"slovenly" poems
Serendipity.
You ******* what!
What you saying, pal?
Serendipity, oh aye, all right,
Aye, seren-fuckin-dipity; whatever!
Tell it to the raggedy soaked-wino,
Look into his rheumy eyes, really look,
Want to kiss his toothless grin, eh? Do you?
Feel his sore-ridden tongue searching you out,
Nay, I thought not, anyway, he hears nothing,
Nothing except the rattle of change.
Tell it to the punctured ****** go on,
Cold body on a cold linoleum floor,
He can’t hear you either, maybe though,
Maybe, slipping away on the last tide of life,
Do-gooder, maybe he will hear you call,
‘Serendipity’ and wonder: what the ****
Until blackness closes in, blanking the stars.
Tell it to the Fourth Bridge jumpers, go on,
Always falling; to them, falling forever,
In hearts and minds, the event horizon of death,
Trapped in limbo, leaving unbearable hurt behind,
Along with serendipity and bad choices.
And the young, oh they need serendipity,
Cruelty of life glittering in furtive wary eyes,
Old already, far beyond halcyon blue-skies,
Used and abused by those closest, the shame,
Erosion of trust and sincerity completed over night,
Christmas ghosts: slovenly laggards by comparison.
Resilient youth! Yep, they ******* need to be,
Grinding machine of town-life hunting them,
Scouring dark corners, gnashing jaws growling,
Crunching down darkened alleys, feeding,
Lapping up the young blood of runaways,
Slavering maw eating them alive; laughing.
With serendipity, they can lie low, maybe hide,
Dream of escape, for they all want out,
Putting misery behind them, quelling cruelty,
After all, they live in a lucky ******* town,
So escape is not impossible, no,
Unlikely, yes, poor wee ********
Serendipity should shout a loud warning,
Run, scrawny urchins, run if you can,
Run for your lives, the rest of your lives,
Town-life’s grinding machine awaits,
Watches for you, so keep running,
Never stop, never look back,
Not ever, not ever,
Serendipity.
©Paul Chafer 2014
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 7:32 PM UTC
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around; no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing. else in Tennessee.
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The stars hung low that night
To hail the girl who sat on the rooftop
Of a filthy run down cottage
At the end of the 'Homeless Women' lane
Her knees were scraped with callused fingernails
That bled against the chips on the wall she had climbed
To watch those pretty little things shine
And sigh with wonder against the solitary night
The emptiness in her stomach growled
But her wild eyes devoured the moon
Maybe the night resembled her tattered black dress
And stars were just despicable holes in the fabric of sky
Greasy auburn hair hung limp against her skimpy frame
Not many would find beauty on that haunted face
But there was a prepossessing in her pain
The way she never truly had things to lose
So she loved everything we seldom bother to.
It was a cold night on a full moon
The homeless girl breathed her last atop a red roof
No one remembers a slovenly girl with wild eyes
A homeless girl who died in her true home,
Her personal paradise.
Maybe she was only fifteen
But not many can claim
They've worn constellations on their body
Maybe she found her peace
And landed the stars while we were asleep
Maybe the way she died
Is the way most of us fail to live
Maybe we should love the way
A homeless girl once did.
May 3, 2018
May 3, 2018 at 10:30 AM UTC
solitary soul in the sea
slovenly storks slide
(against a grey sky)
seeking satisfactory sensations
solidifying
soul searching solutions
Nov 28, 2010
Nov 28, 2010 at 9:52 PM UTC
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
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Behold a glance at mother earth, you’re a witness to her fall.
A tortuous act of uncertainty a rage against all those who step
Upon her slovenly ground. A lash of ardent air that’s tears
Her golden limbs down.
As soda pop bottles reel through her grass
As a fawn come to inspect its newest injury
The top do the bottle rolls onto the damp ground
For she has been crying, a blustery song.
Her waterfall carries a small tangled duckling
Wrapped in an armor of fisherman’s wire.
She weeps some more wishing to stop the river.
As children stamp on the pedals of her waters reeds.
A cloud of beastly darkness overlooks a city
And her children cough to keep safe
From this monstrous beast.
She tries to cover their ears with a howl cry
To tell them to stop, or else she will die.
One petal stands on a daisy’s bud,
Her last child picks it away…let it float
Through the air to mothers hand…a reminder of home
When sons and daughters cared.
Dec 5, 2011
Dec 5, 2011 at 1:05 PM UTC
You will never admit if you are proud of me.
That word will never be heard
Uttered from behind your blistered lips
Between your cracked teeth
Locked into your chiseled and hardened jaw line.
If one is to make it out
It will never be directed at me.
Recently, the closest I've gotten to such vernacular is
Words that insinuate this meaning.
You tell me how much I do
And how you were wrong in calling me
Lazy, slovenly, and unmotivated.
You then however
Say a few more things that I could be doing.
You are never content with me as I am
Then you wonder why I feel the same way.
Your trenchant criticism ignites a spark
Inspires me to work harder
But sometimes that is until I just can't take it anymore
Until I fall apart.
Never do you notice
Before it is too late to reel me in.
It is never before you get a call from the guidance department
An email from a friend
A report from my therapist
That you begin to put on a show
Act like you care.
Maybe you do,
But it also seems to annoy the hell out of you
Every time I dig myself into a hole.
Maybe I want you to listen without speaking.
Maybe I want you to notice without confrontation.
Maybe I want you to help me without accusations.
Maybe I just want you to be proud of me always
Including when I **** up.
Feb 10, 2014
Feb 10, 2014 at 8:03 PM UTC
If I listened to every advertisement
hollering through the static
of my cable-hooked television,
I'd have a mammoth bottle
of Hidden Valley Ranch
sitting with the ego-quenching sheen
of recommendation in my fridge,
a Weight Watchers membership
(it told me to join as soon as possible
with the speed of a steroid-devouring treadmill),
Children's Tylenol
(despite being situationally barren),
and a Bowflex-shaped elephant,
ivory tusks slumping uselessly in the corner.
My living room would be the fraternal twin
of the American Smithsonian,
a faux-genuine quilt
of our Founding Fathers'
present day descendants
draping over my popcorn ceiling.
I return to the latest
sacred cow in the flea store
cartel of Lifetime Movie heroines;
it's "Vengeful Vixens Sunday"
and Elizabeth Berkley shooting men
and stabbing women in the back
all while eating buckets of Ben and Jerry
and getting addicted to crystal ****
The dialogue is as freshly
packaged and slovenly edible
as the Minute Ready Late Night Dinner
with a cartoon grandma plastered on the logo,
all to remind you of down home,
or in the case of this Lifetime screenplay,
a time when the brain wasn't fully developed.
Same difference.
We all hide our guilty pleasures
as if our tolerance for the
secondhand existence of these favorites
were deemed malignant
by a cardboard kingdom
of young adult sophistication,
but I ask you:
who hasn't slipped into the comfort
of a mind turned to mush?
Apr 29, 2010
Apr 29, 2010 at 10:55 AM UTC
i used to think -
how disloyal,
and slovenly,
and unjust of you.
the great king loved you!
but i understand, now, what it's like,
to belong so totally with someone -
your arthur and
my sweetheart -
and to want someone so much that it makes your whole body hurt -
your lancelot and
my agony.
nine tenths of my heart is yours,
but the other part
is his through and through,
and it's going to be this way, always.
i may love you all i like but
i cannot escape him.
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 7:19 PM UTC
Conduct Unbecoming,
False Poet
Traveling thru the Heart of Love,
like a Worm.
Bring in the Court Martial
Commuter Judge has an Appointing
Stance for Freedom
Held By One
Promised to Protect
Slovenly Surveillance
Given without Permission
An Election Year BONUS
made for Royalty..
Get ready for Deportation
1) 1 Soldier
2) 3 Minister
3) 4 banker
4) 2 doctor wannabes
and a Part Dove in a Pear Tree...
Who wants "Orange and Black" ?
After all
Even Mind Deserve Freedom of Choice
Soldier
Dec 25, 2015
Dec 25, 2015 at 7:56 PM UTC
*the sky on my back
is heavy now, and the thin light
a shadow.
i am perched in my godforsaken.
but my wings dare the holy
and my mind
tumbles up
like a last supper of glass worms
and extra ******
strychnine.
in the blink of an I
there's a wink
with a slovenly iris...
and a dull pearl
chink-blissed
in the shattered tooth
of my gnawing
gob.
a low frequency
in the high place
of my moon ***** cul de sac...
and an exact replica
of my dispossessed
reflection... a memory
that forgets best
as it mulls over
and dwells more ******
than the asking price
of my naive
assurety.
it is perfect. and glum.
but the gem is the thing
on the tip my tongue -
seeking and slithering
betwixt.
it's a fixed
star.
or
some
awful charm
looming in the dismal
and lurid
in the
Carnival.
you
are the ghost
that feeds my starvation
and the means
to an end.
a complete drink of sour kindness.
lopping off heads
like a queen of knaves and barking mad
mittens.
it's very cold
where we come from...
but we go
back.
and to
return
is to
speak
a
lost word
where we
found
it...
leaping reason like a squirrel
to a bitter branch
where the apples
are stones
and the leaves
are not amazing
today*.
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 9:41 PM UTC
As I went walking up and down to take the evening air,
(Sweet to meet upon the street, why must I be so shy?)
I saw him lay his hand upon her torn black hair;
(”Little ***** Latin child, let the lady by!”)
The women squatting on the stoops were slovenly and fat,
(Lay me out in organdie, lay me out in lawn!)
And everywhere I stepped there was a baby or a cat;
(Lord, God in Heaven, will it never be dawn?)
The fruit-carts and clam-carts were ribald as a fair,
(Pink nets and wet shells trodden under heel)
She had haggled from the fruit-man of his rotting ware;
(I shall never get to sleep, the way I feel!)
He walked like a king through the filth and the clutter,
(Sweet to meet upon the street, why did you glance me by?)
But he caught the quaint Italian quip she flung him from the gutter;
(What can there be to cry about that I should lie and cry?)
He laid his darling hand upon her little black head,
(I wish I were a ragged child with ear-rings in my ears! )
And he said she was a baggage to have said what she had said;
(Truly I shall be ill unless I stop these tears!)
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You purloin books from
Monsieur Marteau’s large
Library; you like
The slightly saucy
Ones best; the books he
Hides from his wife. You
Can smell his sweaty
Palms all over them.
He has an eye for
You; you can tell by
The way he follows
You around the room
As you slowly dust
And polish around
The shelves, removing
Books and wiping them
Clean. You are very
Thorough Mimi, he
Says, not all maids are
As dedicated
As you, and he laughs
And you laugh with him
Putting on one of
Your pretend blushes.
Madame Marteau has
The face of a smacked
Bottom; her thin lips
Seldom spread into
A smile; her eyes are
As olives in snow.
Don’t be too long with
That dusting, girl, there
Is much to do and
When are you going
To tidy yourself
Up, you are so slow
And slovenly; not
What I expect from
A maid at all, she
Moans, her haughty voice
Echoing around
The hall. You love to
Read his saucy books,
His fingerprints are
On the edges, dark
And oily; his pipe
Tobacco stinky
Smell escapes from each
Page and you as you leave
The library and
Pull the door behind
You with a gentle
Click, you imagine
Him alone in there
Scanning over the
Saucy books; his lips
Drooling, his dull eyes
Being feed ****
Images and his
Sad wife elsewhere, now
Forgotten or too
Busy or moaning
At you; and while you
Snuggle up in bed
At night with the book’s
Thrilling dark pages,
His wife lies in her
Bed untouched, unloved,
Unkissed and cold and
Has been for ages.
Mar 25, 2012
Mar 25, 2012 at 3:04 PM UTC
Basil, paprika, cold Hungarian goulash,
bleu cheese and stale cinnamon
coffee cake dominate
the taste of your
mouth and skin;
it’s not because you are
slovenly that pulls me
into you, I am alone.
Dec 21, 2016
Dec 21, 2016 at 9:09 AM UTC
Carla said I must fast, no food, only water,
For the first three days of the New Year.
Your body yearns to have your mind in control, she told me,
This is the fatal flaw in all your attempts at happiness, she said,
If you ever stop searching for the source of your misery,
In a bowl of poutine or between the legs of an ingénue,
God this pathetic ability you have to impress young women,
Will you ever free yourself from the haste of ***
The burst and blinding flash of ******
I’ve seen you writhe and discharge,
Only to watch you tremble
And discover once again how alone you are.
Without ****** life is meaningless I explained,
And I watched the maple syrup slip, slide and curl
Into the center of my bowl of porridge.
******* Carla said,
If I lightly brush my fingernails up the side of your arm
You will shiver,
A faux ****** right here in this slovenly kitchen of yours,
*** in a carnival act, almost a trick,
Evolution isn’t your friend, she said, it doesn’t want you to think.
It wants you to **** and die,
To fertilize and retire
And so it offers you this cheesy reward,
An ****** an insult, in hopes you will fornicate and forget.
You have a mind, or a remnant,
Embrace chastity for year
And then thank me for the clarity,
Start with your fast, immediately, she said
Carla leaned into me
And picked up my bowl of porridge.
The sweet smell of syrup lingered forever.
Jan 17, 2017
Jan 17, 2017 at 6:23 PM UTC
each tempered by slivered moments:
slovenly on the floor lay tethered,
both, separate,
honest light.
when it is time that you do not
see anymore, the shadow of my passing,
when the twilight gives rise,
a felled star in the world,
when damp kisses are beleaguered
by the driest of lips,
out of merely, a wide-eyed vainglory,
there will be nothing that all my songs
send a dancing, tiptoeing light
careful to arrive at one day
when you face is held with utmost care
and my hands not its owner,
but a handful of names.
when it comes that we are two fish
struggling in a current's dream —
not a single twitch is born. you will slip
past the interstice of love's net
and i cannot see you anymore in the
depthless blue.
the intelligence of stone tells me
nothing but silence, hemmed in
to a great monolith of daylight.
i exaggerate, the sinking of ships
and amble blindly with the whole of
my motion, like flotsam weary of its
preordainment. portraits sow themselves
battles, cleaving them minutely against
the simmer of quiet. when it is time
to let you go, i will watch you leap forth
into the ripe air like a child seeking
home, reiterates in flight a height
i cannot reach for.
when it is time all of this,
mote it be, clenches in thinned streaks
of turpentine, all of my walls will be clear
and not a sign of your colour
will scream pain like a tortured vandal.
Dec 14, 2015
Dec 14, 2015 at 5:33 AM UTC
Philoxenic appetence
Misplaced
Disproportionate benevolence
Dissipate
Myself: an object, given away
A transient drifter with always somewhere to stay
Exuberant sorrow ever-wishing to deject
Distortion
Deception duplicates
A heart burnt black
Focussed on the lacking, unable to bounce back
Mouths to feed
Needy hands grapple to extract
No fact needed
Smoky contortion
Inhaled greedily
Ready for the downfall
Open to the wind
Upward spirals shy away from the world they crave
Mischievous nymphs dance merrily on a stage,
Unmade
Then lay down to cradle their babes
Slaves to the slovenly
Behaviour of unrest
I know they’re trying hard but is it their best?
Sing a song of sixpence, your fingers in my pie
Life is not serious
We’re all destined to die
High.
Aug 1, 2013
Aug 1, 2013 at 9:41 AM UTC
The lovers passionate tryst,
occurred beneath the moons feint reign,
by the reflective ripples of the river,
'neath the shivering oaks leafy canopy,
'ere the land is simple,
'ere the lovers meet.
One such fair maiden
from the highest house of noble,
married to the tyrant,
the slovenly old fool,
Youthful betrothal from a fathers greed.
One noble peasant,
poor, and rugged in appearance,
from the fishers family,
madly in love with the maiden
he abstains from all others
just for her and all his affections
are for her, only her.
So in secret these two meet,
night after night,
where the law has no reign,
where the land is free,
much like their love
in this the lover sacred
secret place.
Apr 7, 2012
Apr 7, 2012 at 2:23 AM UTC
my most common pain;
the tear in eye;
when I get overtaken by emotions;
I can't describe;
everything seems so far off;
the peace of mind so slovenly cast;
the ire of self;
the music of my soul;
overwhelms everything else;
the clash of instruments;
symbols of my thoughts;
the large bonfire of passion;
that can't be tamed;
the love I feel for my breeze;
that can never be fulfilled;
the loneliness;
but...like with all things;
endings create new beginnings;
but I feel like;
I end everyday;
and the line is so blurred;
between start and finish;
a tidal wave;
no footprints left in the sand;
no footsteps to follow;
just a common cause;
and an uncommon burden;
no order in the misery of life;
no substance;
I want to wrap you in the shelter of my soul;
it aches for you;
a storm brews;
and lightning strikes;
with no sound of thunder;
a whirlwind;
the fury of gusts;
as dirt and sand and debris;
circle us, taunting;
demanding to be allowed;
to whisk us away;
with no restraints;
no direction;
just the splitting cuts;
of micro origins of glass;
rain;
to wash us clean;
the fear is, no matter how long I try;
this will never be complete;
no matter how strongly I feel;
I will never be able to put it to you;
fully;
so there's the issue my love;
I only want you to know;
that I have to try;
to embrace the chaos.
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 5:17 PM UTC
Shame.
Self-loathing.
Slovenly, slobbering sycophant.
Stupid.
Scrofulous.
Should've stopped, sedated.
Staggering self-esteem? Sometimes.
Struggling, someday successful?
Supposedly.
Short-lived, surely.
Jul 14, 2010
Jul 14, 2010 at 6:37 AM UTC
The steady strumming of steel strings,
Staccato strikes like some salacious swaying streetwalker,
Sorrow-ly sauntering through shit-slung streets.
Smelling of saffron in these places of salvia stinking slums.
Scythe swinging,
Pendulum-slow,
Cycling through souls,
Sickle of Sadness,
Strewn through both Sinners and Saints.
Sights of Scratches seduction,
Satan's satisfaction in slayings of soldiers and civilians,
Simply sumptuous.
Suckered by Senators,
Sold out by simpering, salivating slugs,
Presiding over slaughters with sadistic swagger.
Slovenly suckling upon skulls of the slain...
Sardonically
Dec 31, 2022
Dec 31, 2022 at 3:00 AM UTC
I see a sea
Gradually creeping up
On me.
I feel a fear
stiffly forging
A path to my (mind).
I hear a high
Can only bring you down
So much before
You die.
These terrors keep creeping
As the crypt keeper keeps crypt creeping,
Trying to find a sign.
Trying to find A sign that
He's alive.
He sees nothing but
Resemblance
Between his life
And the mortified faces
Of the no-more-mortal morgue men.
The crypt keepers life is mortifying.
He'd **** himself but
He sees the same
Between the dead
And dying.
He rides his dead eyed
Horse between his house
And the morgue.
Little does he know
He has no home anymore.
The cryptic crypt keeper keeps keeping me awake.
The mortified men are just laughing at their stake.
I arrive at the door
The pearly gray gates.
Knock in hope for more
Waiting out my fate.
Ding **** the bell tolls
Throughout this
Measured mystic landscape.
Death as in a dream,
Answers immediately.
Why am I here!
I chime out solemnly.
You've been here for years
Death responds to me.
For as long as I've crept and
creeped anyway.
Death is the crypt keeper
I question, exasperated
What else would I be
Doing here
He sighs slovenly
He pulls a chord
Opens the door
And steps aside
Waiting for me.
I died?
Only if you walk inside
The one way gates
To the other side
Of this miraculous night
He cries.
I walk the line
Between there and life
Free of fear
For the first time
Finally.
He smiles,
And says
"I lied"
Through his Death filled
Shroud, all smiley.
"You've made it son"
He says as he pulls back his hood
Revealing
Not Death
But Light.
.....
Jan 28, 2017
Jan 28, 2017 at 7:36 PM UTC
notes,
when we walk easily and lowly
on an avenue, with a camera, with two hearts
we see and we have seen it
we breaststroke through a night so
dark and slovenly as to turn a sunrise purple
to red, ashamed
books,
when we love properly
when we speak slowly to better hear
the dripping of a warm and raining noon
there was nowhere left to go for us
coolly dryly, bookish we sat
and to a boyish morning, hurtled
will we sit again, as we walk
will we again open those books and laugh
Sep 26, 2010
Sep 26, 2010 at 4:34 PM UTC
you take the fall’s seriousness
like you were a leaf from the bough
of this tree called love –
as you were nearer to me than any other
light with its hands clasped, starting rivers in me;
you, whose mouth benignly twitch to utter
such glibness that even the stinging fragrance
of newness sings in me
the darkness swallowed slovenly as if all of the world
swims past the squalor of my blood – new to old wholeness
bones to a gleam of washlines,
wherefore there is nothing left to guess
in such hypothetical kisses when you looked at me
with two strutting cities for eyes that
churn to fade out such articulation of sibilance –
it is like this is never a better fate than plunging,
the moon between the hill and my body
within your body.
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 17, 2015 at 8:31 AM UTC