"splaying" poems
I saw my world again through your eyes
As I would see it again through your children's eyes.
Through your eyes it was foreign.
Plain hedge hawthorns were peculiar aliens,
A mystery of peculiar lore and doings.
Anything wild, on legs, in your eyes
Emerged at a point of exclamation
As if it had appeared to dinner guests
In the middle of the table. Common mallards
Were artefacts of some unearthliness,
Their wooings were a hypnagogic film
Unreeled by the river. Impossible
To comprehend the comfort of their feet
In the freezing water. You were a camera
Recording reflections you could not fathom.
I made my world perform its utmost for you.
You took it all in with an incredulous joy
Like a mother handed her new baby
By the midwife. Your frenzy made me giddy.
It woke up my dumb, ecstatic boyhood
Of fifteen years before. My masterpiece
Came that black night on the Grantchester road.
I ****** the throaty thin woe of a rabbit
Out of my wetted knuckle, by a copse
Where a tawny owl was enquiring.
Suddenly it swooped up, splaying its pinions
Into my face, taking me for a post.
7.9k
A piano plays softly through my ears
My fingers waltz along the keys
Splaying my life out into a symphony
Every note
Cool
Calm
Cultivated
A captivated audience is a blind one
They can't see what's going on behind stage
The puppets that rise along their strings
Forever to be suspended in space
Controlled and motivated
As long as I'm behind this piano
Mesmerizing the audience
No one will ever see the pool of blood
Arcing along my high heeled clad feet
No one will notice my strained smile
Or the flashing glint
Knives of bone
Protruding from my finger tips
Pray tell
Might I play a song for you?
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 4:32 PM UTC
"The problem is..."
he drawls
"that it is'nt us who see people differently from you,
but you see things different from us. We are not the problem you are.
You see the basest humans when we paint majestic creatures,
we tell stories of superheroes with no faults,
we expect our boyfriends to mirror night skies in their comfort,
and speak like Kerouac. Kiss our scars like white girl tumblr pictures."
"People like you," he says;
"...Dont ever **** yourselves. You're used to the disappointment. Your used to kissing your boyfriends sweaty upper lips and smelling...just that. You clean up the puke on bathroom floors without complaining because you know what people look like from the inside. That's why your art will never be good. Thats why today in class when I asked you to paint a human body cut open, you drew a colorless man with his organs splaying out of him, and ******* he laughs..
"I have to fold petals into my boyfriends armpits just to stand the sight of him
our ******* is'nt *******
its ********** Supposedly.
When I tell this story later,
I'll leave out the spit and saliva and how the human body
aint that pretty, especially gay *** Even 6 ft 3 chiseled muscle of it, ill write metaphors about his eyes and similes to his fists,
you will tell us about the humaness of his breath and how
it annoyingly kept you up at night,
you will speak of storms but not of the ones in his eyes.
The ones in your belly
when he farts during *** and you will
describe every putrid detail, like the fact that waking up in the morning aint so pretty,
morning breath is something we dreamers leave out in movies. And, it must be exhausting
living here seeing things how they really are, but atleast when you expect disappointment, theres room for surprise.
People like me expect the good and are disappointed when its ****** on."
Dec 9, 2013
Dec 9, 2013 at 6:04 PM UTC
You
Are untamed
Reckless blood and wit intertwined
A twisted, brazen
mind.
Your mind
Is so clearly different
It leaps and soars, so acrobatic
And your thoughts appear to me so hazy and enigmatic
Your mind is simply not pragmatic
Yet your perception knows no bounds.
You have thoughts that come close to insanity
That sometimes flow in the form of profanity.
Your spirit
Is either very high or very low
Up and down, to and fro
There is no in between for you
Some say you are stupidly crazy
The dull ones say that, the ones too lazy
To see beyond the rugged surface.
The subdued and vapid ones
Will never understand the magnetism
Of your sweet, exquisite devilry.
On your face you often wear
A fierce and restless stare
A wan, discontented expression
As though you're always awaiting
Something bigger,
Something better.
You
Are fluid, swaying fire
And I will never tire
Of watching you burn
I can see you brain boil and churn
As it reels into into areas of
madness and chaos.
Your psyche
Is an endless field of dark reverie,
Of fear and vagary.
I know your night terrors
Your savage dreams of death
Screams and bated breath
Unutterable visions
The grotesque world of horror thats spins itself out
And dribbles into your drawings
All those creatures, skeletons gnashing and clawing...
You
Are gentle and thoughtful
Yet you are terrified
Of this dark thing that sleeps within you.
Your eyes - they’re stunning
They’re tempestuous,
Wild, like some fierce animal peering out of a rusted cage
Oh, your eyes
They are something beautiful, but annihilating
Like Autumn crocus flowers, innocently poisonous
Lids splaying delicately like its violet leaves.
You are tall and strong
And uncontrollable,
And your smile
Is the biggest paradox I've ever encountered
Childlike
And fatal.
You are not
A creature of the commonplace
You are not a slave of the ordinary
You are not a mindless drudge of the mundane
You are free.
Or bewitched, what's the difference
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 5:21 PM UTC
What is that reality that appears to me in dreams,
chock-full of misgivings and doubt. I counteract my fear of life
with my fears of slumber,
dust in my eyes and stiff as lumber.
In truth - I'm not stiffened
by fear,
by nausea,
post-pubescent sacrilege,
or all of the above.
I'm not up-kept,
grizzly with ennui;
I'm dizzy, confiding my loss.
I feel the lips that kiss
but can't be drawn: from mind,
stencil
paper
pen,
on sheets of thick
pale and
cellulose,
for the heart to mend.
My unsteady hand
is my fearful friend
A soft embrace
from a warm mind
Somber
and so full of Life
clung to by the scent of Death
Endowed
with an eternal promise and regret
from veins of plants
or the glow of stars.
Cold, mechanical debt.
(my heart, so full of...)
(my mind, so hot with...)
(my body, trembling in...)
I am gulf-like
a stream full of trees and glass
echoing a promise of shattering wind.
Will I be published
after my death,
asleep predating, a life conceived.
Will I live to see myself alone,
and to discover
that which I'm not?
Or will I stutter
and wallow a curse,
Up towards the sky,
Until the final verse.
On a boast
or chasing the Rail,
pale as dirt, and shallow still.
Will my true love abandon, break, strain,
Burn away the wax,
or hurry to blame?
Omit my evils from the star-charts,
then just to vacate the void.
From the half-broken corridors of rocks,
nooks, crannies.
Carry laughter through the night
burn the effigy bowed-down,
before dawn's courageous,
ever-splaying light
Angels,
of Carlo and Marx,
plenty by noon
festoon,
again by day
thus replay,
Endeavor to infinity, fair child.
Remold the light by Day
and remold the Day
by Night.
Feb 23, 2013
Feb 23, 2013 at 12:53 AM UTC
I would die to say here, truthfully,
splaying my arms round as the sky,
this, this! is how it is possible to live
and not sink under a faint surface,
and not run, windfaced, against a distance,
and not lay down, weary as nothing.
This is how it is possible for us
to look without shaking skin or heads
or blenching eyes, writhing like mangrove
limbs in this incomprehensible slough.
To live as discovery of life and still not know
if ever we were born, or when, if ever, we’ll have
died.
But to you, I cannot say this, truthfully.
My person is not truthful. It has a voice
you hear through air in the daytime, I am
not truthful to you. Else I would be
fringes of all time
stretched. You cannot see me, truthfully.
I am ground movement, just under, welling
untouchable imperative unattainable.
Are you bound by the point to create
your own destruction, as I? Then proclaim it
yourself, truthfully, waving your fresh
roots out to me, soil juiced and ripely plucked.
I will try to remember crossing the plains from
dawn till dusk, before I made the world fragile.
If I do, I will dissolve, and will come out your
breath, speaking truthfully. But will you remember
too? So that, disappeared, I may find you?
I would not have to die, then, truthfully.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 6:37 PM UTC
Winsome bee at my bloom,
writhing and splaying, he gathes my perfumes,
He stayed and he waited, I gave him my heed,
Oh winsome bee, you are my doom.
Jul 24, 2014
Jul 24, 2014 at 12:33 PM UTC
Our men are heroes, of course.
They protect us, gun in hand,
against enemies plastered on posters
vandalizing once-beautiful stone storefronts.
More every day.
Stapled on top of one another
until words blend.
"But now,"
the overly made-up woman at the podium says,
"women can do our part."
They’ve gathered other pretty blondes
with symmetrical features measured
by a myriad of devices.
Beautiful,
demure
women
with
beautiful,
Aryan
genes
to breed with our handsome heroes.
Because women,
and the children we bear,
are the key to Germany’s future.
I glance at the woman to my right,
eyes skiing down the slope of her nose
to rest on smiling lips.
Is the blush on her cheeks genuine,
or set by rouge?
It suits her.
She catches me staring.
My breath hitches in my throat.
I throw my attention back to the woman
glorifying human broodmares.
Heat assaults my cheeks.
“Your rouge is lovely.”
Her whisper warms me.
“Can you believe this?
Us, with war heroes?”
She sighs.
I can practically see the dream
play through the air.
A husband coming home in uniform,
splaying a hand on her swollen belly
and kissing her forehead.
A fantasy.
These men…
they’ll come,
take what they want from us for granted
and claim they did us a favor
when they leave us alone
with child.
But my fingers would dance
never-ending pirouettes
across that porcelain skin.
Swirl intricate patterns
through golden hair,
all for that sigh
to carry a dream with me in it.
Jul 12, 2018
Jul 12, 2018 at 2:28 PM UTC
With a suitcase
Of a past
Belonging to
Another of me
Strain keeps pulling
In steps already taken
Scanning the beauty ahead
Looking at the swamp behind
Earth flys with the release
As the baggage crashes
Splaying open
It’s contents no longer contained
Dust devils swirl
As torments fly upward
Upon clearing
Vision magnifies
Movement is smooth
Freedom lunges me
Freeing mind and heart
Allowing achievement
Written by E. M. Rushton
July 2019
Jul 12, 2019
Jul 12, 2019 at 8:14 PM UTC
~inspired by Lar Lubovitch,
gifted to Glenn Currier
who made my eyes water-dance this
morning ~
<>
raise the arms in preparation
for an articulated genteel waving
to keyboard,
an elegant slow descent,
fingers extending, splaying,
but in fine coordinated curvature
for they are 24 carat gold filled fingertips,
word & dance-art~infused
i king and expelling sounds of dancing words,
all over my body
some body part of me,
grasps that the cylinder of ink,
becomes a baton,
single instrument director,
an attaché,
an additive~lubricant,
for all my orifices,
firing rocket-in-the-air bomb bursts
while body in its entirety
motions,
shuckin’ and jivin’
in the prayer~poem first position,
a rock n’ roll motion,
back and forth,
to fro,
holy mesmerized
words run down my arms,
letters drop encased in salt drop capsules,
from the intuition in my eyes,
we see them forming words,
pooling,
without volition,
upon,
all my surfaces, but they
a mere conveyance,
bringing these expulsive explosive verbs
in an ordered fashion,
to your eyes,
intuitively,
asking you
to dance with me,
begging you
to envision me,
hearing the piano maintaining rhythm,
while a violin crys out in a overly long held notes,
concertinas bellowing,
all together quavering,
oscillating, emoting,
and you!
you are reading me perfectly
so we dance in unity
cheek to cheek,
to the song of
our poem,
our words, our tongues,
our entire entities,
rogue kissing
Dec 4, 2023
Dec 4, 2023 at 8:52 AM UTC
Like a C-clamp
pistons in my ears
drawing together as if magnets
drawing together as a punishment
for having thought for myself
for having thought of others
for having thought and
my thoughts diverge like
a meteor shower
splaying hither a-thither like
blood spatter at a crime scene but
the victim will not be silenced
even in death there is an
effluence of ideas like
beads at Mardi Gras and
a sense of here and now expands like
easy-cheez on a ******* and
your vice-like grip on my mindset will
not
contain my ideas
because my mind is a river
undammed and
inherently willful
because my mind is
set free
Sep 16, 2013
Sep 16, 2013 at 11:29 AM UTC
The sporadic notions of morality
Encompassing the ridge, he rigs the rig
A ****** an addict, searching the attic
Looking for teeth in boxes
Cooking crack in a crock ***
(Imagine such images, dancing on walls of brick houses crumbling)
The home with boarded up windows, and children watching television sets with the sound on full
This is free form living, an avant-garde way of life
Concrete music from the paving slab, door-stop bedrooms
and the dead dogs rotting in shallow graves in the grey grassy garden
Suspended in animation, needles in the arm
Why is Mummy crying on the kitchen counter top,
and why are you in my room?
This is a house for dealing, a house not fit for stealing
This house is a home to the ones who live and a grave for those that don't
Your house smells of rose petal, sweet summer serenades and home baked cakes
My house is dilapidated and smeared in **** my house is lonely, my house is a rut
Infantile impotence, playing on a rainbow welcome mat
Crystal hanging in the window, splaying colour
Tap the vain, vein young valiant boy, pull the tie from Daddy's arm
Between you and me, the back door slides easily open in the spring
and perhaps freedom in the trees you seek
and maybe you can forget
Just for a moment.
Oct 26, 2013
Oct 26, 2013 at 4:46 PM UTC
half-feigning a convenient drowsiness,
half-closed eyes and half words shot at
a bedroom wall illuminated by early sunshine,
and it happens to be quite bright.
happened again, redoing, recurring,
an ordinary oration, a silent sermon
the same words again, a slightly different version
every morning, inside out in eversion
the wrong things again, waking up
getting out of bed, out of my head, growing up,
getting old, aging fast, coming to terms with the fact that
one’s life is only as long as one’s past
all this future-talk’s got it feeling a lot longer
And vacancy is at least not my mistake
Filling in a bubble blindly of multiple choices
Splaying multiple regrets for something’s sake.
I will wake up and grow up
But if childhood is living in the sun’s light
then what’s staying up all night to watch its rise?
Mar 18, 2020
Mar 18, 2020 at 3:47 AM UTC
To hold a pen, all trembling nib and leaking tip,
At your mercy, supple in your hands,
Over the skin of soon-to-be words, people and places:
Gently exploding ink bombs of which I cherish total control –
Until I have to let them go -
until they are released and left to their own free will.
They bend and curl
And I bend and curl with them – through a place of rubble and debris,
Of clear water on emeralds and grey, creamy smoke.
A wasteland – but far from empty – a silvery mire filled with all the things of this earth.
Something both post and pre-apocalyptic that smells of old wood and heady incense,
Nostalgia and new memories.
Accidentally, messily, flawlessly crafted.
I wait for more sporadic dark poolings,
And they happen within quick succession of one another;
Splaying,
Isolated limbs and drops of a purple chemical
Spreading, bleeding, dissolving
Over the grainy paper.
The page is torn and frayed at the edges
Where almost fabric-like fibres
Were unable to withstand the impact of a knife’s blade,
Ripping all the tiny seams which bind them together,
Coming apart,
Undone,
Strand by dusty strand.
What is finished, what is done –
Is what has been given kindness,
And settled to rest.
As if drunk, sleepy, disorientated but somehow acutely aware of exactly where you are.
The feeling of dizziness where everything is hazy, fuzzy, blurry –
Inducing a comfortable, ***** slumber
In an old *** and vanilla shop.
Aureate, bronze pearls slide over each other, silky and luke-warm,
As you peer through glass and lace,
The spheres chinking together, a thousand times over.
A pen held above the paper, now still and impassive.
It is mine and I am its,
And we stand alone on the corner of a pavement,
A streetlamp
Rendering the scene golden in the rain.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 2:58 PM UTC
I find myself far gone, drifting alongside the beach
of some nubian kingdom
A sharp inhale of starlight and cutting holes
of awe,
she's there for me.
but,
Not in presence,
Red clouds limping through my comfort,
keeping me safe
far far off, in its tempered perfection.
Writing my fiction, one word at time,
biting into my rotten ear,
cracked surfaces of
sugar lined castle spires
pointing downwards,
In the paradox named perception.
Release!
Stretched out in our isolation.
yet I'm alone, becoming longer,
wandering,
raiding into an artificial night
Where no time appears to pass.
Encroaching on the expectation.
for food,
be it wanted or difficult,
for lips, ink nor illness.
The coast brings in
an ease that I drink from,
when dilly-dallying,
along the mad irreverence
of a random bed that you dream of
each time you wake,
each time you sleep,
There is no content in your bed sheets.
Spiralling in and out of information infection,
Oh how? Oh how can I sleep,
when I stand with my back to space?
Splaying limbs as they exert
the last beams of recklessness
- reverting to old habits,
obsession with erratics,
no form and no care.
Riddled with a chaotic mop head of stringed stupid.
How cute.
Juiced from his tender prospects,
intent on separation
entering use
**** bored and loose
Frothy white moaning flow,
tenderly crushing
Contingency.
I avoid moving inland,
for fear of peace of mind
Combing the canal with the brisk
jaunt of my limping legs,
unsure of themselves
in amidst,
the warmest blanket on the coldest day.
An old kingdom,
founded on consumption,
tradition and extraction.
We keep our distance,
I keep my distance.
Cold water minces around my feet.
Pith/Medulla.
Falling to earth,
beneath the sedge.
Dec 10, 2014
Dec 10, 2014 at 2:56 PM UTC
When I want to write
And the words are churlish and
Sluggishly slow in coming -
And even when they come
They linger at the door-frame
And rub their soft cheeks
Against the painted grain -
I read in a special voice.
Sometimes it's the voice
Of my English teacher from
Junior class. We didn't get along,
But not a word passed her
Lips that wasn't as gilded and
Mellifluous as edible gold-leaf
On a chocolate-chili sundae.
Or the voice belongs to
Rives, who plucks meaning
Out of words like candy
Out of an Easter egg.
He savors every syllable
Like it's an annual treat
And lines them up neatly
In his throat like some kind
Of spoken-word songbird,
But the things I write are
Least likely to be read aloud
By Rives and my English teacher.
(And reading in their voices
Seems too proud.) So I pen
The last of the stragglers down
And clear the alien voices out
Of my own (often sore) throat.
I enjoy my words, wallow in
Phrases, and praise lines of
Alliteration about as often as
A soldier runs past shelter
Helter-skelter and takes his
Chances with unfriendly crosshairs.
My voice quavers, quivers, shakes,
And shivers when I read my work.
I find every letter and line
And nuance absurd, but
I keep myself in check. Editing is
A controlled demolition of
Punctuation and capitalization;
Sometimes the "submit"
Button is hard to hit after
Splaying one more page of
Myself into crisp computer print.
But I breathe and repeat
The words that are lodged
Under my ribcage like a
Stray bullet: "You are not
Superlative; you are not
Fantastic; you will not be
Famous; you will not be
Any better for a long time
And even then you may be
Terrible, unbearable, and
Infinitesimal,
But everyone is."
click
Dec 28, 2010
Dec 28, 2010 at 10:04 PM UTC
Your embrace, like being pressed against a
fridge door
Painful, but I couldn't rub the pain
in public, but endure it as I walked away
through the silent quad
Your goofy smile as I gave you
your birthday present last year
when there was that heat
And when I touched your heart like your mother once did
and you tried to hide, but couldn't resist
You are coming
Looming large
Coming yes, with your newest girlfriend
They come and go and come again, swirling around you
backs arched, hands splaying as they reveal their inner thoughts to your
rapt attention, cross their legs, uncross them, flip their estrogen hair,
your little subordinate girlfriends
What pleasures you could have if only...
You come to judge me, with your eyes and hers.
Your eyes I used to watch, but now you avert most times
You must maintain your detachment and judge me and
converse about me with her, as you "mentor" her
Meld with her. It must be a palpable connection between your center
and hers. Teach her how to think like you, feel you, be a part of you
Let her accept you into her
And me, up there, trying to impress both of you
to keep my job
to save my apartment, my unpaid bills, my cats
my dented car, my anti-depressant pills, my life sans
trifles, but deep and thoroughly lived
I am a slave dancer, unclothed and unprotected, but skilled and
nothing can take that away from me, not even you
As you will not look at me, only at your little electronic pad and at her,
As she sees me perform for the first time
and she won't have any idea that I was once in her place
and you were not detached
And I can only hope, that through it all, my skill
will prevail
And you, now detached little man
That I mourn, will keep me at my job
And sad as I will be to watch you watch me
and feel the energy between you both, as I
an experimental animal under a scientists eye
As I am there, and she is next to you
I still hope you stay detached and
let me keep my job and
I will be free forever.
Oct 14, 2012
Oct 14, 2012 at 10:17 PM UTC
Hidden giver, sighing life into fields of
Wheat’s ears, rolling tide-like to meet the rusted gate of cracked through orange-ore, resting ajar, guarding the hedge line
Arms out, splaying fingers I divine life here-
God’s flame, burning Barakah, sacred zephyr
warming fingers, frosted with tired life help them loosen and live bright
May 6, 2021
May 6, 2021 at 5:11 PM UTC
in the part of the cool hill's soft thighs
trembles the callous shaft of dawn
penetrating the ephemeral violence
of the stabbing rods of arbor scent
damply the night mare goes galloping
whinny little sins of star caresses
but none are so shy and sly as the
eye clasped hollow in the stench
of (and also the slender flowers
smirk at the blossoms young
flesh broken by the light song)
Morpheus' guileless laughter
as shattered the disheveled clubs
swing ransoms of heart lips between
the twain of the enchanted leaves
there rests a silver bit of girl so
blisteringly beautiful blushes all
the world for holding this trembling
aperture of onyx plait holding femininity
so electric is the artifice of her glimmering
chastity, swore the sun it would never
shine on any other thing so savagely its
shivering skin of golden pleasure as this her
(but just so the moon loved her too
as passionate as any other lover ever imagined
or material. spitting delicate strands of shimmer
upon the golden-brown skein of her shoulders)
she woke startled by the amorous dome
crinkling on the perfection of her lithe
sensual frame. stupidly the ideal birds
sang, trying to match the elegance of
her narrow waist; but failed hideously
drowning the silence in virulent soundless
noise. then brimmed every god to the lip
of everything to peer upon this unbearable
visage and dither in the perfection of its curves.
suddenly the Rose blistered from the soil
and came wetly a residue of crimson from
its supple petals mounting the vision of her
absolute eyes. splaying the gentle hips of
sight to receive the splendor of its thorned
stem into her hand and ***** the silk
of her hands slowly releasing a jewel of life
all this witnessed by the cloistered huddles
of gossamer children. hideously perfect men
wantonly begging for the grace of her sensual
pond. beckon they, to them, her but she refuseth
and make for the realm of Hades. quietly, in
death, waiting for some heat to unfreeze the
skin of her blue heart frozen still darkness.
Jun 27, 2010
Jun 27, 2010 at 6:51 PM UTC
with certain jesting apprehension
i entertain her moist ***** darting elocutions
she's splaying candidly 'pon ever
witless grunting foul vocular aberration
outside the roaring box of wet tinder
's a window slapping manacle
of steely girth. the sky's tongue
folds straightening air into the fat
oblong of the sea particularly
as probably i'm listening listlessly
to grand nothings plopping gently
from loose teeth grinding small
headed sally i'd could hardly say i care
Dec 9, 2010
Dec 9, 2010 at 11:16 AM UTC
Razor-sharp fingernails scrape layers of flesh from eyelids
Splaying them eternally open
Can't unsee what's been seen
Can't unhear the sounds
Or unsmell the odor that rots in nostrils, infecting every rose
There's no stopping when they all stink the same
Can't undo, can't undo
Safety in bile where nightmares are birthed in reality,
In places that fester like the remnants of the lids that blinded
Bleach doesn't clean untruths
Fire doesn't burn hot enough to mask pain
Blisters seem like hope
Hope to heal
Hope to resemble something familiar
Peeling skin back with teeth
Wishing for them to bleed
When scalding tubfulls try to cleanse
the grime that sludges through a broken mind
Attached to a heart mindlessly lashed in the shame of
Love
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 1:35 PM UTC
fruit tastes better forbidden
i can't stop myself
i'm breaking all these promises
like a ******* animal
i'm writhing
squirming
a seizure of ***** pleasure
torment!
demons dance around my head
like flower girls
splaying the ground with sin
i'm a ******* animal
thoughts pulsing
a constant state of primal ******
controlling me
like a leash
dangling meat in front of my face
somebody purge me
exorcize me from this
and distill the evil
and cast the black water into the sea
i beg
for my
catharsis
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 9:47 AM UTC