on the wall
In the breeze
Which is more
A gale
Howling and loud
Outside
Destroying trees
Somewhere

A silvery strand of a cobweb
Dances and shimmers
In the pale sun
Playing hide and seek
The silence in my room
So loud
The thunder outside
So far

The daffodils on my windowsill
Have died and dried
Papery petals, a brilliant amber now
Green stalks greedily still drinking
While the petals thirst
The tops of the trees
Through my window
Freshly showered
Move like a woman
Dancing for her lover
Seducing
Shimmying

And yet
I think of Delhi
Desertlike and brown
Hostile and cruel
The dirt streaked faces
The shining eyes
Of the beggar children
At crossings
The eunuchs who bully
The traffic, the fumes
The noise that deafens
The rich women who flaunt
Diamonds and lovers
The clubs for the haves
The stares from the have-nots
And I come back
To the music of the rain
On the skylight
And the chirp of a bird
Somewhere far away
Amelia Jo Anne Nov 2013
'I think you know what you need to do'
he says. Shut the **** up.
You don't know what it's like to live
your whole life
walking on ceilings
then have to adjust when the meds
swivel you upright
feet on new floorboards, eyes on old skies.

It's a little backwards, I know
but I'm so ******* ****
& when everything is spinning,
the way my shade of lipstick smoothly glides
under my cupid's bow & the
shimmying twirl of a mascara wand
give me some sense of control.
mreehhhh
Eleven thousand
            three hundred
     sixty one miles away
in a place   I’ve never been,
     you are thinking
          of all the places
you have never   been
     or haven’t   been,
some for seasons,
          some for years.

A Paris   pomegranate   sunrise
     from the Pont des Arts,
     bright     colours     shimmying
at the   pulse   of romance.

The   blood   cell   rush   of Shibuya,
   Tokyo at night among
a river of     strange symbols,
   blinking   TV   screens.
  
Prague dredged in frost,
   feet-chatter   on cobbles
          past the Jan Hus memorial
under a   cool   periwinkle sky.

Glossy tulips in Bilbao,
   metallic curves,
   trill   of   syllables
     by the teal Nervión.

I think of you,          far away,
   same planet, different   spot,
the future washing towards us
   full of scrambled   images
and     white     noise,
a trickle of hope at your   toes,
   through my screen.
Written: December 2016.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time, inspired partially by an image a friend of mine took whilst at Sunkist Bay in Auckland, New Zealand. All feedback welcome. A link to my Facebook writing page can be found in my HP home page.
NOTE: Many of my older pieces will be removed from HP at some point in the future.
Miss Masque Feb 2012
Sitting on the cold grass
today makes my stomach
hurt. The sun that would
normally warm and greet
my dreary disposition
only keeps the wind at bay
long enough to play the
jacket game:

Pulling the sleeves of my
royal blue petticoat
with ******* buttons,
onto my arms, shimmying
it until the collar rests
at my neck, as a makeshift
cheaper Snuggie.

Then as the sun peeks out from
behind the clouds, warming the
ground, I'm shuffling off the rolled up
blue sleeves, pushing the jacket into
a heap at my feet.
Shannon Oct 2014
With-
my bites so small they are almost
kisses
lined up like the dead: hands tied, blindfold blinding.
With-
lips that miss a touch by the width of a breathe...
just by that much-
the amount of air it takes to gasp your name.
With-
moist that rushes out of me-
all parts of me
to grasp your parts of you.
Moist from my perspiring shimmying lips-
moist that forms in a valley between my *******
and meets the moist like dew on the hairs of your chest.
With-
tiny bites on your neck right in the soft spot
right below
and right behind
your ear,
mirror to the place I tuck back my hair
nervously
like I do
when I  am
With you.
**** your bottom lip like a
honey crisp in tiny bites-
and
savor all the juice that drip
drops
drips from your tongue.
With you, within.
With you
Within.

Sahn
10/10/14
I am honored that you read my work, thank you as always.
Matthew James Oct 2016
I
I

I'm trying t' find my ID.
I think I'm missing it.
This thing,
This bright, shining light,
It's hiding in my blindsight.
I'm swimming in mist,
Trying t' find ... "I"

First I'm living
In my crib;
Clinging wrists.

Flitting my crib,
I'm Shy
Crying, whiny twit, missing bitty,
With stinky kids, kicking kitty.

I'm missing my crib.

I'm piling thinking bricks with big kids.
Slimy, smirking ***** hiss 'n' spit.
I'm sitting still in ill-fitting shirts,
shirking sight.
Hiding might blind ****** kids crying, "It's billy!!! Skinny ****!!" 'n' smiling in fits.
"Try finding kind kids x"
Finding "whys" in rising minds.
My mind grinds.
I'm kicking tins, spilling drinks.
Sitting in IT,
Sir chillingly insists "it isn't "fly" spilling drinks! "Shy" brings skills. "Why" brings ills."
I'm still shy.

This crib's tiny.
Tiny minds, blind by bling.
Fit chicks with *******,
Thick ****** thinking with *****.
I flit this Brit ****.
Brisk flight,
I find "I"
Simply shimmying "ir(o)n lik(e) li(o)n in zi(o)n".

In Brit, I'm still shilling it,
Finding thrill in it,
Hiding 'til it lifts.
I'm brisk fixing it,
I'm hiding in drinks,
Finishing in clink.
Trying things,
High by night,
Slinking by, finding light.
Thinking "this is it!! I'm in!"
Tricky light. Light trick. Sight trick.
Lying in my mind
It's still ****.

Is it?

His birth...
This child is my kid!
This brill kid!
I'M in this kid!
Big grin :D

First kid is big kid,
Mid kid is silly kid,
Quickly hitch my Miss.
Third kid. This kid, this girl is my girl.
Brill kids!

I bring my bling by flipping kids thinking bricks;
Fixing bits in thinking ink;
I'm finding it stinks.
Kids drink slick skills.
My mind chills with mind filling drills.
Kids grinding, crying spills -
"Sir, it's **** innit?
With missing mining, missing mills,
Im plying skills by filing bills."

I'm plying skills with mind pills.

Mrs "I" is criticising my id
Im minding my Ps n Qs
Biting my lip
Fists tight, shifting slightly
Slinking nightly
This is ****
Hit slight hitch
Hit BIG hitch
"'kin *****!"
I finish with my Mrs

Kids split 'twixt cribs.
Kids trips fix splits.
Kiss lips ***,
"Night night x"
"Light?"
Click light.
Right, "night!"

I'm hiding my ills in girls.
IT pimps, swiping right.
Primp ****.
Minging swill.
Fit chick.
Swift flirt.
Flirt, kiss, flirt, kiss.
Big ****.
Tight slit.
Milky spit.
Wiping ****.
Hiding ***** sight in mind,
I find it sticks.

I drift

Stick tight
Fighting my plight
Grin
"It's 'right"

Missing my crib
My ID
I'm finding my mind
Sticking with it
Fighting silly flirting ****
Try finding inspiring sights
My kids
My crib
My Inking
My Writing
My mind
My eye

I'm kind

I'm "I"
First poem in ages. Playing about with a vowel trick.
Dhaara T Mar 2017
The shimmying shrubs
The gliding winds
The arm wave of the saline waters
The b-boying frogs
The popping, locking, ducking birds...à terre
Them, breaking into an allegro
The nature was a symphonic metaphor today
A dance lesson, that I did let lose and learn
Erika Soerensen Jun 2016
The cemetery trees are dancing in the wind.
Shimmying unapologetically
like a chorus line of boozed up
Burlesque dancers.

Some are tall and regal with pointed crowns,  
Isosceles dresses, neat and tidy,
Complete with Pine colored tutus.
Whoosh!
Like entering a room sliding
On your knees.
Whoosh!
Like someone breathing fresh life
Into you.
Mysterious but holy,
Divine yet impermanent.
Whoosh!
Strong yet fragile,
Gliding with the wind
In this game called life.
(and death)

Some have solid legs
And big shiny afros,
Showing everyone how
It's REALLY done.
Bump. Grind.
Confident yet elegant,
Bump Grind.
Full of themselves in the
Best way possible,
Bump! Grind!
Living.  Being.  Rejoicing.

Others have tassels
dangling from their limbs.
Shimmy!  Shake!
Shimmy! Shake!
Teasing me with their
Devastating beauty,
Shimmy! Shimmy! Shake!
Revealing my longing,
My passions,
For what?
I don't really know.
Shimmy! Shake!
Feeding me an elixir
Of fresh sweet hope
To drown freely, once again,
In immortal youth.

They all weave themselves
In the wind.
Acknowledging my existence
Through movement.
Using interpretive dance
As a symbolic conversation.

Happy to see me,
Welcoming me to their land.
Welcoming me home.
Welcoming me to
NOW.

.
TheBlackBird May 2013
They stare at each other across the table and that’s all it takes to for her to be wrapped around his little finger. Shaggy brown hair and a laugh that’s contagious, she lost before she’s even conscious of it. It isn’t supposed to be anything more than dinner. Her walls aren’t supposed to come down, her window shades are made to stay drawn and her doors aren’t meant to come unhinged. But none of that matters.

They stumble in the dark, tripping over their own shoes as she tangles her fists in his hair. He kisses her hard, and they lose their balance, tumbling onto the couch, a mess of laughter and sloppy kisses. She thinks that she might be dreaming. Wriggling out of socks, and shimmying out of jeans, its all so easy. Heavy breathing, and inhibitions left at the door, she pulls his shirt over his head and stares up at him, wondering where her vulnerability has gone. He stares back at her almost as if he cannot believe that she is real, and works her shirt over her head, throwing it to the floor and kissing her neck.

She reaches between them and slowly maneuvers so that he can find his way inside of her. For one moment, it is slow and they are both frightened. And then there is nothing between them but sheer pleasure rolling over and through both of them. They move together, pushing and rocking until her back arcs underneath him and he cries out, trembling.

He rolls off of her, and she find her way into his arms. Before she falls asleep, she thinks to herself how wonderful it is, that this is the beginning.

… … …

He looks at her across the table and smiles. She is full of confidence tonight, laughing and pushing her long, blonde hair out of the way of her eyes. It is easy to be with her, easy to laugh and forget about the darkness that is the rest of the world. This won’t turn into anything though, he knows because tomorrow everything will change.

Not sure how this is possible, he kisses her back, taking it all in while he still can. Fumbling with their clothing, he lets her pull his shirt over his head and pulls her jeans off of her, throwing their clothes somewhere into the dark. He doesn’t want to hurt her, knows that they will never have a future, but the animal inside of him wants this so bad, control isn’t coming so easy for him.

She guides him inside of her, and for one moment he waits for her approval. The tiny breath that escapes her mouth is enough to get him going, and then he is up, up and away and there is no earth, and no world and no one to hurt him, no one to be disappointed in him. There is nothing but right now, in this moment and how good it feels.

He pulls her legs around his waist and pushes harder and faster, loving the sounds she’s making, the struggle she’s going through, trying to keep herself quite. He can feel the sweat between them and it only makes him hotter, thrusting deeper and biting his bottom lip, and then her neck, trying to hold on to this experience for just a little bit longer.

When she arcs her back underneath him, allowing him to reach places that he never knew he could, he finally loses himself. Clawing at the couch underneath her, he cries out, waves of pleasure washing over him.

After, he rolls away from her and starts to feel the coldness creeping back in. She wriggles her way close to him, and he leans his chin on her head. He listens to her breathing, hears her fall asleep.

Before he slips into his dreams he thinks what a shame it is, that this over.

… . .

It’s interesting; the different ways that people interpret things..
Tarik Jun 2018
The smoke of my death certificate fades into the ether of the night
It is not my first.
It is not my last.
The beacon amplifies the smoke
It dances in the gleam of the incandescence
To track its path is to count the sands of the Sahara
It waltzes like a paranoid ghost showering upwards
Shimmying like an epileptic schizoid on a carousel
Jostling in an undefined constraint
Savannah Grace Aug 2013
It was our  1am rendezvous' that were my favorite secret to keep.
Sneak out, lock the door,
drive to your apartment where you were waiting for me before I raised my hand to knock.
Our greetings were stand offs but even before you turned your back to let me in
my hands were around your waist, my lips to your neck just relishing the chance to be
near you again.
You would snap at me each time I raised my arms to you like a plaintive child
but you came to me anyway
and I pulled you down tumbling into your sheets.
The finale to our sordid dance.
Sometimes we never kissed and simply talked until our lips were chapped
and we were tired of chasing each other's tails.
Other nights you had a hunger I couldn't deny and our words were our clothes
that we shrugged out of and dropped onto the floor.
By 7am I was up shimmying out of your sheets with a kiss on your cheek and nothing else.
You told me you liked how I never looked back every time I left.
I learned that from you.
Waverly Jun 2012
E.J. pulls the last one out of the box,
slowly now,
with his forefinger
and thumb.

The fore
is square.

Almost cut.

Like he'd taken a box-cutter
to it after inhaling
all that BUD Light
in that dangling,
shimmying
hose in the truck.

The thumb is normal.

He lifts the Pall to his lips
with the deliberateness
of a crane operator
laying the last brick,
before the whole thing
burns to the ground
in fluttering, liquid ashes.

The fore is useless,
so square
that the **** dangles
even when he pinches it.

And E.J.
looks down at it with those watery
fire-choked dog-blue
eyes
and
exhales a
spectre.
ThisIsWar Aug 2012
So bright.
Shining through regret, pain and horror.
Shimmying between the clouds, dancing on the ground.
Tantalizing.

Scary.
Yet, my curiosity is insatiable.
Looming in front and back,
Playing roulette with my days.

I love it.
I hate it.
But I can never get rid of it.
It will always be around me,
I can never outrun it.

My future stands.
Planted.
Firm in it's belief that it will change my life.
Rubbing it into me that this, this is the one thing I cannot plan for certain.

My future tempts me and frightens me all at once.
What else is there to do but dive into the adventure headfirst?
Mitchell Feb 2011
I tripped through a life filled with trashed crevices
Leaving me with a holey heart & mind

Tonight I sweep up the rest of my wines
Hearing no voices
Tonight only mine

Alone in thought, taught but not
Form lays dead,
Stinking,
Dead in my bed

She came over last night drunk
Asking to be wed
I said no
And told her to ******* go

She wept as I swept

I laughed at the terror filled tube
As she poked at her left swollen ****
I propped up a book
An insult she invented & mistook

Collapsing transfixed membranes waddle faster then she does
Corpses lay lighter when not embraced by an angel's fun

Towards the end of the night
Toads croaked outside my door
Seemingly & distractedly bored
By this women's torrential teary down pout pour

I poured a drink but she did not drink it
I made her food but she did not eat it
I slapped her face but she did not show pain
I kissed her mouth but she did not kiss back

Our Sun rose,
She stood there still froze
I collapsed on the floor
Grabbing my back, my sack
Exhausted,
I took a naked floor morning nap

I awoke at dusk
To vowels shimmying close with consonants
Similes giving lap dances to metaphors
All dancing like overpaid *****'s,
I wanted more

But Form
Who had once stood frozen
Had gone,
Disappeared
Had vanished,
"Never,"
I thought...
"Her..."

I must have been
Soo drunk
Too lazy
Soo stupid
Too young

But at the time,
She wasn't any fun
peak skill wafts milky aroma from ******* Eros they win
an apt pupil dial lates with a twin
thus…two orbital allies – seek carnal *** sass sin
while sunk kin their sockets, they scan yar scenic skin

drawing interest sharp as a pin
while testosterone pump kin
not cease…thus juiced hum ma gin
slicing ether of sea like an ocular shark fin
past yar eyes darting from toes ta chin

where ****** fantasies shift their shape
letting daydream let me lips braise the nape
of neck before shimmying with invisible escape
resorting to atavistic antics per great ape

within me twenty first skein of muscle and bone
especially verboten iced creamy country where
   this pal wannabe wants to drone
and in fair weather or foul would pine to hear ya moan

upon me milking tropic of cancer as ye lie supinely prone
regaling tulips and rivulet dribbling over miniature mossy stone
aware when proboscis nearing bulls eye by your purring tone
ecstatic I located an erogenous zone

mentally book marked careful not to slide nor slip
a live as one googly eyed earth linked yahoo excites
   pheromones on the outlook for purr act perch per verboten trip
could don role of aim mesh applying his little buggy whip

of ca horse heading to bird in hand
*******, paradise or some other place grand
dill a quaint as would be surmised as this animal
   a carnal, excitable, guttural one-man band
seething with hormonal secretions
   unfairly forced into a coe wide dill cell bait
   coveting to reach the integral female bad land.
Back at the start for the last time.
I get our drinks before you arrive,
£1.10 more expensive than when
we began dating, which sounds strange,
that word, ‘dating’,
it was only convening for cider,
a JD and coke twice a week after work,
you correcting the spelling
of children born post-Miracle of Istanbul,
me in front of a screen
splattered with numbers
imperative to any name but mine.

Now it was amicable.
Before, not at all.
A sort of swell inside me,
a boiling kettle, the shock tiptoeing through me
when you said enough.
I wanted to hurt you. Absurd.
I felt an uninvited sensation,
a sanding of the ribs,
a brain stapled again and again.
Later, I discovered you felt it too,
if not more so. I softened
like a block of fudge in the heat,
the fury dissipating as cigarette smoke.

You walk in; I get a different shock,
a cold jolt inside me, a voice that says
within an hour it will be over,
a footnote on the CV of my twenties,
April 2013 - October 2016.
You look great, more of an effort than me.
Lately, I’ve let myself go, no surprise.
We talk and laugh. I ought to shave, I know.
Joke about late-night Monopoly,
a fraction of our love, always ours.
The realisation it is a first time last date,
the closing of the door, the final word.

For a second, I am enthralled
at the thought of you, naked,
standing in the doorway to my room,
chestnut hair shimmying down your back.
It won’t occur again, not in that room,
not in that flat, not anywhere
besides a flicker of memory.

Our friends are getting married.
We’re not.
I think we both knew
it would crumble before long,
our relationship a headache tablet
dissolving speck by speck.
Pool, like we used to? you say.
Sure. Three games, I win two one.
Could we restart? Turn it off then on again?
I dare not ask.

I leave you to get the tube from Chalk Farm
as the half-blotto strangers
blare delight at an Arsenal goal.
A hug is too awkward,
shaking hands even worse,
but a hug is the gift. No kiss.
Seven seconds.
The back of you is how
I’ll remember you, walking away,
hands in pockets,
not looking back.
Written: October 2017.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time for university, inspired by the work of Sharon Olds. As it is for uni, changes are likely in the near future. All feedback welcome. Please note that 'pool' refers to what may be known as 'pocket billiards' or 'pool billiards' outside of the UK, that 'JD' stands for Jack Daniel's, the Tennessee whiskey, 'Miracle of Istanbul' to the 2005 Champions League final between Liverpool and AC Milan, 'Arsenal' to the English football team, and 'Chalk Farm' to the London Underground station of the same name. A link to my Facebook writing page can be found on my HP home page.
NOTE: Many of my older pieces will be removed from HP at some point in the future.
It’s a heat that skims
off from the ground
and soaks the bones.
Music burrows
into the ears of suited men,
eating calorie-clogged burgers,
dripping onions
and then you’re in
a restaurant with blue tiles
hugging someone you haven’t seen
in six years
and time slips as treacle
under lights
in the bowl you sit in
with UFO’s blooming on the ceiling
like mammary flowers
and there’s a woman
with a bra on her head,
blonde hair like a mini blizzard
as for a moment
a throng of teenagers
in stripy socks
share sweat to Fleetwood Mac,
bees shimmying at something pretty.
It’s a scene you couldn’t picture,
except you could,
everybody has their phone out,
a flurry of colours
and drumming that drums
into your skull
like a shot of adrenaline.
Businessmen outside
swallow wine,
sit on the tube with blue ties
and rustle
the Evening Standard and its headlines
streaked with gloom.
Ticking towards Tuesday,
another man
eats another burger.
The hours pass,
the heat stays,
the music remains.
Written: June 2017.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time. On 19th June 2017, I went to the Royal Albert Hall in London to watch the band Paramore perform. It was a very warm day. The first few lines of this poem were written in a McDonald's close to Euston station. The rest was written on a train travelling away from London late on Monday evening. During the day I saw an old school friend who works at a restaurant at the venue, saw lead singer Hayley Williams perform with a fan's bra on her head, and what with it being London, witnessed many a businessman in a suit. All feedback welcome. A link to my Facebook writing page can be found on my HP home page.
NOTE: Many of my older pieces will be removed from HP at some point in the future.
Jamesb Aug 13
Laid to the tree,
Which shivers with every blow,
A few leaves shimmying down
Before their time,
Their green already starting brown,

Another slash of a knife
Across the cords of the hawser
That binds us in life and love,
An ominous cracking creak
As our hulls inch further apart,

Every forgotten little thing
That means nothing to you
Is a wedge, and even those
That do matter? the forgetting
Doesn't matter to you,

And this is why we are
Diverging and inexorably parting,
Because all you see is you,
Your sole perspective is viewed from you,
No empathy or care,

And when the tree falls,
The moorings part,
And you find yourself alone
On a lonely sea,
I  doubt you will understand

But sure as eggs is eggs,
I know you'll say
It's my fault.
headland harbored primitive biota abut
mint for exotic sole terrain sustaining
sole terrain sustaining seeds, spores, spermatozoa, ova
   seeds, spores, spermatozoa, ova , et cetera gut
preserved within mine follicular pores, sans
I secured per woof and meow wing warp organic matter
   heir in to fore shielded from elements akin to thatched hut
aware wrenching kamikaze eradication
   of countless critters from many Godaddy longlegs;

   creepy crawlers, hops scotching,
   shimmying with schmaltz, moon walks, et cetera
   lost when germ warfare obliterated vast majority
   since advent of civilization ordained
   Proletariat and Plebeian Primate  
   (cherishing, fostering, insulating
   bon mot infinitesimal dot re: future mutt)
dogs and also cats off limits

   asper demise of other creatures decimated – tut tut
atop thine noggin housed (within thimble size nut)
rare and near extinct flora and fauna, what
species of plants and animals, whose preserve comprised
   equivalent of indigenous village people huddling within microscopic yut.

Thus, this bipedal simian angst riddled at experiences
   forced at figurative crossroad
when itching scalping a dead giveaway clue
   to lather up hirsute growing via bald faced code
at further expense invisible life forms such action would erode
fast dwindled diversity, hegemony, longevity
   i.e. population except **** Sapiens who didst goad

forefingers needed to massage and scrub thine scalp
   as like a field getting hoed
sometimes applying solely cold water **** to un load
a healthy plethora, where gushing shower head would send them
down the drain perhaps displacing their meal times,
   or feasting on louse see pie ala mode
aware that survival odds regarding

   getting thru water treatment plant, premonition aye node
and greater chance to avert total mortal kombat avoided
   if I trekked to Antarctic anti pode
so...similar to other occasions necessitating me
   to lather 50 shades of gray –

   as if subjected to being snowed
quite aware many people would avoid me like the plague
(which reaction eagerly embraced) if knotty,
   oily, straggly natural headresss
hence, this outlier surrendered got gently toad
value of hygience lost as if playing tictactoe x/oed.
Chris Saitta Mar 2020
Death undoes itself like a woman undoes her dress
With knowing look and shrewd-salt of beguilement
Of supple shoulders and bared back, of life shimmying
Down the legs of the longest dark road of disappearing.
e fields Jul 2019
Huddled by the bypass entrance
The sun glared at the Earth's
Asphalt facade, walloping it accordingly

Cameras sat patiently on the
Sign-beams like congregant birds
Waiting to snitch on someone
Behaving out of turn
Those adoring paparazzi
Admonishing, admonishing

Wannabe-rapper-wannabe came crawling
Out of the watering hole
Still parched yet gasping for air
Looking like he'd been swimming,
Looking like he'd been up against a current
That traveled generations wide

"Spare change, anyone,
Spare a quarter, help
Little old me?"
Tsk. - Doors locking
Tsk. - Glass shimmying

"I'm not out here for fun, man"
The whimpering stray
*****-slapping the open air
"Well, ******* all, any way"

The drone of throttled engines
Rubber to road and fleet vanishing
He's melting, on the wing of the onramp
He is being drunk whole
"Man, ******* all, any way"
An echo's trace as the ghost ships depart.
Diabetic Floridians have traded their pancreatic souls for jelly rolls
while shimmying bloated groove things from crooked Citrus Bowls
to kick placenta-shaped globes through two sissified posts of goals
and fondling each other in and amongst obelisk football field poles,
in practice for the third to man righteous slots in State cheese doles
to boldly sashay on promenades with dogs called women for strolls
only to dine upon nature's bounty of termite larvae, slugs & moles,
from countrified cities and urban meadows to ship-beaching shoals
where myopic quasi-goats possess proto-goat gumption to eat trolls
In national shoe economy sectors it's advisable to rehabilitate soles
Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain, explore passages or holes
as it was in 1943's Hit the Ice twixt Elyse Knox & Patric Knowles,
allowing Lou Costello to be raked over the flick's proverbial coals
Sean Jun 2018
Are everything
But they know sleep
Until the mirage ends
They weep
A glimmer of hope
The faintest smell of dope
Is shimmying rope
A disgust of sports relegated to
The earth
Crying
#truth is the feminine race
Todd Monjar Oct 2017
Gray straight rain, no wind, multi-dimension layers of meaning; each strand a voice of information that starts and ends at the same place.

There is initially a tangled array of random movement brought forth with an awareness  of  the cross-dimensional  configuration showing a deep reaching tunnel of bits and pouring of perpendicular abstraction that makes sense only to the unintended.

Each carrying a spark of finality upon touchdown, only to be rudely laughed at by the wizards of universal motion. Bouncing, dancing, splattering to a river of smooth, wet rollicking journey.

Rolling, meandering films of sheen, coating the ground in an endless search for a destination while understanding  that the cycle is perpetual; dancing up to the stars to await another episode of release.

It began with such directed energy of meaning and now succumbs to a humid, vaporized blanket of tranquility causing dropping lines, shunning leaves and streaming rivulets of anticipation; waiting to commune and chortle and mock the dryness that it mottles into one simple palette.

Never ceasing energy mops the residue in a retreating, shimmying, calculated tidal return; undulating shapes and recognition of the same existence being instantly different and we may not realize the illusion before us.

Each moment storing a placeholder in memory of the washing of the earth and our consciousness that flows from story to story; time telling a silent and certain rendition of rivers past that unifies its path with vibrational filaments in a sing-song lilt of joy.

— The End —