"slashed" poems
The pavement having a merchandise name
Merchandising sales being the aim
Markdowns throughout any retail store
The array of assortments a consumer just can’t ignore
Yet watch how the consumer spends their money
The consumer will be broke, but certainly not the only
Plastic credit cards that could get you into trouble
This could cause your interest rates to double
But I one should only buy what they actually need
However unnecessary things with no need to proceed
Retail prices coming from a Buyer’s advice
Watch the price and shopping being wise
Fashion designers with a eye for your appeal and style
All through the theory the consumer is thinking during while
Well retail stores have much they want the consumer to explore
But with prices slashed here and over there, the consumer becomes not being sure
Perhaps having will power is something no one should ignore
Money saved with nothing being spent
No question needing to be asked as to where your money went.
Oct 27, 2015
Oct 27, 2015 at 6:37 PM UTC
Everyone comes with scars,
But you can love them away.
I told you that I wasn't perfect,
You told me the same
'You don't get it, I-"
'Shh, I love you, imperfections and all',
You said
But a month later,
Everything changed
You looked at me with disgust-
Like I was **** on legs
'I'm breaking up with you',
You said
'Why', I asked
'You're not perfect, I don't love you'
Hysterical sobs, at the loss of-
What I thought was love
'But I love you!',
I screamed at the closed door,
For you walked out on me
Your previous words meant nothing
I'm not worth loving, why?
The cuts on my thighs?
My eyes full of hurt?
My mouth full of lies?
The pain you caused,
Hurt more than the fresh cuts-
I just made
These were dedicated to you
Etched into my skin,
The perfect reminder of the pain you caused
'I love you' it said,
Used my blood to make-
a small heart on my tear-stained cheek
Then I slashed both wrists
They were dedicated to you
I love you
Hours later, remembering something-
You left
Found me lying there,
With the note cut into my hand,
'I love you' it said
The perfect reminder of the pain you caused
Jan 4, 2017
Jan 4, 2017 at 9:02 AM UTC
navigator’s balcony cocktail hour
rocket orbit ocean liner rising
clenched no teeth no guernica no bam bam bam
correspondent notary republic
address book dial figure 8
charred with a thousand jigsaw pieces
false as a beach chiaroscuro black
on black graveyard womb naked milk glass lit
footprint tourism by candlelight and flare
vaccination fatigue puke fingernail fish
moving a bandaged echo **** him **** her
familiar bell music **** them both **** them all
stretched shirtsleeves spanish toffee slashed tires
(failure as a painter he shaved his wife’s fur coat)
bust your ***** Barcelona red alert
knock-kneed broken squeezebox no hands
standing room only ladies first (please)
unbuttoned interrogation coffee rolls (stop)
marine’s vegetation (stop) early morning tea (stop)
armless menus (stop) pink cathedral fingers (stop)
and (begin again) move
we move
moving inside an eye this eye
that advances step
by step
10.3k
With surgical precision
You perfected the incision
Of that poison-tipped tongue,
Like a dart.
My crippling indecision
Was slashed with cold derision,
Till self-belief was wrung
From my heart.
Feb 15, 2010
Feb 15, 2010 at 12:22 PM UTC
I pulled down vicious KKK flyers,
listened to members amplify hate.
Their harmful words only frustrate,
hoping to cease their cruel desires.
Harassment at work occurred
hablas ingles? a lady replied.
I let the racist remark subside,
when I realized I was not heard.
Being bullied at school would soon follow.
A boy shout the Spanish slur at me,
write vile notes for all to see.
Slashed my tires with archery arrows.
I never thought that they would presume,
I was an illegal immigrant.
Their logic absent,
only based on looks they assume.
May 30, 2012
May 30, 2012 at 3:59 PM UTC
At twenty one thirty ,
and far away,
she made up her mind
and couldn't stay.
Her pain was too much,
for her to bare
I tried to reach out,
but she didn't care.
At just seventeen,
she had been through hell,
Could not escape
her molested cell.
Nowhere to go,
seeing darkness around,
No escape for this girl,
only hell bound.
I begged her to stay,
she said go away,
Why do you care?
I bowed down to pray.
She grabbed the blade,
going deeper every time,
Slashed her wrist,
I cried and I cried.
A thousand miles away,
I am now in somber.
Why did you leave me?
I will always remember.
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 11:03 PM UTC
April 5th 1994- Kurt Cobain dies
April 6th 1994- The President of Rwanda Dies
April 7th 1994- Kurt Cobain's body is found
April 7th 1994- A genocide begins.
Neighbors take arms against neighbors
People he once shared a sandbox with now hold a machete to his neck
Heads roll- literally
Babies cry out to their mothers who lie there choking on their own blood
Girls who 2 days ago were playing house with their dolls, now take care of their whole family
Screams of pain from girls who's innocence is taken from the man who used
to bounce them on his knee.
Gathered in the place where God is supposed to be
Hundreds are murdered ruthlessly.
Guns not pointed at their heads
But clubs that smash them in.
Achilles' heels slashed
These men drink and feast and sleep
Over the screams of their victims
Babies born 9 months after these men took something that was not theirs to
take
A physical representation of all that is evil and hatred and pain
She tries to love them anyway
But she sees him in them
He has daddy's eye
She has her fathers nose
She sees them in the way he looks at her when he's hungry
As if she is just there to quench that thirst with her body.
The whole word is split in 2
Nobody is Rwandan anymore
You are Hutu or Tutsi
Short or tall
Human or vermin.
The dead among the living
Sometimes I can't tell which is which
Until I see it
That sparkle of hope in that one man's eye
Because the human spirit will never die.
The father of his best friend tortured and murdered his mother on their
front lawn.
Orphaned and afraid,
He cannot stop
He cannot slow down
He cannot give up
Because ***** Kurt Cobain
he has to tell the story of what really happened that day
Rwanda April 7th 1994
Jul 13, 2014
Jul 13, 2014 at 2:45 PM UTC
you were quiet and i was loud, talkative
you asked to borrow a pencil so i gave you the one with the hellokitty stickers on it just to see you smile
you gave it back with a note and i read in my car in the parking lot after class
it said that you thought my hands were beautiful, but i always thought that they were too small and definitely too pudgy and said so underneath the scrawl of hellokitty’s graphite. oh, and thanks
when i gave it back, you looked confused and turned the scrap over to show me the name on the front and it wasn’t mine
that same day someone slashed the tires on your honda accord
Feb 20, 2012
Feb 20, 2012 at 11:08 PM UTC
At twenty one thirty ,
and far away,
she made up her mind
and couldn't stay.
Her pain was too much,
for her to bear.
I tried to reach out,
but she didn't care.
At just seventeen,
she had been through hell,
Could not escape
her molested cell.
Nowhere to go,
seeing darkness around,
No escape for this girl,
only hell bound.
I begged her to stay,
she said go away,
Why do you care?
I bowed down to pray.
She grab the blade,
going deeper every time,
Slashed her wrist,
I cried and I cried.
A thousand miles away,
I am now in somber.
Why did you leave me?
I will always remember.
Oct 7, 2014
Oct 7, 2014 at 4:30 PM UTC
The urgent care is the nursery
Where I choose my seeds with thought.
The doctor is the gardener
Who knows how to fix what I’ve wrought.
She sows the seeds inside my skin,
Yet not with a trowel or ***
She uses a needle and surgical thread,
With budding knots lined up in a row.
Then she leaves me with my tidy ground
And some knowledge on how I should care
For the lined up plot she’s left to me,
Whose potential I’m required to bear.
The deep rivet I slashed into my skin
Is where the seedlings take root.
The blood from my veins keeps them moist
As the new blossoms stand resolute.
But when the weather grows dark and dreary,
My sprouts need cover from the cold.
So I bundle them up with jeans and sweats
To protect them and let them take hold.
But despite the layers I pile atop,
The small spiny blooms poke through.
I run my fingers back and forth,
And marvel at how fast they grew.
Then after they’ve grown for fourteen days,
I return to the nursery at last.
The gardener plucks and prunes and picks
‘Til the wounds and the blooms come to pass.
So now the perennials have passed us by,
And the sprouts have been taken to bin.
The wound that watered my seedlings’ through,
Has left but a scar on my skin.
Jan 23, 2022
Jan 23, 2022 at 11:20 AM UTC
Smokey the bear had fought lots of fires,
he was a good guy, didn't have any priors.
But after so many years committed to the job,
Smokey started to feel as if he would sob
every time he got a message calling him back to work,
to put out a fire started by some drunken ****
No matter how many fires Smokey put out,
it never seemed to gain him any social clout.
His so called “friends” never invited him to hang
though all Smokey wanted was to be one of the gang.
They would hold fancy dances and dress in their best,
but poor lonely Smokey was never a guest.
He rented a tux and showed it to one guy,
who immediately retorted with quite the rude reply!
“Are you kidding,” he said, “Smokey tuxes aren’t for bears,
besides, you’d have to return it all covered in hair!”
“No,” the guy said, “It’s best you stay home,”
“Besides, I know you don’t mind hanging out alone!”
But Smokey did mind, he minded a lot,
and later that night, he had a brilliant thought.
“I’ll go to that party and show them, they’ll see,
you can’t just leave out a fun bear like me.”
However, Smokey's idea did not go as planned,
his first mistake being that he arrived in a van.
A van that looked like something a molester would use
while trolling the streets for a child to choose.
Smokey’s second mistake was his puke yellow tux,
the one he had bought for only two bucks.
When he finally entered people gasped in surprise,
unable to believe the strange thing before their eyes.
There Smokey stood, all covered in yellow,
holding a cane and top hat he thought made him quite the “fancy fellow.”
After a moment of silence there was a loud roar,
as laughing people asked, “What look were you going for?”
Embarrassed, Smokey tried to claim the whole thing was a joke,
Stuttering, “C’mon you guys know I’m quite the funny bloke!”
Eyes brimming with tears Smokey decided to leave,
but this embarrassed bear had something up his sleeve.
“I hate them,” he thought, standing outside,
and decided to make sure none of them would have a ride.
So he slashed all their tires while giggling with glee,
Thinking, "Now they’ll feel bad for laughing at me!”
But this was not enough, Smokey wanted to do more,
so he grabbed a gas can and started to pour.
He saturated the grass, the trees and the flowers,
and then sparked a fire that would burn on for hours.
This was one fire Smokey would not put out,
he simply stood, and then laughed as he heard the first shout.
Nov 4, 2012
Nov 4, 2012 at 10:31 PM UTC
When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale ***
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
All the green leaved little weddings' wives
In the coal black bush and let them grieve.
When I was a gusty man and a half
And the black beast of the beetles' pews
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of *******
Not a boy and a bit in the wick-
Dipping moon and drunk as a new dropped calf,
I whistled all night in the twisted flues,
Midwives grew in the midnight ditches,
And the sizzling sheets of the town cried, Quick!-
Whenever I dove in a breast high shoal,
Wherever I ramped in the clover quilts,
Whatsoever I did in the coal-
Black night, I left my quivering prints.
When I was a man you could call a man
And the black cross of the holy house,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of welcome),
Brandy and ripe in my bright, bass prime,
No springtailed tom in the red hot town
With every simmering woman his mouse
But a hillocky bull in the swelter
Of summer come in his great good time
To the sultry, biding herds, I said,
Oh, time enough when the blood runs cold,
And I lie down but to sleep in bed,
For my sulking, skulking, coal black soul!
When I was half the man I was
And serve me right as the preachers warn,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of downfall),
No flailing calf or cat in a flame
Or hickory bull in milky grass
But a black sheep with a crumpled horn,
At last the soul from its foul mousehole
Slunk pouting out when the limp time came;
And I gave my soul a blind, slashed eye,
Gristle and rind, and a roarers' life,
And I shoved it into the coal black sky
To find a woman's soul for a wife.
Now I am a man no more no more
And a black reward for a roaring life,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of strangers),
Tidy and cursed in my dove cooed room
I lie down thin and hear the good bells jaw--
For, oh, my soul found a sunday wife
In the coal black sky and she bore angels!
Harpies around me out of her womb!
Chastity prays for me, piety sings,
Innocence sweetens my last black breath,
Modesty hides my thighs in her wings,
And all the deadly virtues plague my death!
5.3k
She sat by me, in her skirt, hand grenade green,
And an off-white blouse obscured by a jacket with dust in its seams,
Like leather, like elderly skin, like a crossword puzzle with half the letters filled in,
She sat by me and spilt her sentences and her tea:
She claimed her husband had been killed by a cabal of spiritualists,
Killed by a bull elephant in the streets of Nepal,
Killed by the seven plagues,
And never killed at all,
That he was once a number
Somehow both perfect and prime,
That he was Prime minister of the sea,
And independent of time,
That his bones were cracked marbles
Bought from a widow in Tennessee,
That his name continued to escape her,
But that he looked something like me,
Leaving I saw her wings drag her heavenward,
I saw her terrible wings,
As I stumbled and veered from concrete to tarmac
I heard the pavements start to sing:
“I was once a flowerbed,
My father was a field,
My mother was a source of light,
Before which all the people kneeled.”
Then lost in the eye of daytime and night,
Drawn to the moustache of a Spanish racketeer,
He was once abandoned by his books and his babies
In the boot of a broke-down cavalier,
His pasts and ideas caught up to him,
And gripped him by his belt and his teeth,
His pasts gripped him in quiet of his nightmares,
And slashed his arms in the street,
Visions shook me by the bleeding palm,
Her terrible wings now pinpricks for the moon,
Visions shook me as deities died,
With eyes like a card-trick and fingers like doom,
Then stuck in the endless space between words;
She sat by me, in her skirt, hand grenade green;
Stuck in the endless space between words;
And an off white blouse obscured by a jacket with dust in its seams...
Mar 11, 2018
Mar 11, 2018 at 9:11 PM UTC
When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale ***
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
All the green leaved little weddings' wives
In the coal black bush and let them grieve.
When I was a gusty man and a half
And the black beast of the beetles' pews
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of *******
Not a boy and a bit in the wick-
Dipping moon and drunk as a new dropped calf,
I whistled all night in the twisted flues,
Midwives grew in the midnight ditches,
And the sizzling sheets of the town cried, Quick!-
Whenever I dove in a breast high shoal,
Wherever I ramped in the clover quilts,
Whatsoever I did in the coal-
Black night, I left my quivering prints.
When I was a man you could call a man
And the black cross of the holy house,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of welcome),
Brandy and ripe in my bright, bass prime,
No springtailed tom in the red hot town
With every simmering woman his mouse
But a hillocky bull in the swelter
Of summer come in his great good time
To the sultry, biding herds, I said,
Oh, time enough when the blood runs cold,
And I lie down but to sleep in bed,
For my sulking, skulking, coal black soul!
When I was half the man I was
And serve me right as the preachers warn,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of downfall),
No flailing calf or cat in a flame
Or hickory bull in milky grass
But a black sheep with a crumpled horn,
At last the soul from its foul mousehole
Slunk pouting out when the limp time came;
And I gave my soul a blind, slashed eye,
Gristle and rind, and a roarers' life,
And I shoved it into the coal black sky
To find a woman's soul for a wife.
Now I am a man no more no more
And a black reward for a roaring life,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of strangers),
Tidy and cursed in my dove cooed room
I lie down thin and hear the good bells jaw--
For, oh, my soul found a sunday wife
In the coal black sky and she bore angels!
Harpies around me out of her womb!
Chastity prays for me, piety sings,
Innocence sweetens my last black breath,
Modesty hides my thighs in her wings,
And all the deadly virtues plague my death!
4.9k
I'm One Off 7 Billion Crying,
I'm One Off 7 Billion Slowly Dying,
Half The World Trying,
The Other Half Lying,
Starvation And Disease,
Criminals And Thieves,
An Empire Grows,
Then One Is Diseased,
The World Is Cruel To Say The Least,
A Look At The Past,
Brings A Good Laugh,
But In The End,
Two Wrists Are Slashed,
Erie Flashbacks Crowd Millions Of Minds,
Snipers, Terriorists, And Grenade Mines,
Litter The Worlds Beautiful Face,
All This Human Violence Is Such A Disgrace,
Diwali Everyday In Cities Around The World,
But Not The Festival Of Light,
Just The Light Pollution Smuthering The Stars,
I'm One Of 7 Billion Being Lied To,
One Of 7 Billion Inclined To,
Believe In Humanity,
To Believe There Is No Insanity,
I'm One Of Just 7 Billion Wandering This Lonely,
Yet Crowded World
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 8:39 AM UTC
I fought
I fought
I fought my friends.
I fought with all my might.
I fought until the air in my lungs dispersed into the night.
I hacked I slashed and crumpled my foes
And one by one they fell.
With victory near, and victory close
Tonight I dine in hell.
Sep 23, 2012
Sep 23, 2012 at 9:49 AM UTC
I cast the muse into the sea
to wake her from a peaceful sleep.
This poet’s quill is void of ink;
it needs her words to strike the page.
She’ll fight the waves Poseidon sends
til Sirens drive her back to shore
to sip an oleander brew
and hoist the cup of Socrates.
Bring wolfsbane and a death morel!
Bring nightshade and curare too!
We’ll fatten her with woe and pain!
We’ll ready her for war and hate!
She’ll writhe and quiver, seethe and foam
until she spews her putrid verse
upon the blackened sands of time
from which men’s darkest dreams are built.
And when the gods are satisfied,
when Ares’ sword has slashed and burned,
this poisoned pen will rest at last.
Calliope shall sleep once more.
Jan 5, 2021
Jan 5, 2021 at 8:23 PM UTC
Oh, I have never looked so good
running in armor thru the woods
Adept with blade or mace
And I know a little magic
which for foes is rather tragic
(it’s a perk for my race)
Be it mountain peak or ocean swell
thru rocky hill and grassy dell
nothing slows my pace
Many Quests I need to finish
there’s Evil I must diminish
(And weapons to replace)
Every belonging I have owned
I have bartered, won or stole
Hording gold just in case
I’m constantly slashed, bashed and burned
by dragons, wildlife and Curs
with no fear on my face
Though I have skills that get me by
There are occasions that I’ve died
Thank god for the last “save”
I will keep right on playing
leveling buy quests and slaying
in my CGI escape
January 2012
Jan 29, 2012
Jan 29, 2012 at 3:18 AM UTC
The opening night,
in front of packed house.
The story, a fight,
between a cat and a mouse.
The cat with her guile and
the mouse, all the while.
Powers up a fuckin' chainsaw
with a knowing wry smile.
So never bet against the mouse
with either money or your house
because the crafty **** takers
have slashed the odds at bookmakers
as to what's in the pies
at the new high street bakers.
Poetry by Kaydee.
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 1:11 PM UTC
1.
There was the tremor of leaves,
a rustle of bayonet grass
parried the multihued calm
of dawn's smeared light.
"This is what we trained for," the captain said.
We hunkered behind stacked bags of sand.
2.
Filigreed shafts of light pierce
the bullet perforated leaf canopy,
bellowed yells punctuate the swirl
and buffet of turbulent air:
“Contact”, “2 O’Clock”, “Incoming”, “
"Moving”, “Reloading”, “Ammo”.
3.
Fingers twitch, the grit of soil
twisted through their grip;
moon slashed carcasses glint, spent shells,
Earth exhales a vermillion mist,
rising, echoless, in this cathedral of leaves.
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 1:19 AM UTC
On Monday, November 14th
She wore her favorite dress.
Blue with grace.
Lace that covered her shoulders.
Lace that teased all the men that walked by.
Falling to her knees.
Barely brushing the scabs and scars that sat there.
Hugging her hips like the night hugs the moon.
On Monday, November 14th
She smiled.
Cherry lipgloss smeared quickly across her thin lips.
White teeth peaking out.
Her lips perfectly outlined.
The corners tucked up beautifully.
On Monday, November 14th,
She stood.
Pride in her perfect posture.
Proud of her lean body.
Her body perfectly aligned.
Not a flaw.
On Monday, November 14th
Her arms were pale.
A gold bracelet hugged her wrist.
You could see each blue stream, happily working.
Dusted with freckles.
Soft and pure.
On Tuesday, November 15th
She did not wear her favorite dress.
She wore a different one.
Black with sorrow.
No lace.
Falling to her ankles.
Encasing scabbed knees.
Hugging her in all the wrong places.
On Tuesday, November 15th
She frowned.
Blood red lipstick stained her thin lips.
Her teeth hid inside her blooded lips.
The corners fell, drooped.
On Tuesday, November 15th,
She sat.
Too exhausted to stand.
She let go of her posture.
She was cautious of her appearance.
Aware of her flaws.
On Tuesday, November 15th,
Her arms were whiter than before.
Each vein slashed.
Red.
The gold bracelet still hung there.
Her freckles throbbed with pain.
No longer soft, or pure.
On Tuesday, November 15th
He died.
Early in the morning.
With him, he took her strength, her smile, her pride.
He left her bare.
On Wednesday, November 16th
She missed him.
She missed him a little too much.
Her heart couldn't take it.
Her eyes red and swollen.
She was there, but gone.
On Thursday, November 17th
She joined him, quietly.
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 9:53 AM UTC
Spring, the season of new beginnings. Alone in the grassy fields searching for an answer to this state of dysphoria. There she was. A sudden gust of wind slashed her soft dress and silky hair, creating ripples that made her look alive. Her vibrant motion caught my attention, in a setting of absolute stillness. In a world of black and white, she was a walking 16-set pastel crayon that made me feel like a child again.
It felt like I swallowed a million cocoons, only to emerge into butterflies to flutter at the pit of my stomach upon watching her. With a spring to her step and eyes that speak to you as if they had a mouth. Her eyes spoke to me, telling me to fill the cracks on her fingers and skip along the rosy fields to live happily ever after. I was a grown man with an imagination akin to a fifteen year old girl. A daydream that swallowed me whole, snapping me into reality upon approaching me. She offered me a new beginning. I call her Spring, my girlfriend.
With a new beginning, there is an end. Here I am again, alone in snowy fields searching for an answer to this state of dysphoria. The hottest love have the coldest ends.
Nov 9, 2013
Nov 9, 2013 at 11:03 AM UTC
I have voices in my head.
sometimes they are mine and sometimes they are that girl walking down the street without a hat or a home address and I know this because I know things without knowing them.
there is hurt here, in this car full of silver and new and no smoking or I'll rip your fingers off.
my mother knows how to say amen like she's still dedicated to the Catholic Church I tell her, you should have given that up the day they refused to baptize me.
everyone sees dark in me where there is none.
I was a baby and I was a baby and I'm still a baby, or I wish I was.
I'm a baby who cries and says good morning every day even if it's not.
I say good morning when I wake up after missing dinner
I refuse to touch China now
my hands don't listen to the voices in my head all they think is break break break and the break break break sounds itself like cracking open and I need to lobotomize the dishes in here before she gets sentimental about handing them down to me when I finally find someone who isn't scared of waking up beside me to find my throat slashed
here it is. truth, because there is no right or wrong there is truth.
and truth sets you free.
it sets you free and it has you without a hat or a home address and you still wonder why nobody sends you letters back.
you say they forget your name. Or your middle name but it doesn't matter.
I only answer to "baby girl, do you want me to call the doctor for you?"
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 9:17 PM UTC
As if he had been poured
in tar, he lies
on a pillow of turf
and seems to weep
the black river of himself.
The grain of his wrists
is like bog oak,
the ball of his heel
like a basalt egg.
His instep has shrunk
cold as a swan’s foot
or a wet swamp root.
His hips are the ridge
and purse of a mussel,
his spine an eel arrested
under a glisten of mud.
The head lifts,
the chin is a visor
raised above the vent
of his slashed throat
that has tanned and toughened.
The cured wound
opens inwards to a dark
elderberry place.
Who will say ‘corpse’
to his vivid cast?
Who will say ‘body’
to his opaque repose?
And his rusted hair,
a mat unlikely
as a foetus’s.
I first saw his twisted face
in a photograph,
a head and shoulder
out of the peat,
bruised like a forceps baby,
but now he lies
perfected in my memory,
down to the red horn
of his nails,
hung in the scales
with beauty and atrocity:
with the Dying Gaul
too strictly compassed
on his shield,
with the actual weight
of each hooded victim,
slashed and dumped.
3.5k
Behind the barn in late afternoon
Uncle Ray lifts my brother
to the seat of a harrower
abandoned now
and rusted to this field of family
tilted and monumental
plunging its tines into memory
of broken earth
behind this life of the workhorses they were
My father and my Uncle Ray—talking
Scattered conversation
in hushed tones
...as skyscraping thunderheads
slashed through their heights
by arrows of fire
light the pumpkins
between hay bundles
of time golden
Oct 20, 2016
Oct 20, 2016 at 1:24 AM UTC