"snuffs" poems
Eyes of pale celadon
refulgent in the dusk
lips of skin so thin they grin
around the tips of tusk
Jagged saw-like teeth
beneath a sagging beastly jaw
the putrid reek of flesh and cheek
he's gobbled - nights before
His pointed nose will point his toes
when he snuffs you shuffling by
the fright enough will be so tough
your legs will lignify!
And once he's done he'll click his tongue
his mood enhanced by food
he'll walk home late and ululate
his deepest gratitude
May 18, 2013
May 18, 2013 at 11:05 AM UTC
This is winter, this is night, small love --
A sort of black horsehair,
A rough, dumb country stuff
Steeled with the sheen
Of what green stars can make it to our gate.
I hold you on my arm.
It is very late.
The dull bells tongue the hour.
The mirror floats us at one candle power.
This is the fluid in which we meet each other,
This haloey radiance that seems to breathe
And lets our shadows wither
Only to blow
Them huge again, violent giants on the wall.
One match scratch makes you real.
At first the candle will not bloom at all --
It snuffs its bud
To almost nothing, to a dull blue dud.
I hold my breath until you creak to life,
Balled hedgehog,
Small and cross. The yellow knife
Grows tall. You clutch your bars.
My singing makes you roar.
I rock you like a boat
Across the Indian carpet, the cold floor,
While the brass man
Kneels, back bent, as best he can
Hefting his white pillar with the light
That keeps the sky at bay,
The sack of black! It is everywhere, tight, tight!
He is yours, the little brassy Atlas --
Poor heirloom, all you have,
At his heels a pile of five brass cannonballs,
No child, no wife.
Five ***** Five bright brass *****
To juggle with, my love, when the sky falls.
9k
I shall go away
To the brown hills, the quiet ones,
The vast, the mountainous, the rolling,
Sun-fired and drowsy!
My horse snuffs delicately
At the strange wind;
He settles to a swinging trot; his hoofs ***** the dust.
The road winds, straightens,
Slashes a marsh,
Shoulders out a bridge,
Then --
Again the hills.
Unchanged, innumerable,
Bowing huge, round backs;
Holding secret, immense converse:
In gusty voices,
Fruitful, fecund, toiling
Like yoked black oxen.
The clouds pass like great, slow thoughts
And vanish
In the intense blue.
My horse lopes; the saddle creaks and sways.
A thousand glittering spears of sun slant from on high.
The immensity, the spaces,
Are like the spaces
Between star and star.
The hills sleep.
If I put my hand on one,
I would feel the vast heave of its breath.
I would start away before it awakened
And shook the world from its shoulders.
A cicada's cry deepens the hot silence.
The hills open
To show a slope of poppies,
Ardent, noble, heroic,
A flare, a great flame of orange;
Giving sleepy, brittle scent
That stings the lungs.
A creeping wind slips through them like a ferret; they bow and dance,
answering Beauty's voice . . .
The horse whinnies. I dismount
And tie him to the grey worn fence.
I set myself against the javelins of grass and sun;
And climb the rounded breast,
That flows like a sea-wave.
The summit crackles with heat, there is no shelter, no hollow from
the flagellating glare.
I lie down and look at the sky, shading my eyes.
My body becomes strange, the sun takes it and changes it, it does not feel,
it is like the body of another.
The air blazes. The air is diamond.
Small noises move among the grass . . .
Blackly,
A hawk mounts, mounts in the inane
Seeking the star-road,
Seeking the end . . .
But there is no end.
Here, in this light, there is no end. . .
3.1k
.
On the old porch outside her room
she sits a'spinning on her loom,
weaving memories of times long gone,
gently singing a Native song.
Of rivers running on the plains
swollen from the mountain rains,
of the deserts endless sands,
and of toil with calloused hands.
She sang of buffalo and of bear,
of a paradise for all to share,
she also sang of the forests deep
and of where wolves go to sleep.
Her song dies away like a friend
when her spinning is at its end.
The Great Mother retires in silent gloom
and snuffs out the candles in her room.
Thus stilling the night of a Woman's Moon.
© Pagan Paul (28/01/19)
Jan 29, 2019
Jan 29, 2019 at 9:25 AM UTC
Among the taller wood with ivy hung,
The old fox plays and dances round her young.
She snuffs and barks if any passes by
And swings her tail and turns prepared to fly.
The horseman hurries by, she bolts to see,
And turns agen, from danger never free.
If any stands she runs among the poles
And barks and snaps and drive them in the holes.
The shepherd sees them and the boy goes by
And gets a stick and progs the hole to try.
They get all still and lie in safety sure,
And out again when everything’s secure,
And start and snap at blackbirds bouncing by
To fight and catch the great white butterfly.
2.4k
longing for atonement
looks like
an enormous black hole
like a huge purple blue bruise
or gaping open
burgundy magenta wound
it seems to swallow everything
that comes near it
this black pit of death
love is not here
go further down
and you will find it
though you may **** yourself first
love rests elsewhere
turn from this negative pull of energy
this is not light
but what light exposes as false light
the light I am
snuffs out all the darkness they sense
they can’t hide from it
and so they want to throw it
onto what I am
making the darkness about what I am
rather than about themselves
being attracted to the darkness
the day has arrived
I no longer shield darkness
I can only devour it
Feb 3, 2022
Feb 3, 2022 at 6:10 PM UTC
You call yourself fire but you are the water that quenches my flames
You are the dirt that snuffs out the coals
And Buries me.
And the dust that coats my throat
Until I’m choking
And coughing up the coals
I swallowed
Trying to keep the flames alive
But it worked
And they are still flickering inside me.
Keeping me alive
Because I am fire.
But only for myself.
Though I’m sure I have left a few flames in my wake.
I wonder if they’re licking at you
Threatening to swallow you?
I hope instead
you take them as a lend
Bottle them up
In your darkest hour
And until my light, I’ve left in you,
Flickers out,
I hope you let those flames
Left in my wake
light your way.
Jul 14, 2018
Jul 14, 2018 at 5:20 PM UTC
You are both the light which chases my old shadows and the breath that snuffs out my flickering candle.
My duties require feeding your warm glow with my left while placating the your angry breath with my right.
I am in. Committed in love
With you.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 7:16 PM UTC
You never realize how
Dark the night is
Until some one snuffs out
Your candle.
And you have to
***** around in the dark
For some matches.
You swear you put them
Next to the coffee machine,
But it doesn't matter now.
That flame
Can not
Be relit,
No matter how hard
You try.
You must find
Another source of light,
Something more reliable.
A flashlight perhaps.
But one day
That will be snuffed out too.
Not even batteries
Last
Forever.
Dec 22, 2012
Dec 22, 2012 at 11:40 AM UTC
Firelight, ‘fading quickly from the quiet night,
O, fair queen,
Quell my fearful dreams, and
Be here while I fall asleep.
Flame
Slowly snuffs itself,
Choking for oxygen, so to stay alive,
But alas, at last, it dies.
No longer was her stay
Than but one phase,
As the moon hid away
Into the black.
A mockery in the sky,
She darkens the dusk, and
Passes us by as she tries to keep it alight.
But alas, at last, it dies.
As departs the dark,
Ambitiously arrives the day,
Who leaves but no need for fire’s blaze to stay.
Sunrise, sweetly presenting in sightly colour,
She slightly flutters
Peacefully
Into uniform blue,
And soon,
A new slate.
Last night, fire did fade swiftly,
Whistling wonderfully as her ungodly gasp failed to remain alive;
To keep alight.
O, she tried,
But alas, at last, it died.
And just as so, she and I.
But what is love?
Whether love for tomorrow
Or love for a night,
Love is love.
Right?
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 6:10 AM UTC
My crunching across this frozen field
wakes sleeping sheep, due to lamb.
The nearby turlough ripples brush across
Moon’s fragmented image,
a lone swan pirouettes–
half a Claddagh Ring.
I welcome the fog
though it snuffs out the moon.
It is still so bright.
No sign of any lamb.
Days later I walk the same field
with a squelch. Incessant rain
has drowned the moon.
Still no lamb.
My watch flashes:
midnight.
Oct 3, 2010
Oct 3, 2010 at 1:35 AM UTC
on this Gothic
Sunday, rain's in
citywide confession.
deep ears listen...
some of these raindrops
explode midair, or never
hit the ground.
as on shadowy snuffs of
street, crows lay on their
back.
wings enfolded like hands
in an open coffin...feet stretched
out.
beak deformedly agape,
drinking...gelatinous eyes beating
beneath their lids.
Sep 9, 2018
Sep 9, 2018 at 1:11 PM UTC
I lean against a stucco building
that has a turquoise whale painted
on the sidewalk in front and pop in
a piece of Wrigley’s as vendors
unload eggplant and plump onions,
two women walk past, one isn’t
wearing a bra and the other
should be wearing two,
I see a neighbor listening as three
Jamaican bucket drummers argue over
cigars, my neighbor nods and flips his
Pall Mall into the street, a gal walking
a Lhasa Apso snuffs the cigarette with
her heel, the dog hikes on a crate of
cabbage sitting atop a guitar case;
bravo to you God, a better morning
I could not have lived.
Sep 12, 2016
Sep 12, 2016 at 8:10 AM UTC
Why can't my liver filter thoughts like it does with alcohol?
It would save me the trouble of all the money I've spent to free myself of bad decisions,
There is so much formality within a sober moment, while my drunkenness speaks freely,
My brain doesn't erase moments like alcohol does, yet my liver puts up a fight reminding me to think,
Fantasizing over an image created by theses slurred and blurred overzealous eyes,
I am attracted to bars like teachers are to mls style, and to this day I'm still not sure which one has been more beneficial.
Looking down the road of allowing glass, I measured my state of mind to pick my poison,
Tequila adds a flower to a withering soul, ***** snuffs out the light where it gets to bold, whiskey fakes the fight with its bros, while gin loosens the bones and wine your emotions, at last we have beer a truth serum more powerful than love,
What they all take is feeling, a small price to learning what we see in the refection is really something we refuse to collude with.
My liver is always amazed, the amount of control I give to it, whilst the hand with a drink in it stays steady,
The other acquires shame, controlled by a freedom of released inhibitions,
If I could escape the safety of the dinner lights for the missing love that I thought drive me here,
My liver is alone, in the battle, like one soldier who's realized that their command center threw them into a death trap and their enemies are mindless zombies of fallen memories,
My toast is not alone, followed by smiles and condolences, significant enough to convince everyone, maybe one more.
Jun 22, 2017
Jun 22, 2017 at 4:04 PM UTC
His ******* angel wings can no longer lift him high enough. His silhouette
stands against the Morning Glory sky. He has not worn cologne
until this day. Now, the perfume of kerosene coats him. His
matchstick countdown has just hit zero,
ignition.
In flames, he launches off the edge of that crisp concrete line. He falls
ten stories, what was once a man, now an effigy not of stone
or wood, but flame which, wind-washed,
splays out as Ringed Plover wings,
ash feathers blown back.
With a crash of bone and pavement, his Chinese Lantern skin the color
of burnt-sienna, the blaze snuffs out. Through yellow plastic paper,
the creamy skinned women rush to his side. Mother,
Sister, Wife, cradle him, the fingers catch skin
which sloughs off in
flakes of
carbon.
May 21, 2011
May 21, 2011 at 7:42 PM UTC
My girl is a superhero:
With one foot she snuffs the smoldering
Cigarette **** her depression lies in, and
With the other she staves the weight of a
Terrible job;
With her left hand she creates and makes
Beautiful things from a beautiful mind,
And with her right she craddles me,
All the while flying on the small vibrant
Wings of a robyn.
Mar 11, 2017
Mar 11, 2017 at 4:27 PM UTC
There are places you exist
in a flowing green dress
that kneads against your body
with every passing breeze
and sand nips at your heels
as you curt by tonned blocks
of cement that smother grass
just off the sidewalk.
They nuzzle киоск stand,
and long to lift self up
to a sea-blue, backdrop dream
that dissolves for years (and years)
and erodes to sewers beneath
with every Charlotte rain
and crumble once again;
a gray-eyed contrast true
of beauty vining through
a city that snuffs roots.
You, and there you go.
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 12:41 PM UTC
You spit out
a dry laugh
to try to hide
the death
in your eyes.
The desert
you call a soul
is so full
of memories
that *****
your mind
like cactuses
drawing pieces
of your happiness
like blood.
You try
to wash away
the reflection
in the mirror
with the salty rivers
pouring through
your tear ducts,
but that only blurs
your view
of reality.
You use your blade
to paint a more beautiful life
on your thighs
with crimson hopes
that someone will notice.
The happiness
of the life
you once had known
is buried deep
in the graveyard
of your thoughts
but the skeletons
you keep
in your closet
are in full view.
You dress them
in armor
and they fight off
the love of the ones
who care for you
like an elite force
of warriors determined
on destroying
the foreign feeling
of compassion.
You try to replace
the feeling of love
with the lust
of boys who's tongues
whip you with lies.
You plead with
every God
you have
ever heard of
every single night
to save you
from the darkness
but the doubt
in your heart
snuffs out their light.
Every day
you **** off
another piece
of your self
with the sword
of depression
leaving an
empty shell
of a person
in your place.
When are you going
to realize that
you're my reflection
and I'm trying
to shatter the mirror?
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 12:37 PM UTC
an ocean feather snuffs it in an alcove, to my leftjust another pair of lungs to expand and swill the seaand i wave curtly to the ***** on the next corner(nothing to see nothing to see) kindlingher shoulders against the lamp-post shelooks more like an angler than a good timeand paint by number peeling swips, lightning strikesupon her hips and the smoke machine pumps nicotinethrough out my veins, on the verge of somethingepicglitter lines the gutter with a sunless pulse all its ownand concrete currents sweep the ground beneath my feetas i exit the aphotic zone:ale stained blouses and hardened nipplesmake my artist type jealous beneath the soft neonsof the brickyard pizza sign the whirlpool opens with asureness of free beer to soften my mindand i've done this enough for the anxiety to subsideso i kick off these shoes and iDIVEinto a plethora of flannel jacketsand guys named 'steve'
Feb 23, 2010
Feb 23, 2010 at 7:26 AM UTC
Error code: PXZ003-2-b:
"WAIT"
Blinking blindly,
unaware of absurd metaphysics,
the device flashes its advice.
For years now, probably; no one's sure.
The rest of the machinery's in pieces;
save this one brilliant gem of advice,
slowly sipping energy through
a dingy solar panel:
just enough to keep going
A red light blips
on the untended prophet,
yellow caution tape draping
impotently in shreds --
*although there is an allure
to what fabrics conceal.*
He sees none of this.
At first.
He arrives in a huff,
swearing and panting.
Pacing nervously, he lights
a spliff and throws his head back.
"I know I haven't been around much,"
he speaks in a vaguely upward direction,
"but some people say you're listening,
and that you take requests."
He laughs, flicks some ash,
and lets a sigh creep out.
"Just. Just. **** it, I don't know.
Give me a sign, anything. I'll listen."
He inhales and snuffs the roach
on his sole.
The serenity of stillness marches
in as a pallbearer with an empty casket.
A red light catches his
peripherals.
He walks to the device,
removes the dress,
and uncovers divinity.
How could he deny the voice of fate?
He waits.
Jan 4, 2013
Jan 4, 2013 at 4:31 AM UTC
You could be miles away
an untameable distance
impossible to reach
tomorrow or today
yet you sit two feet that way
Your could be slipping
falling of a cliff
into a darkness i can not follow
one hand dangling on the edge that is ripping
yet you stand firmly on the ground without tripping
You could be blinded
Sight blocked out by an unpenetrable veil
hiding me from you, unable to see the present,
memories forgotten as you go unreminded
yet your eyes shine, filled with confidence, decisions decided
Perhaps it is me
an impossible treck away
Perhaps it is me
slipping from the edge today
Perhaps it is me
blind folded, hidden from you
Perhaps it is me,
a small candle, wishing to burn anew,
yet I battle for every breath to pass
as the oxygen is taken by your inferno
my speck of light, shining through miles of darkness
your blazing fire, through clear glass
snuffs out my flame, turning it to gas
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 11:04 PM UTC
The water lies
opaque,
and still on the highway,
glistens, then evaporates as
you draw near.
O’er the left,
windswept, dry
to a brittle chalk white,
that barren floor of
alkali.
Just to the right,
subdued, honey-hued,
a flame that doesn't glow
as bright.
Clamped by the vice
of dread,
as the road before us spread,
farther than our own eyes
would bear to see.
Wisps of feelings had,
trapped hot against the
rocks,
on the hills
rolling by, beside and beneath.
Misplaced words,
quipped obliviously,
snuffs, buries
the flame.
This soul sits
opaque
and still,
riding across the highway,
as dry as the ghost of that sea.
When you draw near......
You end me.
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 9:14 PM UTC
Pausing, I remember the white snow capped
Sighs departing from your spun out white capped
Lips; you lifted your neck and with it your head
Tilted, and looked for me. It was then that
I died a little, for I saw you in reality, a sorry
State of affairs...clinging to life itself
Dearly longing for a break in this broken
Passageway of your life.
How might we endorse the meaning of 'Your
Life'....together; could we walk...you on wheels...
Me pushing with all my might until the curtain
Falls and snuffs your life upwards towards heaven
And home, your beat no longer in time with mine....as
I am left looking into the filmy clouds
Of your departure, hanging on your last words...
"Life's been a blast...from start to finish", and my
Finish has arrived before yours...that's all!!!
As simple as that...and you were gone
But life is not so simple!!!....not now, not here
Not...anywhere....
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 7:53 AM UTC
"If you don’t have it figured out by the time you’re 21 then you're part of the plan that snuffs itself out.
Hopefully they’ll drown themselves in liquor just like their fathers did, just like your dad is doing", that **** sucker said to me as he lifted his watered-down poor man's scotch to his cracked reptilian lips. One more thing I get to internalize. One more swing I have to restrain my ligaments from hurling. Don't let him see you sweat.
“Do you think that to be wise?”, I croaked.
“No, I don’t think it to be anything, and I believe that’s why I love it more than all the wisdom in the world”. What a fuckin' ******* "Look, I only know I am right because of how often I’ve been wrong" What an infallable argument.
"Look, you can only hope to do things that you don't understand, the only way to do the things you wish to do as you want to do them is to understand. The only way to understand, is to learn. Not to be taught, but to be learned. The only way to learn is by doing. Going into a new situation blind without any information is not a desired way to start a task. Researching is the key to removing frustrations that may prevent you from persisting with your original intentions".
If this mother ****** tells me how to write one more time, I swear, I'll lobotomize the whole operation.
Oct 17, 2013
Oct 17, 2013 at 8:27 PM UTC