"siken" poems - Hello Poetry

If I were to say; the devil & god both rage within, I would render myself dishonest. For despite blind faith you have never heard me surrender, to the devil or god. The agnostic in me did surrender, to a name still unknown. An internal war battles of wills I so fought pleading & praying; *save me from what I have so become.* A war rages within thirsty blood red, slaughter a house for the dead. I fall at your feet, lick the blood splashed & spilled; a slaughterhouse will never be a clean resting place. I kneel; genuflect at the shrine of gods & monsters. I whisper; *What will be? What will become of me?* Laughing, spitting, in the face of anguished despair. A war rages within. Nor devil nor god may see, I am yours for slaughter, surrendered for you in this wasteland my mind created when you were first gone. © Sia Jane "I’ll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this bullet inside me." Wishbone by Richard Siken

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Jan 13, 2015

Jan 13, 2015 at 10:47 PM UTC

sia-jane

Slaughterhouse

If I were to say; the devil & god both rage within, I would render myself dishonest. For despite blind faith you have never heard me surrender, to the devil or god. The agnostic in me did surrender, to a name still unknown. An internal war battles of wills I so fought pleading & praying; *save me from what I have so become.* A war rages within thirsty blood red, slaughter a house for the dead. I fall at your feet, lick the blood splashed & spilled; a slaughterhouse will never be a clean resting place. I kneel; genuflect at the shrine of gods & monsters. I whisper; *What will be? What will become of me?* Laughing, spitting, in the face of anguished despair. A war rages within. Nor devil nor god may see, I am yours for slaughter, surrendered for you in this wasteland my mind created when you were first gone. © Sia Jane "I’ll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this bullet inside me." Wishbone by Richard Siken

47

"I'll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting..." Richard Siken You set my soul on fire pouring gasoline over every inch of the skin I inhabit daily You set my soul on fire knowing how much it would burn, leaving deep everlasting scars You set my soul on fire excruciatingly ripping a person I love so knowing the pain you'd cause You set my soul on fire your face ablaze with an unspoken contentment at claiming what you believe is yours I sit here and mourn my heart misshaped from the norm I sit here and weep at how trampled I was by your feet I sit here with anger knowing where to point the finger twist it round, with your well rehearsed stirs that damage, disintegrate and curse © Sia Jane

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Jan 14, 2014

Jan 14, 2014 at 1:55 PM UTC

sia-jane

Soul on Fire

"I'll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting..." Richard Siken You set my soul on fire pouring gasoline over every inch of the skin I inhabit daily You set my soul on fire knowing how much it would burn, leaving deep everlasting scars You set my soul on fire excruciatingly ripping a person I love so knowing the pain you'd cause You set my soul on fire your face ablaze with an unspoken contentment at claiming what you believe is yours I sit here and mourn my heart misshaped from the norm I sit here and weep at how trampled I was by your feet I sit here with anger knowing where to point the finger twist it round, with your well rehearsed stirs that damage, disintegrate and curse © Sia Jane

28

pretty girl with pretty flowers, do not be afraid to trace the soft curves of your body with your round, round eyes. your monsters hide not there— your guardian angels do. when your night feels longer than the day, breathe the smidgen of youth you have left in you into the birds swimming fluidly with the stars— their wings swiftly cutting smooth ripples into the sky, disturbing the grumbling twilight. you could be one of them, able to go nowhere and everywhere. like air. don’t you want to go home? sad girl with sad flowers, keep your leaves tucked inside your old books, in lacy sleeves, your peeling boots— hope He finds them all there. sing sweetly of the poets of all ages—siken, plath, wilde, whitman— shamelessly climb inside His chest, gently rip His ribs apart, the you that's serenading, softly seducing Him with songs unsung and dreams undreamt. let your baby blue skirt ride up, drip, drip, drip, let His calloused fingers brush your thighs made of syrupy milk, as you smile, and smile, and smile. fiery girl with stormy flowers, the best things in life cannot be confined to a physical shape, cannot be seen, or touched, or heard, or said— yet in your eyes set heavy by damp eyelashes, there is the primal, unconfined, raw thirst, desperately hoping and searching. is it a lost love? an unfounded love? what is it that you are looking for?

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Sep 26, 2017

Sep 26, 2017 at 11:42 AM UTC

catherine-v

you, Him, and the flowers

pretty girl with pretty flowers, do not be afraid to trace the soft curves of your body with your round, round eyes. your monsters hide not there— your guardian angels do. when your night feels longer than the day, breathe the smidgen of youth you have left in you into the birds swimming fluidly with the stars— their wings swiftly cutting smooth ripples into the sky, disturbing the grumbling twilight. you could be one of them, able to go nowhere and everywhere. like air. don’t you want to go home? sad girl with sad flowers, keep your leaves tucked inside your old books, in lacy sleeves, your peeling boots— hope He finds them all there. sing sweetly of the poets of all ages—siken, plath, wilde, whitman— shamelessly climb inside His chest, gently rip His ribs apart, the you that's serenading, softly seducing Him with songs unsung and dreams undreamt. let your baby blue skirt ride up, drip, drip, drip, let His calloused fingers brush your thighs made of syrupy milk, as you smile, and smile, and smile. fiery girl with stormy flowers, the best things in life cannot be confined to a physical shape, cannot be seen, or touched, or heard, or said— yet in your eyes set heavy by damp eyelashes, there is the primal, unconfined, raw thirst, desperately hoping and searching. is it a lost love? an unfounded love? what is it that you are looking for?

35

I don't write as much or read as much as I did in between classes and on busses or under the bed at three a.m. with light from those glow-in-the-dark spoons out of cereal boxes. I forgot what it's like to say i love you to family and friends and they forgot, too, around the time dad stopped smoking and we lost the house to a gambling addiction -- they don't know I know. I missed the class on making decisions and holding my ground and learning to love myself in that way that the important people love me. I wasted time on drugs and empty wants, promises-- ruined parts of me I see on bookshelves and in B flats on sheet music. I sleep, I dream; I tread softly, and I steal the words better suited to someone else but I missed the class on expression, too. Students and bosses and ones I met for a moment on the street laugh and it's always at me, even when it's not; even when I hide in plain sight, shoulders hunched, head down, reciting Yeats or Siken under my breath like some mantra of people with bigger, more painful, beautiful pasts.

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Sep 3, 2013

Sep 3, 2013 at 9:16 PM UTC

dee-double-you

Perditus inter tempus

I don't write as much or read as much as I did in between classes and on busses or under the bed at three a.m. with light from those glow-in-the-dark spoons out of cereal boxes. I forgot what it's like to say i love you to family and friends and they forgot, too, around the time dad stopped smoking and we lost the house to a gambling addiction -- they don't know I know. I missed the class on making decisions and holding my ground and learning to love myself in that way that the important people love me. I wasted time on drugs and empty wants, promises-- ruined parts of me I see on bookshelves and in B flats on sheet music. I sleep, I dream; I tread softly, and I steal the words better suited to someone else but I missed the class on expression, too. Students and bosses and ones I met for a moment on the street laugh and it's always at me, even when it's not; even when I hide in plain sight, shoulders hunched, head down, reciting Yeats or Siken under my breath like some mantra of people with bigger, more painful, beautiful pasts.

41

Here we are, now, who are we this time? The sentiments are still the same, aren't they always? We listen to the radio top 20 and we sing along, brazen like the best of them. Today I'll be Achilles and you can be Odysseus. No, not Patroclus, this isn't like that and neither are we, there's no room for speculation on what we could be because that was last time, last time I sat on your white bed and you pinned my wrists down, I was ten and you were twenty and god told you to **** me and it ate you alive, when I left you to go to the countryside, pregnant with someone else's baby, was I ever your baby? Maybe a few other, separate, parallel lifetimes ago. If I'm Achilles then you have to tell me when to go to war, you'll know that I'll fight you every step of the way and no, we don't love each other, but this is the role you play this time and you'll do it for me, won't you? Yes, and the next life, I'll be a nice jazz tune that you turn on the radio to and find yourself crying and aren't sure why. we're still connected, even metal covered in copper covered in your skin and sweat. The next I can taste it, because you'll be the ****** drip as soon as it kicks in, but you have to be the one that gets me dead at twenty-five, so make sure you wait for my signal, my white flag, like before when you watched me in the garden, like before when you dragged me off the dead body of my wartime lover, or when we met in the rain in the romance novel yet to be written and kissed and kissed and kissed and, kissed. you are my friend. we will never be separate. you are the love of all my lifetimes, even the ones where we will never touch or laugh or look each other in the eye, and even especially then, because I'll still feel your atoms and my atoms, the only home that can ever have a name: the touch of something familiar. Siken was right, I won't be waiting forever, there are a hundred other me's to match you's and if this ends all bright-white nuclear i'll still be standing with the skin melted all off, poised and ready to receive the next generation, and that's what i thought of when you asked me if we were ever sky giants, if we ever met before this moment, and you thought because i was silent that i didn't feel the same but baby, i do, and here is all of it, our mythology, don't you feel it? the constant reaching of me to you? the small hands covering every inch of our mouths even when we don't touch? Next time, I'll be a small hand and you'll be a small hand, maybe then we can love properly.

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Mar 14, 2015

Mar 14, 2015 at 3:32 PM UTC

angelwarm

Mythology

Here we are, now, who are we this time? The sentiments are still the same, aren't they always? We listen to the radio top 20 and we sing along, brazen like the best of them. Today I'll be Achilles and you can be Odysseus. No, not Patroclus, this isn't like that and neither are we, there's no room for speculation on what we could be because that was last time, last time I sat on your white bed and you pinned my wrists down, I was ten and you were twenty and god told you to **** me and it ate you alive, when I left you to go to the countryside, pregnant with someone else's baby, was I ever your baby? Maybe a few other, separate, parallel lifetimes ago. If I'm Achilles then you have to tell me when to go to war, you'll know that I'll fight you every step of the way and no, we don't love each other, but this is the role you play this time and you'll do it for me, won't you? Yes, and the next life, I'll be a nice jazz tune that you turn on the radio to and find yourself crying and aren't sure why. we're still connected, even metal covered in copper covered in your skin and sweat. The next I can taste it, because you'll be the ****** drip as soon as it kicks in, but you have to be the one that gets me dead at twenty-five, so make sure you wait for my signal, my white flag, like before when you watched me in the garden, like before when you dragged me off the dead body of my wartime lover, or when we met in the rain in the romance novel yet to be written and kissed and kissed and kissed and, kissed. you are my friend. we will never be separate. you are the love of all my lifetimes, even the ones where we will never touch or laugh or look each other in the eye, and even especially then, because I'll still feel your atoms and my atoms, the only home that can ever have a name: the touch of something familiar. Siken was right, I won't be waiting forever, there are a hundred other me's to match you's and if this ends all bright-white nuclear i'll still be standing with the skin melted all off, poised and ready to receive the next generation, and that's what i thought of when you asked me if we were ever sky giants, if we ever met before this moment, and you thought because i was silent that i didn't feel the same but baby, i do, and here is all of it, our mythology, don't you feel it? the constant reaching of me to you? the small hands covering every inch of our mouths even when we don't touch? Next time, I'll be a small hand and you'll be a small hand, maybe then we can love properly.

56

and if this parking lot is the sole spectator of my heart attack, i’m okay with it. and this feels like something siken would wax poetic about, you’re sitting in a ****** sedan with broken windows with a pretty girl in a parking lot- but again and again, i’ll beat him to it. i’ll wax poetics about you until your shoes are shiny and your ring is gleaming. for once in my sixteen years of life, i love you becomes a real, tangible thing i can touch. for once in my sixteen years of life, ten years from now doesn't matter, because twenty-six will not feel like this. and if you’ll throw away this memory in three months, i’ll pick it up and store it in a glass jar next to my bed. because at sixteen, all you are is real.

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Jan 19, 2021

Jan 19, 2021 at 11:03 AM UTC

comaets

amber lights

and if this parking lot is the sole spectator of my heart attack, i’m okay with it. and this feels like something siken would wax poetic about, you’re sitting in a ****** sedan with broken windows with a pretty girl in a parking lot- but again and again, i’ll beat him to it. i’ll wax poetics about you until your shoes are shiny and your ring is gleaming. for once in my sixteen years of life, i love you becomes a real, tangible thing i can touch. for once in my sixteen years of life, ten years from now doesn't matter, because twenty-six will not feel like this. and if you’ll throw away this memory in three months, i’ll pick it up and store it in a glass jar next to my bed. because at sixteen, all you are is real.

10

Richard Siken A man with a bandage is in the middle of something. Everyone understands this. Everyone wants a battlefield. Red. And a little more red. Accidents never happen when the room is empty. Everyone understands this. Everyone needs a place. People like to think war means something. What can you learn from your opponent? More than you think. Who will master this love? Love might be the wrong word. Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other. We know who our enemies are. We know.

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Feb 15, 2018

Feb 15, 2018 at 5:26 PM UTC

AnushaDixit

Detail of the Fire

Richard Siken A man with a bandage is in the middle of something. Everyone understands this. Everyone wants a battlefield. Red. And a little more red. Accidents never happen when the room is empty. Everyone understands this. Everyone needs a place. People like to think war means something. What can you learn from your opponent? More than you think. Who will master this love? Love might be the wrong word. Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other. We know who our enemies are. We know.

11

Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine. I couldn't get the boy to **** me, but I wore his jacket for the longest time. Richard Siken

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Feb 11, 2015

Feb 11, 2015 at 3:49 PM UTC

katie-ann

Untitled

Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine. I couldn't get the boy to **** me, but I wore his jacket for the longest time. Richard Siken

2

siken’s never mentioned this. this dread that climbs up my throat and makes you repulsive to see. i’m going to scratch my eyes out. and you’re going to watch, bloodied fingernails and broken corneas. just for today, the grass whispers. only for today, the moon’s for you to want. i wouldn’t hate anything more.

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Jan 19, 2021

Jan 19, 2021 at 10:41 AM UTC

comaets

yue

siken’s never mentioned this. this dread that climbs up my throat and makes you repulsive to see. i’m going to scratch my eyes out. and you’re going to watch, bloodied fingernails and broken corneas. just for today, the grass whispers. only for today, the moon’s for you to want. i wouldn’t hate anything more.

8