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I opened my eyes
And looked up at the rain,
And it dripped in my head
And flowed into my brain,
And all that I hear as I lie in my bed
Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

I step very softly,
I walk very slow,
I can't do a handstand--
I might overflow,
So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said--
I'm just not the same since there's rain in my head.
Shannen Bremner May 2014
We drink. We love. We drink to pretend we have love. We fake love to feel loved. We know very well what we are doing. We have no idea what we are doing. We gather in groups. We push outsiders out. We know very well what we are doing. We can’t get a hold of what we are doing. We hate each other. We hate ourselves. We hate outsiders. We love our lives. We very well might hate our lives. Stockholm. We drink. We love. We **** ourselves.

We slosh through days. We get sloshed through days. We could be certain that we love the way we slosh through sloshy days and pretend that we have it under control. We have it under control. Do we have it under control? In thirty years there will be a phenomenon. We will all drop dead. We will all drop dead and we will think back to this time when we hated how much we loved our lives because we loved the very lives that allowed us to hate each other and wish we were the outsiders. We push away the outsiders. We are killing ourselves.

Then there are those who are unaware. There are those who might be naïve enough to think this is how the rest of our lives will play out. There are those who believe that the rest of their lives will consist of sloshing through sloshy days and pretending they aren’t killing themselves. And then there are those who very well might have the lives that allow them to slosh through, living and dying because we are killing ourselves. Peter Pans. They will not make it to thirty years before dropping dead. It won’t be a phenomenon at all. They will **** themselves. The outsiders will live on.

We do not know what love is because love is sloshy. Love is sloshy because our minds are sloshed. We pretend that what we feel is love. We pretend that these people are our friends and our lovers and they watch us **** ourselves and they **** themselves and we are all dying together. We are dying for love. We are dying to live. So we slosh through our sloshy days seriously not giving a **** that we are dying. Seriously giving too many ***** about what others think. Seriously ******* around. ******* around is serious business. ******* each other. ******* up. *******. *******. *******. We are killing our plans. We are killing ourselves.

We know very well what we are doing. Except the few that have no idea what they are doing. We live in the moment and pretend not to notice that in thirty years we will all drop dead and the outsiders will live on and love because we kept them out. We kept them out and saved their lives. They resented us because we ***** up and ***** around and ***** each other but we never ***** them and it saved their lives. We resent them because they live. We pretend we do not resent them because we think they don’t live. They don’t live like we do.

We pretend to love our lives. We love our lives. We think we love our lives. We do not know what love is because we are *******. We do not know what love is because all we do is *****. We do not know what love is because we are dying and we know very well that we aren’t well, so we hurt each other and pretend that it is the outsiders we hate. Pretend that we don’t envy them because they aren’t dying.

Some will get by. Some have plans and money and parents to put their screws back where they belong, so that their bookshelf can hold up the book of their life that was written for them. They will live on and slosh through their lives and make money and make babies and make fake substance. They will get married and get jobs and get divorced and get depressed. But they will be rich. Their lives will not be rich. They will be rich but they will lack richness. These people will have everything. These people will have nothing. I will have nothing. But I will have everything. If I do not **** myself the way that we are killing ourselves.

Why does time ***** us over? Everything is changing. Everything is staying the same. People are sloshing by with their sloshy minds. It will remain this way. The way it has remained this way for as long as we can remember it remaining this way. We have terrible memories. We have wonderful memories. We have these memories and then we have some memories that we cannot remember. We will get by. We will get out. We do not want to get out. We do not have a choice. Do we have a choice? I need to get out.

We do not want to leave the lives we hate but love because we are sloshing through and pretending we are rich. We are not rich. We are salty. We are salty and messy but we are happy. Are we happy? I am happy. Sometimes I am happy. Sometimes I slosh through my sloshy life and wish it were over. I never want it to end. I am the some that are naïve enough to have hoped this would last forever. We are the Peter Pans. If we never grow old we can never drop dead and blame it on the time when we hated that we loved this sloshy exclusive mayhem that we call life. I survived my youth, I will get out. I do not want to get out. I hate the love I pretend to love because I hate that I love it so much. Stockholm.
Meant to appear in the style of prose.
Final Project for my English 472 class.
aj Jun 2014
the ebb and tide of diamond waves slosh in the most serene celerity.
it is then that i know i am safe.

i lie in the ocean's arms,
and become a grain of sand,
until your song is sent my way
and i crystallize.

oh i am a pearl, born from pain.

your timbre plays melodies on my heartstrings, siren.
your beauty shadowboxes with my soul, siren.
i am not yours to keep, siren.
i am the tidecaller and i have a place.

but oh siren, why must you sing when i want to sleep?
why must you sing when i want to weep?
oh, siren, take my soul to keep.

no longer my sea.
sea of sirens, sea of song.
your song always lets me know that i mustn't tag along.
I liked someone a lot when I was in a really safe place in life. Whenever I decide to like someone, I remind myself to give up.
Amy Perry Dec 2016
I imagine myself
A few gentle decades older.
Finally grasping the cusp
Of success.
Living in my own apartment
In New York City, nonetheless.
Wearing an Armani coat
(Whatever those look like.)
Walking idly yet prestigiously
Through winter in the city.
Taking care not to laugh too loud,
Talk to myself, smile too much.
A small, attractive female
Has to be serious to get ahead.
Customers will buy from a happy girl
Only if she is early 20's, at most.
That is Marketing 101.
I am a small fish in a large sea;
The principles of Darwinism
Still apply to me.
I've learned long ago to succeed,
I must stifle the welcoming smile.
So along the familiar concrete
I stride,
Carefully manicured hands
In pockets.
The Filipinos know better
Than to rush on the hands
Of a businesswoman caressing
A successful career.
She tips well and lives well.
I walk along with cool calm
And feminine grace.
I have regained the safety
To be feminine once again.
The criminals know better
Than to infiltrate
The Business district
And cause trouble
To working professionals
In Armani coats.
I imagine myself a few decades older.
Kissing snowflakes unenthusiastically.
Yes, I marvel in poetry, in Nature,
But I have matured
Much like the snowflakes themselves.
At the end of a cycle,
No matter how beautiful.
My actions flow gracefully and delicately.
I melt into New York City
Like a cell in a body.
Pumping fuel into the *****
To sustain the mass.
A tumor.
I smile subtly as I slosh along.
I recall, once upon a time,
On my lower-class youth.
***** jokes, crude dancing,
And cluttered apartments.
I approach the high-rise building
I call home and greet the doorman
With the obligatory disregard
For his innermost being.
Poetry truly is in the strangest of places.
Even in an enigma like me.
I enter the marble floors,
Wiping my feet,
My rent as sky-high as
The building itself.
Elevator. Comforting motion sickness.
This is success.
The pit of my stomach sinks.
I tell myself it's the motion sickness.
I return to my apartment,
With its symmetrical details.
My thoughts return to you.
You've never stepped foot in my home,
But you've always been here with me.
I get dinner started.
I set out the extra glass, like always.
Rituals like these serve
As my Sunday mass.
I drink your glass with my evening medication.
Dare I say like always?
abp
Emily Archer Sep 2014
I sing the song of the sinking ships that drown in the vast, dark ocean of depression I call home. They slosh against my ribcage with such force, I fear I may break entirely.
I'm sorry I write so often about the ocean.
Paul Roberts Apr 2012
Yes Spring has come to the land,
Mother Nature has shed her coat,
time to get off the couch and do what matters most. Live and have fun!
So I am out catching up on the chores and second duty, granddaughter watch,
prune here, rake there, now where has that little tike gone?
Perhapes if I give these little hands something to occupy,
why the best thing is a little water, yes that will bring a smile.
So here is the battle ground as  the scene unfolds.
She has a little pail, I have the garden hose.
Her duty, quite simple,place some water on the plants,
end result however, water on PawPaw's pants!
So only to even the score, mind you no harm intended,
was to give the little tike a squirt and the battle would have ended.
Oh no, not today! This little tink has got some guts!
Why with every squirt I give that girl, I get a pail of slosh!
So of course, being the elder here and quite mature I say,
I give that girl her monies worth and let out a real good spray!
Soon the chores are all forgotten and the plants need water no more,
end of the day I can say she may have even tied the score!
Wow how much water do these pampers hold?!
Runaway Joe Jun 2012
still water is my blood
I slosh the earth and
no one cares for my name

sun never was a friend, he
always looked upon me with distaste
so I wear a scarf in summer
while I slosh the earth

the kind ones try and help me
but sympathy's above me
and it's oh-so night lake clear that
one day I'll die free of
whatever they have that I don't

forward motion like a clockwork
rust won't slow me down
maybe someday I will get there
till then I slosh the earth
The photographic chamber of the eye
records bare painted walls, while an electric light
lays the chromium nerves of plumbing raw;
such poverty assaults the ego; caught
naked in the merely actual room,
the stranger in the lavatory mirror
puts on a public grin, repeats our name
but scrupulously reflects the usual terror.

Just how guilty are we when the ceiling
reveals no cracks that can be decoded? when washbowl
maintains it has no more holy calling
than physical ablution, and the towel
dryly disclaims that fierce troll faces lurk
in its explicit folds? or when the window,
blind with steam, will not admit the dark
which shrouds our prospects in ambiguous shadow?

Twenty years ago, the familiar tub
bred an ample batch of omens; but now
water faucets spawn no danger; each crab
and octopus -- scrabbling just beyond the view,
waiting for some accidental break
in ritual, to strike -- is definitely gone;
the authentic sea denies them and will pluck
fantastic flesh down to the honest bone.

We take the plunge; under water our limbs
waver, faintly green, shuddering away
from the genuine color of skin; can our dreams
ever blur the intransigent lines which draw
the shape that shuts us in? absolute fact
intrudes even when the revolted eye
is closed; the tub exists behind our back;
its glittering surfaces are blank and true.

Yet always the ridiculous **** flanks urge
the fabrication of some cloth to cover
such starkness; accuracy must not stalk at large:
each day demands we create our whole world over,
disguising the constant horror in a coat
of many-colored fictions; we mask our past
in the green of Eden, pretend future's shining fruit
can sprout from the navel of this present waste.
In this particular tub, two knees jut up
like icebergs, while minute brown hairs rise
on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap
navigates the tidal slosh of seas
breaking on legendary beaches; in faith
we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail
among sacred islands of the mad till death
shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.
Tegan Aug 2018
Do you hear water wherever you go?
The hum,
the slosh,
the drum,
the stroke.
Always moving, potentially drowning us slow.
Like how happy people hear music
you hear the tide,
and the moon tugging gently;
you have nowhere to hide.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2016
only a scouse inhabitant could have pointed it out (merseyside english / liverpool) to no better comparison.

i'd love to have the salt & pepper dilemma
between low alcohol sessions and
high ******* session, just did the low
alcohol sessions and laughed, after having
become equipped with marijuana "abuse"
starving / fasting, never gearing for chips
and munchies...
the streets of london look a lot different
walking about high & hungry
rather than jokey and as a jockey of an
imaginary horse...
god made sanity and soberness an ivory tower
that was not worth defending
unless for manual tasks... all other tasks
were never ready for the multipliers of human presence,
not all of us would hammer a nail
for all the scratches of a vinyl disk if all were able.
indeed the scouse lad knew it,
languages that clung to latin were left historically
naked, without diacritical marks,
instead they delved deep as to upkeep the latin
they forced the closure of grammar schools
along with coal mines...
and what they earned was not a sense of categorisation,
english slosh tongue said the 18th century
happened akin to the abhorrence of moral relativism
by socrates to make stab in the eye a ******,
to thus say bronze age was but a hundred years...
keeping latin naked as it was by the abhorred
conquered land of the romans due to its bad weather
may have made a milton or a shakespeare arable...
but because of a certain type of censoring not ever used,
what became beautiful in other european tongues
became the ugly spelling of the english tongue,
what became stress marks of "accent" for the french,
and german, romanian and polish,
there was none of that in english, instead
we became accustomed to aesthetic "marks", that
were "marks" because there were no actual examples
for a clear rubric... instead we received too many examples,
the particulars of why we wrote the and said a sharpened v
in written form v'eh off veer...
there are no unitary aesthetics marks other that words
themselves... rather than what we have in terms
of unitary diacritical marks of akin umlaut...
there's no where else to go... the Minotaur has caught
up with us and our shadow! there's no labyrinth to further
our heaving lung to cheat both silence and breath! there's isn't!
it's the end... not using diacritical marks on units
only creates aesthetics of multiplying units
where they are multiplied: riddle... mirror...
                 keep, kettle, leer, pass, throttle, amiss.

(the syllables are not perfectly connected,
therefore much of "coining the phrase"
with prefixes anti- con- un- sub-
being endeared into your vocabulary,
then again clearly, accenting and aesthetics
compare to reach a parallel,
never leave it naked i say, never leave it naked,
for fear of reprisal of that which ought
be buried still alive, and with clear
acuteness for certain letters appropriating
there is no originality in the british tongue
for origins of the a - z under virgil
who originated the letters to the plagiarism
of grecian theology with the trojans
moving from turkey to italy -
therefore you become akin to other european
nations enacting a parasitic semblance
for the simple reason of ease coupled
with the many "loop holes" of the tongue,
or you reach absolution with the missing diacritic
as reasons for the modern acronyms: l8r, o.m.g.,
b.a.e., i.r.l.... all of this crap is a byproduct.)

but to say latin is dead, you must recreate the latin
alphabet with an ethnic particularity of a modulation
that might be compared to the migration of goths /
huns / vandals... to say 'latin is dead' and keep the
latin a without a modulation to craft an ą,
is a darwinian heresy that demands counter-evolution;
there's hardly one coliseum in london, although
i admit plenty of football stadiums;
still the evolutionary need is still necessary
and consistent, because it's not the case of the three
wise monkeys seeing, hearing saying no evil...
if this phonetic geometric is to survive and the crucifix
not be a vanity shield of artists due to the wrathful lamb,
it will need to specify whether it's gaelic english,
welsh, australian, london based, come home county based,
arizona or texas draw.
Neon Robinson Apr 2017
For my muse, I choose the euphoric source
Of my most transcendent -

   Lovely
- Muddy
Memories.

Perceptual flashes ― slosh slushing
Approaching an untamed blue-green pond
Just your average amphibian gone blonde.
In sunshine or windward shower.

Loitering around the grassy brim,
On that one slick rock, I stood up
Catch a fish ― oooooh you swift ⁓
Let it back in?

Or you could...
Run screaming like the flaming river rumbling down the mountain.
To the lunulate lagoon?? in the front yard

Hop & stand
Fish in hand You. Have. To. Make. It.  

But     the        gargantuan          estate.  .     . it's too late.

That tiny t-rex gait ― might just seal
That golden guppies fait.

Cause you sprung like spring
And set that little sucker free.
Orchard Land Estate in Puna, HI childhood wonderland in the jungle
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2017
i could conceive the western concept of the rehab,
but then for 3 weeks i was in poland
i didn't touch the bottle for that period of time...
i don't see how an addict with a bunch
of addicts can be cured by anything other than
stigma... i'm actually happy addicted to
addiction: i entered my reading-mode...
   that said, most people can't digest a Kraszewski
book... **** me, we read Bradbury in snippets
just to tow in an essay for A-level english...
       philip augustus, or the chess player concerning
the Angevin family... great stuff...
   i didn't choose the book, my grandfather did,
he owned half the Kraszewski collection and read
nothing of it, he had to find a ******* "bored"
enough to read one of the books,
   and as i once said: i've seen the movie adaptations
of the Sienkiewicz trilogy...
         the cossack uprising, the swedish deluge...
and i said to myself: i can't and i won't...
thanks you jerzy hoffman, and yes: thank you
peter jackson...
              the infinite supply of elven arrows
and Legolas shooting orcs at point-blank range did
it for me...
                thankfully i can write something
as obscure as this, and know, for certain, that
there's a back-alley of the human populace out there
that might be searching for something like this...
   but that's what i found entertaining,
i actually had the opposite of wanting to compliment
the film adaptation of sienkiewicz, with an actual
sienkiewicz book... mind you: Kraszewski covers
the same period... and it's all the same time frame...
   should i write a proof that i read the **** thing?
maybe... but the main idea is that:
a metropolis cannot provide the right environment
for a book... or completing a book...
books are read in the countryside, in small towns,
in palaces... in hunting lodges...
          and i dare say: reading a book, getting into
full swing of the narrative is best done in daylight hours...
and i'll come back to the daylight hours,
  as a drinker and writer i chose the night...
  you know how long it took me to restore my
biological clock, and regain the nocturnal realm after
spending 3 weeks with a clear schizophrenia
of sleeping in the night and wriggling about during
the day? 2 weeks! i restored the biological pendulum,
but i have to admit: i feel ****...
    but i guess it's a worthy sacrifice...
i'm planning to go back to my country of origin
during late spring to read some more books...
i couldn't have read don quixote, the brothers karamazov,
bertrand russell's history of western philosophy
    yada yada yada... or kierkegaard's either / or,
or finished off kant's critique without my place of birth...
  and isn't it like a badge of honour?
                some will tell you to speak out an eastern
mantra... om... and the shattering of chandelier...
the western mantra is also a type of hypnosis,
you have to find a rhythm with a book...
  the mantra is the narrative of a book, and the silence
that incubates you has shark-teeth should anyone approach...
   but urban living makes this spot harder to find
than a begger or the ******... you can read books
in large cities... before you head home you're
bombarded with the psychology of exploiting your
literacy, in adverts, in orientating signs...
        with them being so authoritarian, it's hard
to find time for a liberal attitude to books...
            esp. what books are, best described by people
who'd probably like to throw them like molotov
cocktails in protest marches: thick as bricks those
gargantuan apostles of the void are...
       and so we are: sitting in times of hyperinflation
of literature... if that isn't the case, let me know by
Tuesday next week, i'll brood the assumption myself
until then...
      that's 2 weeks it took me to return to my writing mode...
to get back to the nocturnal realm
where everything is doubly black & white...
                 the point is: i want to write at a time when
the surrounding world sleeps...
     last time i remember, i didn't get a message in my dreams,
i'd love to see letters in my dreams, fortunately
i can't... i haven't seen these artefacts in dreams,
      but it's hard to blame memory as not strained enough
to do so... the unconscious and memory don't really
interact that well... it's a paradox that they even do
and that dreams have some sort of existence involved in
the architecture of our psyche...
                        last night i dreamt of lego batman because:
d'uh his endearing sarcasm... and godzilla!
   boo ya!         and this large city being eaten up
by a tornado, and other things phantasmogorical....
well pandemonium here, pandemonium there...
    don't get any ideas about the nature of dreams and
oedial repression... please! unaffordable housing prices
these days can only mean i'd really earn a mortgage
if my ***-drive went to the dogs, of the profession.
    so 3 weeks of a sober life and enough time to read
books... and my return into a writing life, a nocturnal
life, and drinking...
   mind you, in between there was that masters final
with ronnie o'sullivan (at least romford is famous for
something) vs. joe perry... in the last frame, when they
had 30 odd points each, and they were plucking at the
last remaining red ball for the snooker?
       snooker is a metaphor for the savannah...
you either watch snooker, or a david attenborough naturalist
show... there's the herd of buffalo (the red *****)...
           and the cue ball the hunting predator...
well... it's all a bit abstract, there are just ***** on a green
table... but still... at least in snooker you can bug
the "pawn" (red) ***** without having to *** them,
in chess you destroy completely... the pawns go...
there's no time to keep them for a no-man's land pause...
and i just turned 30... which goes to show:
                  if the game of football was perfect,
i mean perfect like tennis is with hawk-eye and
    6 judges vertical, 4 judges horizontal...
                  then football wouldn't be so passionate,
so religious... the reason it is so religious is because
judging it is so ****** imperfect...
     there's a reason why football can't be perfected in a way
as rugby can, where the referee can pause the game
and ask for a replay... the unfairness principle!
it has to be unfair in order for people to feel even more
impassioned by it! that's why in that film
when Alec Baldwin says something along the lines:
god comes first (while his hand holds out
the index and *******), and football comes second
(the index finger disappears)...
      football can never be a sport that has perfect
refereering... which makes me surprised as to why
it can grace the Olympic games...
                   football (in english, not that theme park
of jumping torpedoes) - yes the football known as:
ballet with hairy legs...
                   it has to remain unfair and subsequently
quasi-religious because it generates the most money,
but apart from that, it has gained a quasi-religious
status because it reflects a sort of life we acknowledge:
the referee made a bad decision, god did this... blah blah...
  and we get passion, religious passion that's
best represented by football hooligans...
                        but whereas other sports perfect their
techniques of refereeing a game, football hasn't done
the least possible, because it requires the whole debate
of: life's unfair!
    if it wasn't for unfair refeering, the game would not
be alive, as it is alive, to stage a confrontation
with: apache west ham, and sioux millwall...
       it's the best way to ensure tribalism...
         make the refereeing unfair, don't improve it...
blame it on the man in the sky, or the ponce in new zealander...  
mind you....
   the last football match i went to was at Stamford Bridge,
Chelsea lost to Newcastle United...
             i just just there like a stoic twant...
           i couldn't imitate the screams and the chants...
   i was just mesmerised at how it's so different from
watching a football match without the television acting
like a microscope... i am sure i was looking elsewhere
when someone scored a goal...
                 i probably went to the toilet when i
missed another goal...
                        and i'll reiterate...
   it can't be a gentlemanly sport, the rules can't be fair,
that's why they call it the sport of the rabble,
they have to contain the illusion of being unfair...
       because it's a "rabble" sport...
the referee has to make bad decisions,
otherwise there would be a "what if" dimension...
ask any Pole about the 1974 semi-finals with Germany
and ask them about the weather that day...
  then ask about the Polish wingers... and how fast they
were... and how the pitch was so slosh, and ice-puppy
fudge that the slow germans won it...
                     because the Poles always say:
we could have beaten the Nedetherlands in the final...
        again: football, if it is to be stated as the secular
alternative to religion, has to have an inherent unfairness in it...
all the other sports will perfect their judgement,
football will not move an inch... just like a religion -
perhaps that's also because we live in times of
cold-consumerism,
       a quick comparison is:
   the reactions of antonio conte vs.
                       ivan lendl -
   the former looks like a raving lunatic when something
good, or bad happens...
   the second? is he watching tennis, or playing poker?
Abraham Oct 2017
Sleep is overrated
    I think
        As a BRILLIANT BURNING FIREBALL LIGHTS UP THIS HOLY GROUND.

5
4
3
2
1

Small fish risk work.
Repeat five times a day for maximum benefit
When the moon retires running her length
the river lies a fishbone on the white plate
feebly breathing like the slosh from oars,
the shadow digs a hole in the bush.

The faintest chill rattles don't escape
and the chatters dull as broken notes,
the shadow picks up from the mist
with the intent of an absorbed dreamer.

The gold diggers in that forbidden land
filter their preys keen to fill some more
from the mines lining the grey riverbank
with each reap a little closer to attainment.

The precise compass weighs the measure
tightening the muscles into a symphony
for that climb onto the ****** in one spring
before stealing the stilled, deep into silence.
Valsa George Oct 2016
When sleep eludes me at night
And my mind floats aimless
Like a sail boat idle on the sea
When on my bed I lie staring vacant
At the pale moon that gleams,
A medley of sounds falls in my ears

I hear the chirp of cicadas, the screech of bats
The hooting of owls, the flutter of moths
The staccato notes of the crickets
And the shrill sonorous music of grass hoppers

Among these and the silent music of the stars
The one sound that delights me most
Is the sound of the whistling Thrush
Her loud song cuts through the air
And mingles with the soft hush of leaves

Hidden in the blanket of darkness
I am not privileged to see this beryl bird
To me, a Goddess of enchantment n’ magic
Sometimes like a sweet secret
She emerges from the depth of a ravine
Sometimes she hides in the leafy coverage
Of a nearby poplar tree
Always she starts with a hesitant whistle
As though rehearsing her own art
However gaining confidence
And happy over her trial attempt
She soon bursts forth into 'full throated' song
Creating such sweet vibes of warm feeling
And producing in me an instant healing

Nay, she sets my soul on fire
And swallows me whole
Creating in me an eternal longing
To hear her pour out that celestial melody
Sitting in some far fringe of Heaven
To make me lose myself within myself
And slosh my soul in mad ecstasy!
I love birds and their songs always set my heart on fire and leave it pumping with glee !
Dada Olowo Eyo Nov 2013
Mushy, mush! Mush!!
Emotions twirl and slosh,
Pack it in for the day,
And go frolic in hay.
Daniel James Feb 2011
Barry’s dead.

I saw you dying weeks ago;
An oyster shell turned empty can,
Scrumpled up and finished
By the past’s magnet attraction
In your shakey hands.
It’s just a habit now and you can hardly kick yourself.

Buckets of Grolsch:
My swash-buckling hero
Turned slosh-slurping zero once again
And shiny surfaces
Never suited you.

Scrub away at that black demon matter
With the sole white spirit
Your genius affords. A shattered socialist
Posy primrose ******;
That’s the story of your life –
All
      most
               man.

Now beneath the cowslips
And the heifer’s hooves,
Your saintly-thorny words without a roof:
But who will speak for you?
And trawl the depths
As you once did in youth?
Prizing open oysters…

I hope that where you are
Your silence brings relief.
I hope that where you are
You smell the borage breeze.
I hope that where you are
There’s ox-cheek for tea
And your carbonated past
Is carbonating in mute peace.

Tonight the argent stars
Are dulled in disbelief
Tonight the slate that you’ve carved
Is the hardest you will teach.
Tonight the tumblestones
Are falling down in grief:

For Barry’s gone to rediscover Pearl
And the beauty of her peace.
- written on the death of Barry MacSweeney who visited my school in May 2000, shortly before he died.
Coop Lee Jun 2014
drunk woodland children, we
ask so many questions, we
firefly skin. the picnic table beneath
our lamps, our ouija board, our girlfriends
next to us warm and laughing.
stories:
we tell stories to scare eachother
before descending into our tents
on the outer darks.
sweet night nothings.
& everythings.

i’m consumed by dreams of you;
somehow running;
somehow ******* my way out of my own inevitable
death.

a lady bug wing half-yanked and humming.
wind scorpion.
mosquito
in the early morning buzz, and i roll over
to see your puffy little sleeping face ::: sunlight there.
limp beyond the tent and zipper.

we eat mayo sharp cheddar salami wheat sammies
& take acid.
everyone one else goes on a group nature-hike,
but i stay behind
hallucinating of my dead mother in those sequined clothes she used to wear.
::: we play scrabble and talk,
until she leaves.
like love.
like guitar strummed chords and many hydrations later –
my tribe returns,
with fish.

the girl i love.
you/she roll joints in your lap,
in my lap,
in a chair and i mirage
the faces of everyone through glass &
slosh; through campfire
& lemonade.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2016
they say that 2000 years without Israel
will necessarily bleach your skin,
that ancient fable of the Mediterranean
olives, turning into haram pigmentation
that god forbade to eat:
     ask them: why so pale, so like us?
why are you so pale, brother?
                  too few of us have seen ghosts,
unless they be ghosts of our former selves.
everyday, people disappear with their
selfless acts - everyday: puff! gone.
i never write to entertain or distract,
i'm a non-oratory sort of guy,
i imagine myself like a larynx punching
bag that people speak into -
a persona non grata, but otherwise a
persona esse: that necessarily is.
grata... grata... grata... gratis means
free - i really don't have that vindictive
american woman, stay away from me
sort of attitude: one peg, two peg, three;
but i do like that ancient seemingly
under-used word - frajer -
whereas said in anglo: frayer -
or *******.       the whole bejesus
and           yacht debate asking for saintly
interludes in the general grime of ****
said, **** done - and of that inherent vice
in us? the part where the ants took to
the tarantula and impregnated themselves
with the venom: and turned on each other -
as any civilised thing ever could be.
          what's the difference between
blues and punk?
     an extra chord?      see me blink?
           white boy blues: punk -
three chords -            and so the Mongolian
horde hoarding skulls in Baghdad -
and that's me, sitting ever so lightly,
pretty orange like a peach: apathetic tongue
in the ivory bull terrier grip of a handshake -
a girl might have once said: with
the pulverising stare, he could sit on the pavement
and across the street a fox took to
goosebump nibbles, while a girl walked
past the fox and the fox didn't stir from the spot.
wet snare *****: that's what they called him -
but on top of all that: everyday, the world
crashes in: newspapers? i call them avalanches.
they have non-filter: condoms with a slit in
them - and every time she's gagging
for legislation into birth control,
the Chinese dicta has been revised,
     and she's thinking of honey honey feed
me homely snug and cuddle: scented lavender
candles on your way out, including
the autographs.
   i once claimed that the television is akin
to the Platonian anecdote of the cave -
       now i'm starting to realise it's the outdated
variation of a campfire:
               vatra: and soon our hushed
capacity to tell familiar stories -
once it was talk of whole bodies: now
dismemberment and disembodiment -
                         soon enough a *** or a Juan
in Spanish - soon too łen or when -
łej           or way - those are not: chiral twins.
from what i can remember i found it hard
forgetting my northern Swahili -
         ****** hard, i couldn't have that post-colonial
tattoo done on me -
            but it still haunts me,
how one man took apart the Pharisee Israel apart
and where people had coppery visage: dimmed
gold of the skin, and one has to compensate that
taking apart with his own ethnicity in a biographic
similitude - been there, done that,
off the Unesco map for a century or two,
a Napoleonic haven sort of bollocking,
       **** 'ed over 'ere: old MacDoogle e ah e ah oh,
ha ha. Catholic shortening Mc
         Protestant on a wild surf of St. Thomas' Gospel
and all things trans...
as it should be known: transphysics -
god is dead, poetry is dead, metaphysics, is dead:
nou vogue: TRANS! ***** slap that ****
across the knees: say gnostic (surd g), then say
diagnostic... seem: or properly understood.
******* wankers and cowboys and other
ulterior gunslingers; but the prima ballerina aesthetic
found when excavating the ęglish?
                never talk ***** in public:
really, really vocalise that Cockney bulldozer
vs. culture when vocalising more tongue and less
**** when ******* - appearances are everything
after all - talk pretty, talk lily -
talk rose: and when it comes to the knitty gritty:
slosh!        i mean diarrhoea slosh -
            i mean: not unbuttoning a shirt but
ripping it open: fanciful that: equating courtesy
and otherwise doing the Frankenstein to a limp
**** with words of encouragement...
        (oh the sarcasm i enjoy hiding in symbols)
but i never understand why we talk pretty
and play ***** - why not talk ***** and play pretty?
       this revised "aversion" / ~aversion toward
fascism is really taking hold of people:
        the only difference is that there are so many
charismatic sprechen pseudo Deutsche -
                   i'm starting to feel left out;
still though, concerning the first point:
they really are pale -
                 2000 years without Israel:
it will definitely take them 500 years to get that
Mediterranean hue back of palms olives and dates -
        understandably the siding with
balaclava Palestine:        'cos you're white and
you said ku klux sneezing - or from what i heard
of recent history, my fellow colonial thingy-ma-jigs
     are internalising inherent violence of
the past and shoveling it all at the young -
   many o' man's woes as nothing more than
an evasive self: kindred of the lunatic.
me too: i too wish to have been able to stage
a confrontational and subsequently condescending
conversation with my great-great-great-grandfather,
       but i ain't got the **** or the V, and
                                  not much about the Welsh-middle
of the longbowmen and Churchill's cigars;
funny thing... smoking cigarettes, you get this
taste flashbacks... just now i recounted the taste
of my first love's ****** juices mixing in with my
phlegm cough-up... surely memory is not cognitively
abstract, like tattoos aren't really abstract:
to prove a point i coughed up a memory
of wild strawberries yesterday: well... fair enough:
today it's a memory of eating out (as they crudely say):
Poseidon's pearl.
does **** have to be constantly floral or aquatic?
    oh the cascade into faux pas and cliche: endless!
st64 Feb 2014
Whatever the cost I pay up at the minnow pools.
I don't know anything of the misery of these trapped fish,
or the failure of the marsh I'm so hidden.

Up above is the island with its few houses facing
the ocean God walks with anyone there. I often
slosh through the low tide to a sister
unattached to causeways.

It's where deer mate then lead their young
by my house to fields, again up above me.

Pray for me. Like myself be lost.
An amulet under your chest, a green sign of the first
rose you ever saw, the first shore.

Then I wash my horse, dogs, me behind the barn.
Only the narrow way leads home.
Ray Amorosi is the author of three books of poems, including In Praise (Lost Horse Press, 2009).




sub-entry: Wizard (Ray Amorosi)

All this havoc
just means I’m a poor wizard.

Once, I lit three twigs and fanned the smoke,
from miles away,
into the girl who jumbled scales through my spine.

As she vanished I clapped a delighted tune.
But not without aches of my own.

Did the sack of no echoes fail me?

Now, on such a mild curse—
boils, sewn eyes, a shrew
in the **** my ankle reddens up and eyes me
with disdain. Toenails fall off.

How far will this go?

Poor wizard. Poorly done in.
These pangs are power are power as both
knees lock up
ashamed to move under me.
Alyssa Starnes Oct 2011
i think about the distance.
how many miles my tires would tread,
turning and turning like the thoughts in my head.
how many drops of gas it'd take to make the journey
how they'd slosh around in my tank just like the
butterflies in my stomach.
due to the prospect of meeting someone i'd never met
but loved wider than the wingspan of an ancient creature
almost as unfathomable as the relationship we've conjured.
maybe it's the celestial coincidence of being born on the same day
of dreary november, almost december.
or the closeness of our relatives who it seems sometimes
wonder why they even planted the seeds of this flourishing friendship in the first place.
mostly i think it is the fact that we are the same
in so many more ways than we are different.
your fingers conduct an orchestra of sound, while mine scrawl out epiphanies on paper
but we're both making miracles, aren't we?
we're both falling in love with the world at the same time, under the same moon, under the same strain of heart
longing to be together
but mostly to be away
from the places we are at right now.
you want my sunshine, and i want your rain.
but i think we secretly just want to be in the same room as each other,
even if it was only regurgitated air conditioning filling our lungs.
because our eyes, for once in our ******* lives would be witnessing visualized faith.
i'm speaking for myself,
but i think we both have found the truth in one another.
and when everyone else leaves you don't arrive,
you stay.
and when i am in pieces,
you remind me you are too,
instead of forcing mine together in a pattern
neither of us would ever be able to decipher anyways.
you make me laugh.
i mean, really laugh.
the kind where i can barely inhale oxygen, enjoying the momentary euphoric absence of necessity, and simply relishing in the smile stretching through my soul.
you tell me i am beautiful in one of the first ways i've ever believed it
and remind me everyday that shouldn't be the case.
we have strange ways of speaking, and sometimes things don't come out quite right,
but it is a different thing to be understood by you.
i know more strength in our separation than in the proximity of some blood
and i swear i can almost hear your heartbeat if i'm quiet enough.
sometimes at night when neither of us can sleep,
much to our chagrin, i read your words on the neon screen
within my palms, in the tone of your voice
and i could swear you were there,
with me,
reminding me we are vastly unaware of what we are to become,
but helping me celebrate what we already know of the labyrinth we inhabit.
when i have to validate the present conditions we are in,
i choose to validate the other conditions i know to be true as well.
we have walked the ravaged earth together in ways, each day growing older in synchronicity.
we spend them in the same zone of time,
the sun setting on each of our days at the same hour.
each of our mornings it greets us with beauty and a knowing
that one day it can glow on our toes, then up our legs,  our stomachs, and finally up to our hearts,
warming us at the same time, from the same place, in the same room,
and all of the sameness may be overwhelming,
even to the glowing radiant life from which this has all had the chance to bloom, but maybe it will be alright
to not be prepared for something wonderful
for once.
i promise to listen to you play, and sing along horribly.
i promise to come to all of your shows, even the ones on the couch.
and i promise that every day i will see your dreams
with the same vivid clarity you do, because you are something i know how to believe in.
and so when you remember to believe,
i hope it is the closeness,
that you see.
Barton D Smock Jul 2012
a man has eaten a nail.  he must bed before it’s too late a woman with a breadboard back.  the man’s brother is married to such a woman, but does not know it.  the brother’s tongue is raw and wouldn’t know good eating were it a thumbtack in a lover’s heel.  the man decides to lounge hungrily in the slim wardrobe of his brother’s shadow.  the man will drink it like milk and let it slosh in his gut for three weekends.  the wife will shine more and more light on her husband; she will bend reading lamps around corners and forget she has things to do.  she will have well lit dreams of a man she can sense is behind her.  her husband will run from the light and she will jump on his back.  the man will come to this empty house and he will be angry and because of his stomach he will need to call someone.  until then, imagine we are in a box held by a thief.
slosh of oars
ripples the night
of tremulous moons

the nightjar soars
on silver light
a sad tune croons!

tides up swell
lap the wood
in ceaseless kiss

moon grows pale
in deep brood
of broken wish

the misty haze
spells the core
spins a dream

mind in daze
forgets shore
drifts upstream!
mEb Jun 2011
A mother whose mothers' been denounced
blacklist foreseen upon kismet and luck
how the nag strikes bards' such as self

Slosh, quaff, toss off this elapsed bête noire
Repair, reconstruct it wanes with healing
No more sip from the ***

Resort to daft calls toward the sky
Resort to daft kneeling
I am this staunch daughter, a passerby
Kerri Nov 2015
You win.
You draw me in.
I'm trapped again
inside this Heavenly Hell.
A lovely, torturous place
where visions of what was
and what might be
dangle like hooks
that pierce my heart,
A solitary utopia,
where stained glass dreams
slosh throughout
my whimsical mind.
I enjoy
the ******* burning
of the sensual fire
that destroys me
in the most magical way
until I
once again
fall from your grace.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
the man drops the package off at 6 a.m.,
he is a man, in that Harold Norse sense
of the word - he's a grafter -
he's been riding from Poland for god knows
how many hours, he was supposed to
be here for 3 a.m., but i'm not complaining,
i pay him £20 for delivering the package,
ask him whether he had a good journey,
then i wish him a good day, no reply -
i put the package in a room, unzip it and
take one of the copies out... strange...
just like Augustus commenting on the death
of Marcus Aurelius: the soup is hot, the soup
is cold... a piece of writing is printed, published,
a piece of writing isn't printed, nor published...
it's in my hand now, slim, literature's anorexia:
poetry... i can stash it in the library and
think about it for a while: no goosebumps,
no thrill... just this strange: apathy -
the sinking feeling of being at the bottom of a dung-heap
of civilisation - i'm sure it was different before
the internet: writers huddling in tiny rooms,
writing with a big dream to escape -
rejection after rejection, until the magpie was spotted
to actually be a peacock - the 21st century is
a lot different, it would appear,
after 9 years at it, there's no sense of relief -
it's all about the pixel glitz, the pixel paparazzi,
the pixel red carpet - the Beelzebub looking back
at you - an abhorring feeling in all honesty,
the quick-fix medical procedure - all done in an
instant: and the snobs out there who still
preserve the insistence: paper is authority -
paper is respect... on paper means authenticity -
paper solves everything... sure, most assuredly
a trip to the toilet.
i just don't recognise the person on these pages,
so many things have changed since then,
so much was given to the dwarfs to mine that
any man or elf in me, is... well... not even there
on the pages, or here, ploughing along.
back in the 20th century, someone must have thought:
books, a great commodity, keep them secret,
keep them safe... let's wait for the next buds of
capitalism's May - how the dynamic has changed,
and this is even with a critical introduction
by someone who obtained a PhD in literature -
a picture of me on the back cover:
yeah, because that will really sifter through the
demographic with more observable definitions
of who's to read what -
but it's just odd... i think of all that effort
put into printing a piece of work...
and i think of Salman Rushdie and the satanic
verses being burned...
                   i think of the wartburg säuberung:
and i find myself sitting alone like king
solomon - none the wiser,
                             all is vanity - and i know nothing -
because i was never taught to experience
something like this the second time:
                    the only thing to understand
   is the self that cannot comprehend experiences
given unto it... all that jack-in-the-noumenon stuff;
but i look at this little thing, these 115 pages
and wonder: so much? for so little?
   how fortunate, or unfortunate to be given this
spider-web... it always feels so glitzy,
   so: at the right place at the right time...
then the physical artefact appears...
                    and you go back to the syringe of
open access, and say: pressurised by the ever
changing circumstances...
                back in the 20th century a writer
was told to shut herself away in a tiny rented room
and become a clarice lispector: become
a hurricane simply by writing about good
first lines: the writer's aesthetic, typewriter or
ink blotches - or the blank page... and later
become sensational, hurricane-like -
i feel no nostalgia toward the 20th century in this
regard... i'm immersed in what has only
begun in 2006 - circa or no circa, whatever -
we can't rent rooms like that - or do things like
that, given the 24/7 society structure -
and i mean that in the least ****** sense
when i say, as Harold Norse did, without
a backdrop of homosexuality (even though
he was working out with arnold "the governor"
schwarzenegger at some point in his
autobiography: memoirs of a ******* angel) -
a cartoon fix: the book of life -
                        the man, and the man -
ah what fanciful trivialities that bind one man
to goofy ideals, and another to duties -
and only when an artist becomes successful does
he really become a *****... cocktail and *******
parties and Sid Vicious cameos -
all the Renaissance artists had it easy,
with the Pope their patron, they could be as
****** with their contempt for earthly privileges
and could get away with it -
              the days of a homosexual saying:
i am not a man...
                               the 20th century liberation
paved a way for the obsolete purpose of
the heterosexual man... apparently we have
grown a potential to grow ***** in
the laboratory - we are, quiet literally disposable
in that epitome of the Wrath of Eden:
just repeat after me: deluded by the mere
notion of reincarnation, deluded by the mere
notion of reincarnation - as constantly striving
to be the unique peacock among a *****-count
of peacocks without distinction on the
plateau of the living self-bound: you uniqueness
expired with the process of insemination:
you were once the one and only wriggly
                world record holder at the 100 metre sprint...
a natural dictator it would seem,
but apparently, the ones that didn't make it
now respond: me too! me too! me too!
or something like that.
                                           either through the eye
of the microscope or the telescope - cul de sacs either
end... because of the glue...
                       call it god, call it love, call it nothing...
it's still some sort of glue... sniff it, play with it,
             avoid it... it's still glue...
gravity is a glue, but it's not the glue that keeps
muscles bound to bone - yes, tendons are
the happy ******* children of that ******* union
of all things apparent...
   but in the sense that i keep repeating:
it's easily done - falling for the fake pixel glitz -
however official or unofficial it all is -
with or without advertisement on the pages -
it's the only junk that's out there these days...
if i were more of a man, i'd be chasing
the dream of a steady income, family and obligations...
can we call being a man a fool's errand?
i like to think of it as that... being man is synonymous
with a fool's errand -
                             no love transcend the grave,
no love can be engraved into epitaphs -
                  epitaphs and their respective soloists -
     it's not even out of bitterness -
not in this pixel desert where 10 years later
those of us who used this medium will become
exponentially out-dated: archaeological -
                              and it will be thus -
              Ouroboros Capitalism -
or back when communism and capitalism were
in competition, and somehow healed the 1st
half of the 20th century, and were indeed
the Caduceus - like the story of the cannibalistic
rats... what did the last rat eat in the pit-hole?
       back when capitalism had to compete,
and competed it did, and healed by competing,
after it supposedly overpowered its opponent...
it started to eat itself... as i see it:
   the transformation of the caduceus into
    ouroboros has taken shape... and we're still
only 16 years into the 21st: oh my god! it's the 21st
century! this is preposterous! not really... no...
                   the same was said in the 20th century...
and the 19th century...
                         the steady improvement in living standards
always fed these gimps to say the exact same words
while being gagged by being paid to say those words
    and doing the slosh-wash part of a *** ****:
Apache Vinnetou hail satan blah blah, V shaped ave,
   skull-and-bones secret handshake etc.
K Balachandran Mar 2017
He dreamt he was Sappho's trusted companion,
To whom she shared her love's poetic lessons.
And then came this moment of revelation;
He longed to be a woman and make love to her.
Things are not as they seem  at the outset,
That part of him madly in love with Sappho"s secrets
Didn't really know is it her body, soul or poetry
That made him go mad with an intoxicating pleasure.

The other part of him in love with himself  more,
Protested"I desire her like a man does a woman"
Love is insane often, it is hidden within the masks worn.
In every passionate love affair, is a river of fire to cross.
Love puts him in a dilemma,without any resolve at sight.
In a life ensconced in fantasy, he is steeped in a  love stupor
If ever he again wakes up, he'll try to make lasting peace,
Slosh in the poetic wine of Sappho and desire her all the more.
water's gravity
moors me to this dome's prison.

washing me to plush blue
is the dream of hands
that puts me out of my sleep's premises.

the bane of existence tingles
the flesh and the suds rise
altogether with the squalor
of its own meaning.
my old hue languishes into
a burgeon of slosh and no friction
nor word could rupture me anymore.

and the scent dangles
mid-air, where all perfumes are born, with sorry fountainheads
peaking through the ordeal
of this sonata.
water makes music with skin
as froth takes to sea, the exhaustion of brine -
all disquiet in foreword
and finality

hung clean, in the backyard
of ordinariness, of consummate asepsis and its breakable concepts,
  ready to be worn out
by a day's grime and back to
its fate once more, all of us.
Written while I listen to my mother doing the laundry.

Title in English: Thoughts Emerging From The Toil Of Laundry

— The End —