"sludgy" poems
eating the sludgy contents
of your beautiful mind's conscience
and dreaming in your thoughts
while choking on blood clots
slurping up tangled tendons
drowning in remembrance
tales of your history
have now become a meal for me
digested in your calculations
I am finally free of my frustration.
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 9:36 PM UTC
looped layers linger on
terraces as terror takes
form in bandaged brains
chock full of deranged
discernment
****
climb into the cabinet
find fear washed away
in dead eyes that
shrivel and shrink with
each passing moment
squirm, squirm, squirm
stomach walls suction cup
one another as sludgy
slime slurps between
cracked crevices
bile belches amidst
odd laughter, an onslaught
of imagery, insecurity,
and imagination
not a sound in the world,
but every sound in the world
slip slowly through
diversions from truth
mad man or master?
monster or magician?
a circus of dark circles
comes rolling into town-
come one, come all!
certain death lurks
around every corner,
shrouded in shadows
between daylight
and dreaming,
daring you to look
away as it steals
whatever it is that's left
Aug 10, 2013
Aug 10, 2013 at 2:34 PM UTC
I have so many things I need interventions for.
Like not taking enough showers,
Definitely.
Q called me an eccentric genius yesterday.
What a label. It might be my favorite one yet.
Better than ****
Said R.
My life is a disaster.
It’s perfect.
No one knows me.
I have friends.
They don’t know me either.
I don’t know them.
They are strangers.
I love them all.
But I can’t help them.
I can barely help myself.
Sometimes I just want to stop breathing, but it’s too much effort to hold my breath.
Sometimes I just want to scream at the sky, but I don’t want it to scream back at me.
And don’t try to tell me that dogs aren’t people.
Of course dogs are people.
They are more like people than we are.
We are not people.
I am not a person.
I am a little bit of a person, a sliver of a person.
I am a mug, maybe. Fill me up with caffeinated beverage.
Brown sludgy liquid. Let’s all pretend we like it.
It makes it easier to accept that
We don’t want to get out of bed in the morning.
What if we stayed there just,
Forever?
What if we lied on our backs,
Pressed ourselves between our
Sheets like people-paninis
And waited and waited
Till we starved half to death?
It would be the new crazy
Weight-loss miracle diet
And everyone would suddenly want to come over
And take pictures of us but
We’d too proud and dignified
To allow them to publish the pictures in magazines.
Only we wouldn’t be able to stop them
Because we are technically considered public figures
Which in this country means
People are allowed to take pictures of you
And make up stories about you
And print them on sheets of paper
And hand them out all over the world
And then people read them and think
That the words on the paper are little bits of you,
That they are true.
And the funny thing is they are,
But we try to pretend we’re not.
We all do it.
We all say we aren’t things.
We’re not judgmental.
We’re not mean.
We’re not worried about superficial aspects of our faces and bodies.
We’re not going to go on a diet.
We’re not going to stop smoking and drinking and hacking all over the place.
We’re not.
We’re independent beings.
We are women!
Men!
Androgynous beasts!
People get so angry about things. It’s hilarious.
Things that are
so
so
so
so
small.
Like the color of a shoelace.
The time on your watch.
Countries with arbitrarily sketched borders.
Why not just erase them?
Who would care?
Certainly not me.
I think
We should all be more sexually active with one another,
Or without one another, and that
We should all start wearing helmets.
Dec 25, 2012
Dec 25, 2012 at 3:32 AM UTC
A year ago at the North Pole
Santa STILL had a sign
That read "For Sale," posted on
His slushy, sludgy property line.
We stopped by to pay a visit
And found Santa out of sorts.
He asked if we perchance had read
Recent global warming reports.
"Things are looking worse than ever,"
He said, on the verge of crying.
"The ice caps continue to melt,
And the world's coral reefs are dying.
"We'll be seeing flooding coastlines,
Food shortages, wildfires….
And some even have the nerve
To call the prognosticators liars!
"People ask if it's too late.
I tell them that it depends
We can stop the warming, BUT
We MUST reverse emissions trends.
"If the earth's temperature rises
Two point seven degrees, they write,
Above pre-industrial levels--
That's degrees in Fahrenheit--
"We'll face dire consequences:
Mass extinctions of animals and plants,
Wobbly countries, refugees….
These are NOT just foolish rants!
"The world economy must be transformed.
Come on! You have to use your head!
Renewable sources of energy
Are vital; otherwise, we're dead."
How sad it was to see a man
Who once had been so cheerful and jolly
Now become so sad and so
Demoralized by human folly!
He showed us his dilapidated
House, and then with a sigh,
He said, "I've got work to do,"
At which point we all said good-bye.
-by Bob B (11-24-18)
Nov 24, 2018
Nov 24, 2018 at 11:01 AM UTC
Raw
Misty
Morning
mossy beds
seaweed drying
upon clam-adorned rocks
deep mud pilfering
shoes and small things
all forgotten
when tides come in
better to be on shore
than to be out searching
better to be safe
instead of stuck waist deep
in clay-like mud
magnificent
nefarious
stealing
sludgy
thick
mud
the water is cold
as is the mud
mind the tide
the seaweed clothes and covets
what is lost
The clams find homes
in what cannot be found
the mud paints
the pale shoes and things
Mar 1, 2013
Mar 1, 2013 at 8:00 AM UTC
They sell all kinds of spices where
she's from.
Humiliated.
Embarrassment
polymerizes
a sludgy squid
body of mine,
thrashing in a salt water soaked,
choked,
electric chair.
I haven't ever resorted
to paving a silk idea
with shark printed
carpet since the ancients.
A tombstone fridge.
I knew it was that gypsy
on your shoulder
talking on the telephone.
Gun street girl,
riding rusty
in a cyclone.
Cologne
scented gherkins,
flirting,
while her man is slurping jerky.
I'm a turtle who lives in the desert
because he hates the English language.
Aug 10, 2014
Aug 10, 2014 at 11:00 PM UTC
Monday
A telephone call from the Doctor.
He wants to know why I haven't been to see him
and no he can’t come to me unless
I open the door. The old one used
to leave medicine on the window sill,
this one has rules I think. He's young
so he follows them.
Tuesday
The Vaseline smears on the window have faded
and now they’re not enough to obscure the truth.
Smoke and mirrors of inclement weather
need to be framed and hung.
I’ll have to buy more.
In preparation I disappear inside
my coat. No-one sees me,
but now the cat is cold and
he'll need litter instead.
Wednesday
Made up faces are patronising me from
the South Bank, concerned to find me
hiding in cobwebs. I beg them to stop.
They suggest I call this number and choose
A, B or C.
Thursday
I find mould growing in the bath.
I water it down
and make finger paintings
of the people I used like.
Sludgy green eyes and plug hole hair,
rust coloured cheeks.
I don’t remember enough but it suits them.
Friday
Sharp toothed children knock on my door.
They want their laughter back. I tell them
I can’t do that, using the letterbox and
gingerly offering the tears I’ve collected.
My hand is slapped from underneath.
I’m drying out.
Saturday
I stay in bed today.
The floor is slipping away.
Sunday
I watch Songs Of Praise
and pray. He'll get back to me tomorrow.
Dec 16, 2010
Dec 16, 2010 at 8:45 AM UTC
All those moons ago
I plucked a stone from shore
and whispered my intention
with each waxing and waning.
I took it back to the sound today,
intending to sing a final goodbye
before casting it far into the waves.
It sparkled in the spring sun
then slipped from my fingers
into the sludgy low-tide pool
of barnacles and gooeyducks.
I simply walked away
and watched the gulls drop oysters,
fighting over what belongs to whom.
The waves will carry the stone to sea
the same way the green has returned
like the green in me.
A gentle and abrupt easing -
A slip out to sea with the tide.
Mar 28, 2019
Mar 28, 2019 at 11:54 PM UTC
Today I'm filled with muted optimism
Something not often seen skulking around my peripheral.
Some retail therapy and a ***** free day.
I write you blinded, literally, consumerism blaring,
shining RED in my eye. My new shoes and sparkly
chemical incentives sitting comfortably on my feet
and in the back of my skull respectively
you know? Just above my nape.
The weekend is over.
That person has left, incised from delicate parts
where hurt feels more justified than starving children and
diseased refugees, "oh so woe is me" avoided.
We shouldn't have gone skiing together, the snow was far from ready.
The passengers leapt from the derailing train, terrified of sludgy wet slopes.
This time around I won't let them come so close. Stiff arm, no more than three. No more poems for you, or freedom for me.
Dec 2, 2018
Dec 2, 2018 at 8:19 PM UTC
I was dragged
out of trees, off ropeswings
away from friends
every single Sunday of my youth.
The big grey church
filled with frumpy hatted snobs
lit through windows covered
in incomprehensible verse
held neither wonder, peace nor fascination.
Long, agonising sits,
trying not to giggle with my brothers
and praying only for the ordeal to end
did little to fill me with reverence.
But there was a place.
There was a building in whose hallowed hush
I felt the truth of awe,
a place where universes were revealed,
imagination ignited,
questions answered clearly
and not with twenty tons of sludgy obfuscation.
The library.
I loved it even before I could read,
and afterwards, well -
it still seems incredible
that such a place could exist.
Time passes.
And the fact that the powdered old cows
can still fill the church each Sunday,
fill the collection plates,
sing their ****** songs and go,
while rows of empty shelves
gather dust in the ghost of the library
simply
makes me
want
to weep.
Mar 30, 2011
Mar 30, 2011 at 11:37 AM UTC
Weddings' always made me sad, but only for myself; this one made me sad for everyone else in the room, including the bride. Actually, especially the bride.
I crawled slowly into my closet, pushing piles of shoes out of the way. I let myself cry; something I had not done in weeks. My tears grew into sobs and my sobs grew into screams so violent I shoved the sleeve of one of my sweatshirts into my mouth to stifle them.
The thought of getting drunk sounded so delicious, I figured I could down a whole case of beer before I remembered I didn't like the taste.
I started blankly at the photo taped to my wall. I held back tears and tried not to remember that the boy in the picture, the one I had my arms wrapped around, was nothing but a stranger to me anymore. I had long ago stopped counting the days he had been gone, because I never knew what I was counting to. 8 years later, he's still gone, and the hope of his return is little.
The little cut on my wrist stung, though the knife had barely broken the skin.
Four minutes and five seconds into Stairway To Heaven, I realized my fingernails had been clawing at my lips. I ****** the blood off my fingers and sang along quietly.
"When she gets there, she knows, if the stores are all closed . ."
All the days of rain had transformed the fallen leaves into piles the consistency of burgundy oatmeal. Despite its sludgy facade, the **** left stains on the pavement as violent as blood.
I would regret it tomorrow, but I stayed up as late as I could, praying I would sink into one of the many shadows in my room and never feel anything again.
Even though I could feel the ink sinking into my vessels, I continued to write on my skin. It may give me cancer one day but I couldn't resist; the secret Sharpie messages on my arms and hands made me feel like art.
I was numb. I felt like my entire body was asleep, a dull tingly feelings spreading from the ***** of my feet to the crown of my head. The only places I felt anything were the sore spots on my chest that I'd jabbed the end of my pencil into.
It was almost like I was too tired to sleep. Knowing that I would just wake up again made it pointless. So I stayed watching TV in a dark room and nervously eyeing the the flickering shadows the TV made.
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 8:29 PM UTC
My life is like quicksand,
I continuously sink slowly,
Kick and drag myself up high enough just to gulp at air.
Then follows the slow descent.
I'm unsure of what's at the bottom
But my toes have tickled it a few times
Then the beast bellows and laughs,
Sending tsunami waves through the sand;
I roll like a ship about to be taken under by fierce swell.
Sometimes I think the quicksand is encased in my skull...
Sometimes I think the depths of the quicksand settle on the top of my spinal cord.
Sometimes I think I'm numb from the corrosive vibrations of the sludgy water-sand mix:
Jamming my nervous system, rusting it over.
But then the memory of pressure of your hand around my neck
Makes me forget the metaphor of the sand
And the make-believe depression.
And the blood in my nose, that drips and drys and repeats itself daily
Exists because you forced my head against the wall so many times.
Razors are not a comfort they are a fear and I still cough them up from my lungs.
I realise you are not terrifying
I realise that you do not own my life
You do not decide that I am real or fake or suffering.
I realise that you are only a scar
That I am slathering oils and remedies over
In order to make the red fade.
I realise that I am so *******
H A P P Y
One year on;
And I have overcome your disease,
Dislodged your putrid fangs,
Rebuilt myself,
Healed, cured myself...
Found a real person
Who knows how to love me
And teach me to love me.
Sep 20, 2017
Sep 20, 2017 at 3:07 AM UTC
Snow isn't pretty.
Snow just shows what you’ve could of been;
pure, clear, clean and untouched,
and eventually gone.
You’re the snow in populated areas.
***** sludgy, and walked upon by everyone.
You make people slip and crack their heads open.
To be drained into the polluted river
and become the grimy water he drinks from the tap
and the bitter aftertaste that lingers.
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 8:07 PM UTC
Am I depressed?
Or am I just the reflection of everyone else.
Feeling as though I've just lost the meaning to it all. A cavity like I had it all grasped so tight and yet... Here I am again in this sludgy bucket of depressed feelings.
It's a hopeless feeling. One like I just lost my sense of purpose. But the most dulling of all is the epiphany that you never had any to start.
It's almost enough to drive a new spark like a drained battery. A momentum, a motivation but only momentarily.
What is it I'm doing here on earth? Where am I heading? Is it enough to just make a goal; a plan to be somewhere. Or maybe just scraping through university. What is it that will without a doubt fill me with life long satisfaction.
Is there anything? Anyone?
I worry about where we are going as people. How we're all just a lost bunch of misfired projectiles. Even those that miraculously slide out of the barrel and experience the updrafts of life always find dirt.
We are just stimulating the illusion of freedom. Inside the prison of each of our own making.
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016 at 12:40 PM UTC
"Man is the alembic of art"
That's what Mr. Thoreau said.
A - L - E - M - B -I - C
Hold it right there!
Just what the hell is that?
Well, OK in a word, an alembic is a still.
So the man at the pond is telling us,
making whisky and poems is the same deal.
Take a *** of sludgy words,
boil is so it shoots out the cap
and into a tube.
With a little luck
only good stuff condenses in the beaker -
"Thoreau-ly" purified.
Hopefully it's a good year.
Still, (sic) your verbal whisky can be
no better than the sludge you start with.
Bottoms up!
© 2017 by Robert Charles Howard
Aug 29, 2017
Aug 29, 2017 at 3:21 PM UTC
"Here comes the shame."
don't bury me inside your distorted womb
don't leave me outside
to watch the ebb and flood of it
they've stolen everything for me
I was there first, your womb is mine
I dare face the sludgy mornings as you like it
I'm on this vigil: seize the women-wombs
maybe some day I'll be able to honestly
forgive my grunge fists
push, smash, kick the terrible fortress
each of them: you've expunged me
I had to **** the dawn for me
to keep you alive
keep smiling obliterating
the fresh growling
keep myself busy with fear
for you to have clean sheets
in the long winter nights
I'll take it down on you:
look at these secret men
what I cannot feel doesn't exist
they don't exist when I frown my lips
your fat womb doesn't exist
when I grind my teeth
*only her can send you under
way behind you
naked*
"Daddy! Look at me! Grrr!"
I'll get even
look at them:
unrecognized cocoon-women
*only them can pull you under
far behind the level of the seed*
Dec 4, 2015
Dec 4, 2015 at 8:00 PM UTC
like smoke but no cigarette
only the buzz of the radiator fills my mind
a fever dream the color of raw flesh
under parts peeled from cuticles
a haze of memories
soaked in sludgy glue and paper machéd together, a new skull cap
I don't know you -- or I do?
many days I've spent with you but
your eyes are now parts of the ocean
I have not seen
the voice rattles in my chest but
it is not mine -- or is it?
I never know these days
messages I don't remember sending
nothing is real
smiles I don't remember receiving
nothing is real
everything is fine
I'm not going crazy but if I was
I wouldn't remember.
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 11:03 PM UTC
Missing You. 9/21/2018
I sat and talked to you today. I miss those talks, and the way you would listen.
I knew I could tell you anything. Your advice was nothing short of just what I needed to hear. You knew I needed encouragement, entwined with the underlying question "Randy, what are you doing to do? Are you going to let this beat you down? Or are you going to beat it? In case you've forgotten, you are stronger than you know". words I'll always remember.
What I wouldn't give hear his gravelly voice, and see that cheesy mustache one more time. When we would sit and talk, drinking coffee, sitting on the porch swing in Idaho. It felt like we were the only to people in the world that mattered. In a world that could care less about me, you always had my back.
I wonder what it's like in heaven for you. Are there places to sit and talk like the poarch in Idaho? I hope the angels recognize a wise and decent man when they see one. Are you singing in the choir?. Your baritone voice booming so loud that the heavens shake a bit.
I sat at your grave and wished you a Happy Birthday. My hand sweeps off the dirt , empties the old sludgy water, fills it with clear,and pops in a beautiful arrangement of flowers.
“I miss you,Dad.” I whisper..Then a smile comes across my lips as I repeat the line I used to tease you with “Our father who art in heaven, HOWARD be thy name"..
By,
Randy McPeek
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 10:53 AM UTC
Sky grey.
Seems as if it weighs a ton.
Not looking fluffy.
Once a soft quilt.
Now,
A well used heavy one.
Looking very grimy.
The sky is grimacing.
But only now and then.
Minimal emotion noted hanging
Heavy across tops of trees.
The evergreens are just that.
A sludgy shade of green.
Lost their summer days lustre.
It must have been removed.
The wind has died a death.
Everything so still.
Lights are on so early now.
Cosy toes when shut indoors.
Dare to leave the pleasantries.
Go outside.
Feel Santa's coming claws.
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 10:56 AM UTC
The O draws nearer, nearer, nearer—
Consuming, consuming, consuming all—
Swallowing the world, spitting it out,
Redevouring it
Black black gray—
Swirling swirling swirling mess
Time color images thoughts feelings
All consumed, all devoured
By the gaping maw of O
O, O, O
The owl hoots in the night
And the bats beat their leathery wings
Trying to escape the O, O, O
The night, the night—O, the night!
Dark days, dark days
Inside the pit of O—
Days dark as night, dark as the heart
That has shriveled up, withered,
Gray veins pumping sludgy shadows
Through an empty husk,
Around around around in a circle,
No beginning, no end,
No strength to break free of that
O O O
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 5:41 PM UTC
I. Rusted clay envelops milky limbs
loosened into water like a cauldron of blood
aqua and maroon, red and blue all at once
bits of foam clump like white blood cells
carrying a piece of each person who has stepped on the shores before
through arteries of cold, velvet cream into the veins of each tree
for now.
II. The dentist removes his hand from a trap of pearls and pink tongue,
the shell opens and says it hates fishing, hates the bugs, hates the noisy birds, hates the muggy water and the sludgy shores
the dentist smiles and looks at his aquarium
so bright, so clear, so blue
each technicolor fish darts around on cue, a rehearsed dance under florescent lights
a computer monitor glows, the animated river on screen cheerfully murmurs a tune
a serene spring day in a bottle, in a box, in a crystallized projection of binary numbers
the shell comments on how beautiful this world can be
pays, hops in its gleaming SUV,and takes the tar river home.
III. The red cross.
a plus. positive.
clear tubes, shiny needles take crimson ribbons of blood
"it is to help those who cannot find help alone."
it leaks into plastic bags, on a plane to Africa
IV. A child sits on a riverbed, auburn mud
slowly draining over white bone, more protein than plasma
his arms and heart are full of new blood
his water being spit from a paper cup
bits of food and saliva down the swirly drain
in a dentist's office near a man made river
Oct 12, 2016
Oct 12, 2016 at 11:21 PM UTC
today, I was asked,
by a machine,
"what's the best thing
that happened to you this week?"
and, it followed up with,
"don't be afraid to brag."
I spent awhile wondering
how you might
compute and crunch
just what it means
to receive your first hug
from a third grader
who you're harder on
than most
because you know
behind the lack of focus
lies genius left unexposed,
but I'm pretty sure
that's made every
sloppy, sludgy, snowy
trek this month
more than worth
my while
Feb 16, 2014
Feb 16, 2014 at 8:53 PM UTC
Can you feel it? He says.
Can you feel the mountains crumbling,
Falling apart on a grand scale?
Well I can feel them dissolving around me,
Failing everything and burning the forests down.
Ruining my chances with a girl just for being me,
Coz the rivers run dry with a sludgy mess of ash and liquid confidence.
Running higher and standing tall, but the more I climb the steeper it gets.
The winds whip my face and slash my wrists,
And the one person who can help, is falling down too.
If only I could have helped you sooner.
Up here the butterflies are dragons,
And the clouds are choking me out.
Perhaps I'm not as far up as I thought,
But the pressure here is too much for me, and theres no rescue team in sight.
Jun 11, 2018
Jun 11, 2018 at 3:59 PM UTC