"snakebite" poems
Asylum
In the madhouse
on beds of daggers
we slept like crickets
chirping to ourselves
while they tried their best
to make us cannibals.
The nuns were worse than
lawyers, praying like accordions,
tracking their sins into our soft
wax skulls, wheezing like roosters
when one of us cried, laying the greasy ribs
of Jesus on our plates.
They kept you behind
door number six. I'd go to you
with a stolen key, when the noon
smelled bright as carnations,
when the nights were
more purple than the jacarandas.
You spoke of your father
dead of snakebite,
a clockwork marvel with
his million-dollar suit of skin,
of your mother
with the viper between her lips.
I remember your kiss
astringent with reason
as bitter lemons, and the way
your hair blew back from
your dog-brown eyes like poisonous
smoke from the oleanders.
I thought these things
as beautiful as angels
whispering in the dahlias
when I was lost in the asylum,
when the doctors did all they could
to see that we ate each other
down to the bone.
April 2022
Sep 13, 2025
Sep 13, 2025 at 8:54 AM UTC
You are a repeat roller coaster.
On speed.
In a storm;
A hurricane, to be exact.
You are exactly what I want
And what I detest.
You twist and turn me,
Leaving snakebite scars around my heart
You disguise my devil decisions
And the halo you wear, so lovely,
Does it justify?
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 6:43 PM UTC
Hold on
Admissions...
The night and swelling sidewalks
Call to me.
Folding.
Submission.
Those blinking lights, a quickly
soothing need
Blue-white.
the walk signs,
I'm running past the end of
random chance
Do winners ever quit when
they're ahead?
Too many of these casino nights.
I never let them end, because I
swear that Lucky Lil has eyes for me.
So I'll take my chances.
One more dance with these snakebite
pints 'til I
can roll these X'd out lids
over these swollen snake eyes.
Deuces.
I'm losing.
These sights and sounds made fuzzy,
buzzing slack.
Jackpot.
They have me.
I'm out of moves and fading
quick to black.
Odds are
I'm ending
the night wand'ring the sidewalks
with old dreams.
Cuz losers never quit when
they're ahead.
Too many of these casino nights
I never let them end because I
swear that Lucky Lil has eyes for me.
But she's rolling shoulder,
rolling pupils and shooting
weighted dice.
So roll my body out, over
the curb, to midnight.
Because I can never quit
when I'm ahead.
Sep 2, 2024
Sep 2, 2024 at 2:56 PM UTC
She wears strength and darkness equally well,
Like a sunflower who stands through dust to see the light,
Growing up she was always half goddess and half hell,
Wrapped around her finger like under they’re under a spell,
Every man she’s encountered truly smitten by her sight,
She wears strength and darkness equally well,
Foreign and intricate, “Bonjour mademoiselle”
Men; tons of them but none, fit her quite right,
Growing up she was always half goddess and half hell,
Unique and earthy like an iridescent seashell
But also prudent with a deadly snakebite,
She wears strength and darkness equally well,
With a blazing fire in her soul as pure Noël,
That will keep you warm through the night,
She wears strength and darkness equally well,
Growing up she was always half goddess and half hell.
~d.v
Mar 4, 2016
Mar 4, 2016 at 12:06 AM UTC
You can not see because of the light
It is way to bright
Let the darkness soothe your sight
Relaxe, stop your fight
Let the darkness end your blight
Welcome in the coming night
Make you forget the worlds snakebite
That left you feeling so contrite
In the darkness your fears you can smite
Let the darkness left you upright
Find your wings and take flight
Then you will be able to indite
And sing through the skys like a meteorite
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 10:27 AM UTC
She sits, and she’s pale and cadaverous,
her black hair, short to her chin, the dye in her skin,
the corpselike designs deify her to me,
and she is marvelous.
-
A snakebite in her voluptuous blackened painted lips
eagers me to receive a curious kiss
upon my own who so long for,
the taste of her, like nothing before.
-
The gorgeous permanent stains of ink
upon her ***** thighs, arms, and calves,
exemplify her smooth pearl-white skin
her delicate tattooed knuckles and hands,
could now easily tear me in half.
-
As i try to look away
from that teasing, black lingerie,
she turns and looks with pale blue eyes,
the most wonderful I have ever seen,
so far into my soul she delves that I admit,
I am but a lowly, mortal being.
-
This Goddess of death, this Massacre Angel
what some call not a treasure,
she is in all my nightmarish dreams,
and I always owe her the pleasure.
-
I am a slave to her eyes,
that so easily peer through me,
it is not that I tread not, or wear disguise,
but the answer always eludes me.
-
Though she is my unholy holiness that
grants me dark in wretched light,
one day I shall pass and our spirits
will lay together for an eternity of
a macabre romantic night.
Jan 19, 2013
Jan 19, 2013 at 11:47 PM UTC
by Jedidiah Fleming
The World is my Kryptonite.
It was delivered by a Canaanite.
It is so very black and white.
Black as black midnight.
White as white starlight.
Hotter than a fist-fight.
Colder than a frostbite.
It tries to lure you to the fight.
Being naturally impolite.
Always swelling with pride and might.
Soaring like a meteorite.
Exploding like dynamite.
O, but it is a parasite!
Warping every human right.
Dealing every man-made fright.
Feeding like a scabie mite.
Destroying like a forest blight.
Yet it craves a ray of Light.
From it, I remain from sight.
It is worse than any stage fright.
A never-ending snakebite.
Seeing without sight.
Hearing without height.
Choking out the sunlight.
The world is my Kryptonite.
But parts of it may turn to Light.
So its pain I will carry on.
Oct 14, 2017
Oct 14, 2017 at 12:47 PM UTC
Hey Johnny where are you now?
You left, and never came back, just like you said you would.
And now i have heard that you died, my Darling.
You were always my Darling, and i was always your 'little bit of fluff'
And if what they say is true, i know you'd be ****** as all hell if you ended up in heaven, because hell was always more your style.
But i do hope, if you are in heaven, that it's a heaven made just for you.
I reckon they would have a jukebox that only played Kansas and the Eagles, beautiful women and had Stella and black on tap.
Oh and a GPZ1100, with no speed limit..
And you know what i mean by that.. you little ****
You'd be in heaven.. oh the irony
You were the first person i told that i like girls too.
I told you i love their softness, there beauty, their curves, their taste,
the way they taste like me, feel like me, are soft like me and that i had *** while watching a video on MTV with girls singing in the swimming pool.
You said you needed a minute to think about things...
for a very long time.. in the bathroom... on your own..
Your tattoos were beautiful, covering you from head to toe.
My favorite one was the pirate that your friend Pervy Pete did
while he was baked, it was meant to be Long John Silver, but it looked like your Nan.
You gave me my first snakebite and took me to my first gig.
Wembley... Metallica.. ****** out of my head..
Best night ever..
probably.
I taught you how to crochet and you let me paint your toenails..
only the once. And you taught me how to whistle with my fingers.
In the end you told me to shut the **** up, because any minute now a whole **** heard of sheep dogs are going to come running over the hill, and **** us both.
I held your spanners, sat on a crate and had fork oil, all over my summer dress. You said it was a good look on me and i told you that you were beautiful. You smelt of sweat and juniper oil and i could have *** from that smell alone.
Your eyes were the same brown as mine, you used to put your face so close to mine so i could see myself in your eyes. I only wish you could have seen yourself through mine.
If we had ever been together, i would have wanted to have saved you.
And i would have too.
But you didn't want to be saved.
I would have spent my whole life trying. You said you would have hated yourself, to have been the one to have killed me like that.
In my heart we will always be. I knew you loved me because, while i slept in your arms on the way back from the Bulldog Fest, you whispered it to me.
Good bye and sweet dreams my tattooed greasy biker.. my Darling.
I'm grateful you never found out about the life i had without you.
You would have killed him.
Jul 21, 2016
Jul 21, 2016 at 1:49 PM UTC
I.
when she saw the hazy picture on the screen,
dark grays, some blacks, a little white,
she didn't understand until the soft, chubby brown finger
pointed at a speck, a freckle.
how can I?
the soft worn leather seat whimpered
when the expanse of body gripping fabric
clung to the body they housed, and
the nurse reached for the girl's small sweaty hand.
they closed their eyes and prayed.
the adjacent room was a museum of curiously tiny things.
she slowly considered each item in her sojourn,
finally selecting delicate knit slippers, for little feet.
in this tired brick building reality seemed less real.
II.
back home, her mother threw a chair
when Mavel pointed at her stomach and smiled shyly.
when she presented the shoes with trembling hands,
hoping this small measure would appease the anger,
always worst at first--maternal snakebite,
mother glowered and showed her ****** fangs.
III.
the lights drew her, like fireflies twinkling moment to moment,
the icicle bulbs flashing as the wind blew strands wildly
on dark night trees, rooted firmly in familiar soil.
cotton candy clouds surrounded her small thin lips;
the lingering bits crystallized on a pale pointed chin.
as she discarded the unwanted cardboard stem,
its use immediately forgotten in a pile of related *******
she saw him.
she saw him. and she ran. frayed tongues flapping on her sneakers.
breathless, heart pumping, he came into focus.
by the house of mirrors. reaching for her hand--
not my hand. her hand?
her fingers slipped from her mouth and found their home,
on her warm belly,
suddenly quiet.
blood trailing down her thighs,
a droplet stroking a pure white shoe:
welcomed refuse.
Oct 10, 2014
Oct 10, 2014 at 7:06 PM UTC
Part the flag wrapping around the mast
where sailors ship into waters
as jesus was the worker
the one who built their boat
to stay onward
north of the edge of the world
to explain to the empty arms that fear
and flying were forever the same
if you really found it false
or just never believed that one thing
so true
could be seen and shared
but only to those who do not need to remind each other
that they too were not alone
with where they began will never be
back running between their fingers
the sand where they waved their lovers last goodbye.
How easily the exploding heart forgets
to tell those eyes you carry
to keep looking
no
the back will never turn
as it isn’t proud
only strong to hide
that is what’s behind it.
Leather those faces boys
tan the hide pinched to the bone
and no knife will be amongst your hot blood
but that sand will make you smooth again
just cover your eyes
I’ll tell you when you can look
that trust you have better pay off
for that last sight to make you blind
and rather to wander in all that is black
my two kept eyes lead your way
and you will call me home
and you will call me king.
What we all expected was your colors
but found none.
Lust brought on of loves final echo
the deadly siren be it drowning at sea
taming that it is beneath
the hollow ground burst of dead feet
loose from the kick that fell short
by the snakebite ripening
the purple fangs to the blood drip wound.
Now you see real monsters
to the stare the sun blinds
the quiet who look on forever burning
to see bright through the eyes
not closed
to the sinking star far in the ocean
that your bones now wander alone.
Birds sharpening their talons
of way up high as the weak beware
they cry on three feet
with a dead child from the start
where they should’ve just stayed behind
in the magnificent grandeur that the blind race toward
and live old with missing friends.
How has the sun risen
for so many days without missing one?
I say thank you for being on time
your work has gotten better.
Feb 28, 2012
Feb 28, 2012 at 5:50 PM UTC
Your voice is like a snakebite
If that snake had smoked a thousand cigarettes
And only spoke Spanish, or Italian, I never could tell
If it had hands
That were always covered with dirt, rough like rocks in the river
And its venom were smoke made out of honey
Your voice is like a snakebite, I can feel it in my blood
Your voice is like a snakebite
I want to **** the poison out
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 6:17 PM UTC
The serpent has mingled with my blood
As she devours me,
I become her lover
Half lidded eyes
closed with numbness
My body tingles
from her touch
She has me paralyzed
She has left me speechless
Her poison
runs through my veins
I can feel her all over my body
She has become I
And I she
I can feel myself
becoming dead
yet alive
Becoming, Soil, water and sky
All things and none
My soon to be widow
lays across my bed
And Weeping Mary, weeps
As I leave her
for another lover
I am afraid to close my eyes
Jan 20, 2014
Jan 20, 2014 at 1:53 PM UTC
it's no lie when I said that I felt eternity
but I always did nothing but repeatedly make you sad.
please let me sleep with your name resounding in my head
the passing days
the weeks and months
they drew us apart
your name hurts my mouth when I speak it out loud
the name which i can not call out
it burns my lips when I whisper
we were looking for the the others faults when
we should have looked at each other
my limbs are trembling to the sound of storm
hitting the glass of my window
the sound of it kills the silence
the tranquility I seek
the repose I need
I don't want you to fade
even though the last memories of you
envenom my insides
like a snakebite
my body is rotting away, returning me to earth
she embraces me like a mother
I want to hear, even a sigh
a small hearbeat that isn't and won't be there
that little rythm
my nightmares are unchanging
the drowning days
their weight piles up on me
a burden.
the spider lily is in bloom
the moon will fall
this second winter is standing still
spring will not come again
it's cold but I won't lock the door.
Maybe you'll come.
Maybe spring will be with you.
Jul 31, 2015
Jul 31, 2015 at 5:31 PM UTC
We are masters, not slaves,
not even to our brains.
All until the empire caved through mental anguish,
and the terror-filled thought first entered humankind mind,
you have been the enslaved, not the master.
Mentally losing control in all believed,
through streamlining a connective world and thought,
it seems we've all been deceived.
No single stream is achieved,
Not every imaginative wish was truly dreamed,
communication is a constant drowning without an esteemed regal theme team.
No matter if too much or too little,
our mind enters new lands from false provocations from foolish and progressive new minds.
Youth and old somehow learning intellectual finds,
understanding emotions is the mojo in the potion.
We're all the same kinds, same minds, race with color blinds.
Often though, no hope to cope,
no sign of mental help in poverty folks anywhere in sight,
we just stare at the moonlight,
praying for a wealthy snakebite.
Distraction from your inner-gleaming.
Don't think, let thoughts flow like a calm stream,
as inevitable chaos ensues with persistence in the mind,
the normal overwhelming of the mind,
you realize that we have made
a flawless design.
Yet, with one door open behind,
a coup to unwind.
Only the owner of their mind has the full power to control, cope, and turn the tide.
Those types of people who understand that there are inevitable downsides,
but view them simply as realities benign.
Viewed as a part of the intellectual process and our life ride.
,
Annihilate your ego, and let emotion become your bride,
spark the fire and light inside a pure soul filled with love and empathy.
Understand the Jekyll and Hyde hiding inside the mind will never disappear or fully hide,
yet fight and become no longer terrified,
only mesmerized.
The truth is clear and here,
no more anxiety, worry, fear, just....here.
You drift and physically drop down in pure peace,
understanding you've just completed a mental masterpiece.
Full with a new sensation of content masterfully mixed with enlightenment,
thus, begins the personal journey,
a subjective mental exploration of a new frontier.
Aug 14, 2020
Aug 14, 2020 at 3:27 AM UTC
You can not see because of the light
It is way to bright
Let the darkness soothe your sight
Relaxe, stop your fight
Let the darkness end your blight
Welcome in the coming night
Make you forget the worlds snakebite
That left you feeling so contrite
In the darkness your fears you can smite
Let the darkness lift you upright
Find your wings and take flight
Then you will be able to indite
And sing through the skys like a meteorite
Jan 24, 2016
Jan 24, 2016 at 5:47 AM UTC
The snake
N
E
V
E
R
Bites
O
F
F
M
O
R
E
T
H
En it
C
A n
Ch
Ew.
Aug 26, 2015
Aug 26, 2015 at 3:16 PM UTC
A solar sunflower danced on her dashboard
and the lei on the rearview hit me like a snakebite.
Scented trees beneath my feet smelled like a flower shop
fire. Her seatbelt was knotted like her shoelaces
and her lemon lips kept me coming back.
Between us on the highway were CD cases and enough
loose change for a sweet tea. We turned off the radio
and listened to the roar of the wind through her cracked
windows. Her dress' hem flattened on her thighs
like the moon. Four hours to a truck stop with curios
and 75 cent ****** machines in the bathrooms.
Her doors creaked on their hinges as we danced
our way to the concrete.
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 2:16 AM UTC
Took the serpent for another ride
Is it brave to want to die?
For those of you who follow maps
The serpent symbolizes my relapse
His day of judgment he demands
That's if his rider still can stand
His poison venom haunts my dreams
Like the pain of losing a lover brings
I wake up lost deep in the night
Realizing I'm alone in this vicious fight
Letting go can be so hard
For those of us who've gone to far
....
Mar 19, 2017
Mar 19, 2017 at 6:46 AM UTC
I feel fine, and yeah,
I do that
thing, where I have caffeine
whether in this or in that, playing or staying stationary
the aesthetics, the relaxed argon oil
the moisturizer
cherry coke
cherry coke
yeah, today is just fine
made a reservation for tomorrow
and I'll go, and I'll go
boy I'm ready for something to eat, sweets
sweets
and *** comes so easy, on days like these
Today, the day, and
when my voice is gone
I will recite with a deep low hum
barely audible
and it will be fine
because I will have that
snakebite
venom
boot on top of the hollow stage
makes quite a noise
BOOM
so yeah, today is going okay
and now the poem is over
Nov 25, 2015
Nov 25, 2015 at 6:23 PM UTC
i hide behind not a single façade,
more on a particular in the word later,
i mean, lying becomes exhausting
after a while,
because it strains the memory,
and by straining the memory
it's a schoolboy's error of:
requiring arithmetic repetition -
and by this mode of repetition:
tell a lie once, tell the same lie
all the time.
truth? flimsy, once upon a time,
sometimes here, sometimes over
there, practically? nonchalance:
but much more audacity to boot.
me?
oh, the glory of sitting on the throne
of thrones,
and a tiled floor,
and sticky sweat feet,
and tapping along to i.n.x.s.'s
need you tonight, while wiping
my ***
i think i already said it once:
my life? party all the time:
i know, the dancefloor is kinda tiny,
and they only sell cheap *****
cheaper still by making them
into sharpshooters (excess of alcohol,
very little mixer, practically
hard liquor shandies -
that's english for beer, topped with
some lemonade... students over here?
snakebite, half lagger, half
cider, topped with blackcurrant
concentrate: and then blagger your
way into comatose on the dancefloor) -
then english always were,
and always will be: the shy alcoholics
of the nations, the spinsters...
at least with a russian i know i'll be
drinking cold, rather than warm
yucky ***** inducing *****
because? the english don't know
how to drink *****
ah... i forgot to mention, the evolution
of letters... obviously the french ç
in the words garçon or façade was derived
from the greek sigma: ς;
well, ****** me all week with
a ***** dipped in boiling water...
i can appreciate this short hand form
of evolution...
that's permitted, now it would seem
i have to inspect the rest of the
etymology-grammatica,
i'll just put the zenith and nadir within
the greek through to latin dynamic.
Sep 11, 2017
Sep 11, 2017 at 7:35 AM UTC
and the difference between
a higher tier whiskey
and a lower tier whiskey?
higher tier: pale amber...
lower tier:
tickling caramel bourbon...
and yes:
i like my alcohol with
a story of its own,
one of exploring
the palette...
yes... glen moray:
there's certainly
butter-scotch in it...
but the lemongrass?
not with every glass,
which is why
i find connoisseurs
suspect...
not from one
glass,
and certainly not
from a sniffing around...
unlike *****
drank properly:
shoved into a freezer
and then drank
smoothly like
a gômme syrop...
whiskey:
the profanity of
sipping it straight...
or mixing it like
some British WWI
colonel
with some soda water...
on ice...
one minute delay...
culls the bite
of any excess Smokey
Fitzpaddy left...
neck on the guillotine!
oh but i have drank
to the brain-drain
body numbing
stages of youth's exploits...
famously
Edinburgh's snakebite:
half a cider, half a lagger
topped with blackcurrant
concentrate...
what?! not lagger?
what then... lager,
i.e. lay-ger?
digger not dye-ger
of diger?
no via
no why as to why:
it's dein-ger
for danger
and hop-hop for
the dagger of Brutus?
et tu: tutti ******* frutti...
hop-hop:
Easter bunny softy,
as i...
et tu:
as an epitaph with
no grave...
and however
many maxims...
said puppet in
the fiddly tongue-tied
aspect of death's
philosopher stone:
the Hindu wild-eyed
traffic of reincarnation...
epitaph contra
maxims:
life's load
and a foot dent
on the earth like:
the one that they won't
take a photograph
of: as they did
of the one on the moon...
pointless going
to Mars...
not taking random
earth objects
to the moon...
to see:
funny-whacky
gravity do don't:
sample some
clock-ticking
on the father
to the daughters of
the tides,
the rains...
and all:
and they minded
the egoist...
while they shoved
the whole universe
in their minds with
cthulhu receptors:
and...
well... it wasn't exactly
1990s television static...
or... what the sight
of Belzeebub looks like...
the whole lagger
not lager "debate"?
i don't even want to bring
diacritical marks into
this...
and i won't!
first prize: silver sputnik
of brunswick...
now all i'm missing
is a banjo... and a toothpick...
as ever this medium:
concentrates upon the motto:
sequor lepus albus.
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019 at 8:19 PM UTC