"speculum" poems
.
The special speculative speculum
examined an orifice one day.
Upon its initial inspections
it was clearly heard to say
'I've been in some holes before
but this one takes the biscuit.
I should go in a little deeper
but don't know if I should risk it.
For there is a blockage here,
one I would rather not disturb.
I should really try to describe it
but I am struggling to find a verb.
It was always going to happen,
one day it would come to pass,
when in would walk a patient
with his head stuck up his arse'.
© Pagan Paul (14/12/17)
Dec 14, 2017
Dec 14, 2017 at 6:35 AM UTC
It's been a year now.
I hope you're doing okay,
Wherever you are.
Mar 14, 2021
Mar 14, 2021 at 11:46 PM UTC
Hallelujah, I’ve found you
one I could have chosen.
Were your body pliant, capable
more slight, more saudrey
a subjectivity
easily disposed
I would be able to hold your breath, capture your voice
contemptuous, mocking and wholly undue
spending more than a half a day
being who you are would make me hate you--
But for a morning, maybe from eight to noon
I’d take on your face, look straight in you,
my mirror.
Shout out my name three times
with hope, I would appear,
without your bated breath
from jagged mirror, foggy-eyed by shower
I'd be able see me touch your body, glistening
parting your quivering lips for
myself inside, to feel your smile.
A phantasm to myself.
I want you, my significant other
my lover,
my ontological
displacement
of
milky
misfortunate
malaise.
Your substance is my fortuitous down-going.
My ship-sinking speculum.
Desire, mediated by a lack of being-there.
Klage.
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 2:00 PM UTC
You can't just dine; It's not time.
Sleep, lines the bottoms of her eyes.
The circles form overnight, deprivation, falsification.
So if her common sense neglected?
It's 'cause something bigger's detected.
She doesn't mind being left behind.
She would rather go slowly to watch the sunset, anyways.
No reason to look behind the smokescreen (there are some things that no one needs to find.)
Look on as she survives another attempt, kinetic in her learning. Pleading guilty in a non guilty crime.
Avoiding awkward by jumping the fence to turn and step.
Can't help the second nature, her reflexes from past experience stay quick-just to hate her.
They taught her well, as she sought to dip-set
(back to her speculum of normalcy.)
Walking down the street, curbing the beat.
Lights flicker in and out; shadow-boxing down the alleyways of her life.
Her eyes may have welled, only to dry; in the heat of the moment, regrettably she could only, sigh.
The one thing her mother taught her is to never believe in surprise. Collectively she will be waiting for the day and time when she gets hit from behind the lines, life flies by and she is not afraid to die.
"And she will bite her bottom lip all she wants."
May 20, 2010
May 20, 2010 at 8:59 PM UTC
I could have saved her
Wasted, waste down
Caroline, oh Caroline
It could have been me
Distorted noise
friends upwind of the screams
It's never enough
They never had enough
Beach chair, mangle
Tripod, classic
Ripped from the great novels
Footage with a sun kissed tint
The foliage underfoot
Face down
In the bloodied mud
Where is the love
It's not enough
There's not enough love
Guide her above
Clouds like gloves
Caroline, oh
Caroline oh where do you go
Traffic warped noise from the boys
Explicit wickedness
Extrapolated desires
Extraordinary circumstance
Circumvented rent cheques
Caroline are you at rest yet?
Jan 18, 2016
Jan 18, 2016 at 1:45 PM UTC
On my eleventh birthday
Dad gave me this book -
The Eyes of the Killer Robot.
Inside the peach cover was
gothic baseball,
malevolent wizardry,
small breath horror, and
magic, cut with 1950s science.
In the book a madman
learns how to extract our eyes
and uses them to power
an evil golem ace.
This morning, twenty-seven years later,
in the pre-Christmas rain
that pools black in the brick
I suddenly wondered
if Dad with his incurable
glaucoma his eye drops
and surgeries, realized he'd given me
a book about the fears of stolen eyesight.
And the son came to know
what the father knew:
the terrible softness
of a trembling eye
under the blooming
steel of the speculum.
Dec 20, 2018
Dec 20, 2018 at 4:13 PM UTC
Memory takes me back to long ago. I can see the deck of the slave ship I came on, smell the salt air and the hot vinegar used to clean away the escaping stench below the deck, hear the sound as male slaves exercise, as crew members play fiddle music while chains thud hard from the dancing amusement of the slaves. My home was near the River Senegal on the coast. The slave traders ships brought colered cloth, beads, *** and cowrie shells to trade for our black flesh. Father raised cattle, rice and maize. This ebony man traded muskets, gunpowder, needles and colored thread, for what he grew. On the day of our capture, we marched during the long day tied to each other, given only thin meal and warm water. Tiredness bore down on our limbs each step. Canoes came on waves toward us. Fear moved down the chained line of men. Women and children were separated. Our clothes were taken. Standing naked, mouths were opened, and muscles felt. We had to jump up and down while moving our arms. Chosen ones were branded on the skin. I screamed loudly until my voice refuse sound. The time for hearing is gone. Rapid waters filled with blood, as some are tossed into the sea, for circling sharks to dine on. The ship offers only sixteen inches to hold me, others have two and half inches if tightly packed. Bodies are in the hold, secured down by chains that are nailed. Faint cries of agony beat on my ears like drums. I try not to breath in the rancid smells of those who have soiled themselves. Air is limited. Mutiny usually takes place within the shoreline. Because when at sea chances are less to escape. Slaves who simply refuse to eat are force fed with the speculum oris which is placed in the slave's mouth, opening the jaws then food is pushed in usually rice or millet. Crew members tried wash away stench of blood from floggings, feces, ***** from between decks until this day the stench still remains. Living as a slave while your soul is dead is a living horror.
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 9:32 PM UTC
i didn't know what i was gonna do,
but the bells were the bells and the ringing too.
i was the sky and
the paralysis. the perfect
glitch.
the pit and the speculum.
all the better to see you with -
your own life. i pry and dispense with the drivel
of our marketing plan and wage peace.
i keep thunder under my super vision.
i realign the timpani of my discord
in dismay. i didn't know what i was gonna do,
but the bells were bells and the ringing, new.
again came the verse that first had no thought
but ought,
but somehow got caught
in my nimbus, too.
the first blink of a marble statue.
how that feels. and what that means.
and something
else.
and the
truth.
back at you.
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 9:34 PM UTC
i have nightmares in white.
crisp
clean walls,
shiny, sterile floors,
the pale, blinding light
staring into me
for each click of the speculum,
each snap of latex,
there is a crack up my spine
and i am silenced
i am muted
i know
what it is like
to die.
sometimes dying
isn’t the end of existence,
it is the continuation of life
after you’re already gone
it is cracked lips and stuffy noses
it is wellness checks
and medication
it is romanticizing sharp objects
and panicking at the sight of blood
it is light pauses between words
to ensure that you are safe
before you speak
sometimes dying is living empty.
and when i wake
from my white nightmare,
i am hollow.
Oct 24, 2019
Oct 24, 2019 at 1:32 AM UTC
Let's have some fun! Let's go to the Gynae!
If you bleed a lot or have a tickly *****
Or if you have more spots down there
Than the walls in your local Indian restaurant
Or if you pong like a smoked salmon sandwich
It's off to the Gynae! Off to the Gynae!
The Gynae will ask a lot of personal questions
But he's not a pervert really (usually)
He's only doing his job but always bear in mind
He chose this specialisation out of many and
You have every right to wonder why
Anyone would ever do such an odd thing...
Strip off your clothes, put on a hospital gown,
(but be suspicious if it has a "see through" rear
or is of the Lithuanian "open crutch" design);
Then relax on an examination table
And hum along to Abba on the Musak,
Then get your feet up on the jolly stirrups.
Now open your legs so that the quack
Can get a total eyeful of your love-crack;
Don't be shy, he's seen hundred like yours
And some in worse condition too (I expect!);
You may ask to cover your feet with a sheet
If you feel they are too smelly for modesty's sake.
On with the surgical gloves, out with the speculum
And a liberal slathering of K-Y
And we're into the good old Gynae action!
Now lie back and enjoy two gloved fingers
Groping you like Crazy Frog on ******
He's hunting for lumps and bumps, yee-ha!
Don't feel embarrassed, oh no, oh no,
Why not ask your boyfriend or hubby
(or girlfriend if you're a hairy ****
To sit in with you for the occasion?
Wow! With a bit of luck, just a little bit,
You might end up with a hot swinging session.
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 1:42 PM UTC
I wandered long through noctis viae — roads of night,
Where shattered stars fall, pale with fright.
The moon, a fractum speculum, weeps in vain,
Reflecting back my silent pain.
Yet ex nihilo, from void you came,
A whisper soft — a spark, a flame.
Your eyes, ignis aeterni, burned through rain,
And lit the corners of my bane.
You broke the walls of stone and thorn,
In your embrace, my soul reborn.
A caro et anima — flesh and soul aligned,
A prayer from lips the gods designed.
Where shadows bloom, you plant your name,
A rose that blossoms in my flame.
And though the winds of fate may sever,
Amor vincit omnia — love conquers ever.
Still, as dawn creeps on trembling feet,
I fear this dream may taste defeat...
But if we fade like morning's mist,
Eternity lives in one last kiss.
Mar 16, 2025
Mar 16, 2025 at 6:40 PM UTC
There was once, a truth and a lie.
One reality and one illusion.
Reality and an illusion of reality.
_______________________________________
Imagine complete darkness.
An empty place.
An empty space.
Imagine, emptiness.
In that complete emptiness,
Realis & Speculum.
Two nebulous, start appearing.
----------------------------
The first was brighter than what you can never dream to see.
Its radiance was a splendor,
Its burst was a sparkle.
It was entire, it was all,
But not all there is.
The second was kind of empty,
But not really empty,
Not empty at all.
It looked real,
But not really.
It was of a very light glow,
It shines, but with no light.
It was of no color,
Nor white, nor black, nor grey.
It was kind of a transparent mirror,
Kind of an illusion.
It was there,
But nothing is in there.
----------------------------
In the way simultaneously they appeared,
simultaneously they were growing.
Slowly they were growing,
But fast they filled the space.
In the moment, they are collapsing,
In eternity, they are creating.
_______________________________________
The illusion was a mirror,
it is collapsing,
Into billions of millions of pieces.
The reality was one,
And it kept being one.
_______________________________________
Now,
In the moment,
We have one truth,
And an infinity of lies.
And in each lie, you see the truth.
In each piece of that mirror,
You see a reflection of the truth.
You can keep looking for the truth,
But you only going to find reflections of it.
Because the truth is you,
The truth is within you.
Stop looking around.
You are true.
-------------
It is true !
-------------
But keep in mind,
That to every you,
There is another you.
Where ever you are,
Your self, your ego, your mirror,
Is there too.
-------------
It is true !
May 19, 2017
May 19, 2017 at 6:23 AM UTC
Fear is the speculum that keeps your jaws open,
while the cherries roll down your throat.
May 4, 2017
May 4, 2017 at 1:22 AM UTC
You departed when I was so young I’ve no memories to speak of.
Mom assures me that you cared me, but spectral affections are not real love.
She says I have your sense of style, and worry much like you
But Dad to me is just an idea, no man to compare it too.
I lack you jet-black curls, and my face is much like Mom’s
Yet I feel no earthly comforts in the bottle or the psalms.
I missed you so desperately when I was young, addled by your death.
And while I’ve learned to live without, there’s sorrow in each breathe.
You see I’ve gained no solace, my suffering never done,
For I’m reminded of your image daily, it’s there in the speculum.
I’ve tried escaping many ways, but always return the troubles.
Shattered many a mirror in my attempts, gaining only ****** knuckles.
When my loved ones see me crying they think I offer masculine lies,
But I can assure all those around me, there’s something in my eye.
Nov 16, 2015
Nov 16, 2015 at 5:41 PM UTC
When i look in the mirror, its not me i see.
But a ghost, a shell, that will release.
And in my eyes, i see stars, drops of fire in the rain.
That drip down, into a darkness, that feeds on pain.
I take comfort in the solace, of being insane.
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 10:52 PM UTC
unending reminders that what we see is what we are
this glass reflects
that, which we see is who we are
. . . pellucid mirrors . . .
that, which we see is what’s become
this glass reflects
unending reminders that what we see is what we’ve done
Mar 13, 2019
Mar 13, 2019 at 4:05 PM UTC
"Wine is the mirror of the mind."
The cut glass
fluorescence
of sloe gin and *****
cuffed to my wrist,
scours the tabletop
with self-cruel smiles.
In the convex glass
I'm wearing
a robe of pills.
In the convex glass
my hand's curve
strangles a joy
back down to size
with forced sleep.
Dizzy on the bird's
chop-wing of couch,
half-tapped glasses
lose the day to the
little white discs
laboring to lift me
roughly into the spaces
between the stars.
The octagonal glass
is so empty.
Nov 21, 2019
Nov 21, 2019 at 4:47 PM UTC