"splutter" poems
Sunshine!
Sickly yellow
slow-light colored streaks
slithering worse than sweat
down my body.
That golden ball stares down at me
like a haughty goddess,
her duality shallow and hot.
She cares not for the freedoms of humans.
She's a two-faced coin,
purgatory masked by the promise
of freedom from pained brains
and scholarly shackles.
The sun laughs at her own trickery, gargling through melting teeth
as she collects suppressed confessions
from weakened teens.
When her crescent counterpart
offers solace from her torment,
the moonlit darkness
only serves to drown us
and we splutter in our own
self-taught
year-round
lies.
And the sun
rears her tattered, flaming mane
at daybreak,
belly-laughing at idle minds now unrefined,
gleefully adding her own scorch
to already inflamed brains.
Jul 16, 2018
Jul 16, 2018 at 8:24 PM UTC
I'm just listening to Counting Crows,
and I get this feeling,
That I am so close to understanding,
Something, myself? Something.
And it leads to this eerie feeling of contentedness,
In the darkness.
But I'm just a step behind,
And the more I think, the more...
I lose my way, The more I question,
instead of listen.
But it scares me to let such a moment pass,
without pursuing... it.
Whatever it is.
Poetry? I think not,
Just splutter along the road of my soul.
Sure to be meaningless in the end, but,
Looking at it now, looking back a bit...
Oh to be **** half in the past,
And nirvana just out there,
A bit further along the way.
Almost childly, I blindly,
Reach my hand out and up,
Hoping that I'll be able to grasp the Sun,
As if I won't get burnt,
That since it seems so close,
I just need to grasp,
and the world will be mine.
But some things are not for mortals.
And demons, like kids,
Must too, one day,
Wake up.
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 2:04 AM UTC
some people
are like dried red chillies -
dangerous looking.
when in hot oil
they jump, splutter,
threaten and make a lot of noise
but then
you realize
that their heat is impotent
as the seeds inside
are quite dead
- Vijayalakshmi Harish
30.01.2013
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
Jan 30, 2013
Jan 30, 2013 at 10:18 AM UTC
Eat, drink - and savour body
It burns - and freshly blushing
Of ankles, knees - the jutting crags
Eat, drink - get lost - in moaning
Of own thoughts - heads' fog
Is rooted deep in groin
Eat, drink - yell over famine
With belt and taunt
Draw tight the ego's thirst
For thinking - shame yourself
For narrative of truth - give up
And joyfully accept
The informational injection
Comparison, identifying, drama
"I believe!" - a dream forgotten
Neglected honour - recognizing game
Unheard is role - a viewer
Yet - to the wall of lies - another burst
"Why do you peel own skin away?!"
Waste life attire
Save in affliction - reason
When silence in the head
Shrieks - "Jump! Take step! Put hanging!"
Just watch - and call for an encore
Applaud - from stage - from audience
Out of theatre - "Louder! Louder!"
With tears - splutter
Sep 2, 2025
Sep 2, 2025 at 11:34 AM UTC
I had to look up
the word
'dating'
on Urban Dictionary
because I didn't know
what we were,
what we are.
And it said things like
'a socially acceptable
form of prostitution' and
'feelings of
puppy love that usually
dissolve
in a few weeks'.
But this is
not
puppy love.
This is not going to
dissolve or
fizzle out or
whatever,
you're not a
fizzle
you're a *******
fireworks display.
And you turn
everything in my head
into this
multi-coloured
turbulence and
I can't keep up with
how much I
adore you.
But the thing is
I don't know
if your view
is as good as mine.
What if you're
looking at something
a little less
beautiful.
What if I'm your
fizzle.
What if I'm as
temporary
as the flame you use
to light the
cigarettes
you find more
addictive
than my touch.
If that's the case
I'd rather
I left you
craving.
Because
if I'm your flame
you're my
forest fire
and you're burning
it all down until
the only thing left
standing is
you.
And I'll walk for
miles across this
carpet of ashes
just to feel the
softness of your skin
against mine.
And I'll cough
and I'll splutter
on toxic smoke
but you'll just
breathe it in because
you never realised anything
was even
lost.
You don't see me
crawl
you just know that
I'm here,
I'm here
I made it
I'm yours
I'll always be yours
because there's
nothing else
left.
And maybe
I can be
content with that
if only
you will see
that
you could burn down
everything
and I still
wouldn't put you
out.
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 12:00 AM UTC
*I think of it as coming
back to myself,*
like a second cousin
visiting from the states
As if I'm waiting in
the airport terminal,
hands full of sweat
and a note stapled to my chest
*I can't remember when
I first became a space to be filled,*
an empty vessel floating
in between the veil
But I'm starting to feel
like more of a splutter
than a storm,
and it's moments like
this that make me think God
is just ******* irresponsible
I find myself digging
for my sense of wonder
at the bottom of my music box,
like the folded ears
of a saxophone player,
sitting across the bar
As if I'll slide my hands
across the slime of my exterior,
slip back into my identity
like an old coat
While I tumble into the
empty bellyed passion
of a man with small hands
and an inability to say my name,
hoping I'll come across
my purpose for life
while drenched in his ***
Jul 3, 2017
Jul 3, 2017 at 12:32 PM UTC
Every morning when I am making tea,
I wish most fervently,
To become an electric KETTLE.
It most certainly won't matter to me,
I'll accept it most gracefully,
Be I of ceramic or METAL.
For one moment I'm dancing with glee,
The next sobbing most piteously,
These wretched hormones don't SETTLE.
Once I whistled so daintily,
Now I breathe so monstrously,
No longer a rose PETAL.
I may boil, then boil most furiously,
Then click off automatically,
Before I sting like NETTLE.
Splutter, bubble, gurgling I be,
Then cool and calm..so peacefully ,
There I ..in fine FETTLE!
Oct 11, 2016
Oct 11, 2016 at 9:48 AM UTC
Choke,
Cough
Splutter
Crash test pilot diving through clutter
My brakes dont work
But im running out of gas anyway
The pills dont work
But i drank all my water yesterday
Starved of thought
To hungry to thirst
Im feeling like today cannot get any worse
Jan 3, 2016
Jan 3, 2016 at 8:08 PM UTC
City slickers born to tumble
will never make your mountain rumble,
take me to the parts that matter
in amongst the titter tatter
the coffee table ilks and dramas
cotton caftans and silk pyjamas
humming cars that cough and splutter
silver coins lost in the gutter
tabloid men in sharp pressed suits
trample down the fallen fruits
nothing sacred in this old town
except a peptic ulcer and a furrowed frown.
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 11:55 PM UTC
Introduction
I stroll through green fields and realise I am home.
I bump against soft sandalwood: a fence –
And hang my head and weep
For Ginsberg, Whitman, and all the other cats clawing for tender acceptance
Strolling through ashen fields in rainbow night
Tugging on tender trestles of old mother crop of hair south
Casting to sky thine eye as black and white lights
Of rainbow night do fizzle and pop and – Oops!
Great incomparable fusion atom generator on the fritz
Once more the Centre of Cosmos choking and clouded with splutter.
As thine eye doth dissolve and revolve and resolve and see, from vantage point on high:
O Hell! O Eternal abyss of Chiaro-night, I am surrounded!
Thy Holy field lies cut and sliced by old tree corpses – lined up in terrible order by tender hand imbued
Thou might turn and run and screech impaled or whisp inhaled by gasping trees, by dying trees, by dead trees who breathe.
And spat upon the lawn whence thou were born,
No matter the crop nor scenery.
Jun 26, 2015
Jun 26, 2015 at 7:43 PM UTC
1.This wheelchair never was a River,
even when powered, it did splutter
yes, it's equivalent in movements,
listening silently it always sits out,
away from the flow to the ecstatic sea.
A wheel chair is a caricature of loneliness.
2.Ever tried to see it for what it really is?
"We don't remember, doesn't catches the eye"
Not like a chair of any other kind easily does,
A chair regal looks up, straight at the face
in the manner it demands what it wants,
"Let me tell you this, listen or leave"
3.A wheel chair keeps on looking at it's
arrested feet apologetically and sighs,
if you have an inner ear sensitive, hear this,
I am not even a chair, an apology
for movement,spoken in a voice stiffed.
It speaks incessantly, in a voice within itself,
wordless to a world, that has closed it's doors.
4.A wheelchair easily forgets things as
it can't keep bitterness alive always.
who cares to speak a few words to a wheelchair?
all it is to be done is push it in silence through aisles .
from a destination of pain to any other, slightly higher.
Stairs of every kind, for a wheelchair is a foreign land.
5.Yet in impeded wheelchairs moves many a dream,
broken before their time or crusted with force.
Or remains of a day, too long and busily spent.
On every wheelchair a heart adamantly beats,
"I would, I would" it beats with a rare grit.
Apr 17, 2017
Apr 17, 2017 at 9:44 AM UTC
Life is lik’n to lightning;
Like the mist it does pass;
Oh! What is life – this thing
That can ne’er for long last?
See the clouds near heaven;
See the dewdrops – like glass
Life is shattered, broken;
Oh! Life does go by fast!
Life, like the rose, a flower,
Quickly withers and fades;
Dries as passeth each hour;
The soul to heav’n or hades.
See the flick'ring candle,
Watch it splutter and cough.
Life, o thou brief candle,
At old age do not scoff!
Yet, ere life dims away,
Ere our souls to God go,
Make the best of our day,
Make a friend of our foe.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 3:28 AM UTC
Because the weatherman had forecast rain,
we all thought it'd be a pain
Thoughts of efforts going in vain
ran in our collective, clouded brain
Cough, gurgle, moan, splutter
my bike made such sounds in deep water
'neath my breath, I did mutter
God, please change me into an otter
Left and right, I twisted and turned
Acidic waters in my stomach churned
I wished that my office were adjourned
To take my raincoat was my lesson learned
Just when I thought that things won't get right
I got a chance to give a ride to Snow White
Day follows night; life has its seasons
Sometimes it rains for the right reasons
Nov 6, 2012
Nov 6, 2012 at 6:17 AM UTC
Sometimes your mother will look at you
like a dead language, some untranslatable
character. Speak anyway.
Sometimes your burning heart’s smoke signals
will make her weep and splutter,
or pass over her like incense, slightly
too sweet, and thick with silence.
Hand her an apple.
Know she might choke before she sees
the core.
Feed her anyway.
Sing your hymns with windows open
when the house is ablaze, do not
suffocate. Gasp through carbon,
remember who gave you your
stardust: you are
heavenly. Burning bibles
purges nothing, and screaming
into pillows
is not a prayer, precious girl.
Feb 16, 2014
Feb 16, 2014 at 10:01 PM UTC
Vile photos and sounds play on 'palace' walls;
mud in her fingernails form shapes of the night's sticky, grubby events-
a twisted, ****** Rorscharch-esque blot.
Knee-deep in grit and grime, soot on her feet,
she sludges on, puking night after night on assorted side-walks
with soaked, soily calves.
'Just pretty pictures' painted on a wall
show her a true reflection of her mind;
she seeks familiarity, hides/searches in them for herself.
In distorted jumbles, she looks for her kind.
The splayed stuff stutter and splutter
and stop and grind.
Insomnia and intoxication,
a victim of lack of inspiration-
life falls into a slow degradation.
Nothingness swallows all once more.
She thrusts against the shoddy shut doors
while the slimy sticky dross glues her shoes to gory floors.
-she trails off with a wince
at the hat man's scoff.
Foul filth fills the squalid air; and
sullied and smoky, sighing, she (s)tumbles
halfway to sleep.
Jul 21, 2014
Jul 21, 2014 at 12:45 PM UTC
No one has picked up for weeks. They are home, but no one has picked up. Not an email returned, nor a text acknowledged. I ****** up. I know. But why won't anyone, anyone answer me...
I can only contemplate so long in a dark room. My sulking is repetitive. I'm guilty. I admit it, and freely so. She died at my house, my party, my birthday, my drink.
Accident's happen. Can't anyone see that? Can't anyone see I'm not a murderer? Can't anyone just UNDERSTAND? All I want is for them to understand. All I've wanted is for someone to say okay, I get it. Is it so hard? I asked god. I've asked every waking moment with every twitch of my being if anyone could understand. I guess I know his answer. I guess silence is another word for no. For you don't deserve it. For **** YOU for trying. For get off the ground. For move on.
But I can't move on. I can't see over the lip of my hole. I can't move I'm prostrated here bound and gagged… by chains. My words have all escaped me. I can't even speak. I try to splutter a word and nothing happens. I can only think now, and even that is becoming beyond my ability. The disjointedness is enclosing.
I wish i could apologize. Just answer for me to apologize.
No?
No.
Oh well.
Ignorance is bliss, knowledge is power, and insanity is safety
Insanity is my true shelter the true zenith of insight. So I'll slip and I'll fall through the hole into the disease. At least its touch is awaiting; at least I will have warmth.
good morning...?
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 9:55 PM UTC
After ten years, she knocks on my door again.
I try to speak.
I want to say something,
anything,
but I cannot seem to find the words.
I didn't think I would,
or that I could,
feel this much.
All I can do is stare at this apparition of my childhood companion,
who now holds her own child in her arms.
With eyes wide and mouth agape, I finally manage to splutter out
"Welcome back."
Nov 7, 2017
Nov 7, 2017 at 7:32 PM UTC
3.00 am
Just before the sun rose
She doesnt remember if the sun set,even
Time was moving at the pace of clotted blood.
Hardly moving. Not moving.
She folded her hands behind her back.
Touched her indexes and stood.
She was stuck in the gilded cage
That her mind had spun.
She was free otherwise.
Rather, she felt a rush.
But there was something stopping her from moving an inch.
So she stood there.
Her cage. And her.
While the little droplets of sweat, and liquid dropped onto the back of her dress.
Small red flowers on a cream colour
What was done, was done
A lonely soul, in a dark night.
The big day was yet to come.
Choosing to bear the consequence
She stepped back into the crimson war zone
An organised chaos.
A sizzle. A splutter. A crack.
She sat next to her masterpiece.
A smooth stream had leaked.
'So much to clean up' she thought.
But nothing could match the high she was on now.
6am
The shop bell chimed
And she woke up,
The stream had covered her
Her visitor walked in and stared.
At the blur of human, red and knives.
'The buns are perfect Macy! '
'Are they? Well now I just need to fill them in with the jam.'
It was business as usual.
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 4:37 AM UTC
Aloof in the wind, perfectly poised to the sun.
Dressed in the disguise of men he’d seen in movies.
Waiting, in the wrinkles of leather jackets
Waiting, intoxicating scent of cigarettes
Hiding with teeth infested vines
Hiding, fingers meshed into the roots
Cowering, it can’t hide from a mind so sharp it wounds him
A disgusting entity , suffering.
Oozing, contorting to fit the eye of the beholder
Repulsive vines splutter bitter sap that once seemed so sweet to me
Oct 17, 2020
Oct 17, 2020 at 6:35 PM UTC
I saunter parallel to these pews,
dragging my fraying fingers along the tops.
Reaching for a wooden comfort, but
instead I’m pricked.
I shake the splinter and splutter the blood off.
Wearing my head high, I finish my descent
up the holy steps.
My mother stands,
stuck
looking past me and out the stained window,
letting it strike her into a silhouette.
The priest exclaims
New Beginnings!
My mother
matches his declaration two seconds too late.
My dad nods his head,
the final vote of the jury locked in.
With guilt and god on my side,
I take the holy plunge.
My head falls in,
harshly.
I’m aching for a numinous experience,
only to suffocate from the darkness
that comes with this reality
I will breathe into.
My head may be under the aquatic illusion of renewal
but my feet stay planted on the
fractured ground.
I am forced to look past the daze of illusion.
Because in the light
I can clearly see the greys left in our destruction.
I look back and my finger has bled
all over the back of this dress.
New Beginnings!
I exclaim,
with a red stain grained into my backside,
but an empty canvas in the front.
With my hair slicked back I hear a
mumble.
You look just like your mother,
And maybe I do
hold her eyes
but I can see
what she can not.
The graying dreams that my parents are dis alluded to.
Their skeletons in the attic or the
boxes of dresses in the basement,
even though today I wear one.
I will look at the destruction created behind us
and not walk with them.
Because in this holy light
her eyes bask and only look
chocolate at its best.
And in this dim shadow
mine shine like amber honey.
Mar 15, 2021
Mar 15, 2021 at 11:13 PM UTC
I can't stop this
Jittering of the wrists,
Maniacal half-splat
Splutterings of the gist.
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
Up and down again,
1 and, 2 and, 3 and
Works 'til measure ten.
I cut down time,
And do it once more;
1 and, 2 and, now chime,
Notes shatter on floor.
I splitter,
I splutter,
While Mister
Just mutters
My horrible,
Dreadful mistakes;
One more take,
So try it again.
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
Jee jee, eff eff, eeh,
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
See see, eff sharp, bee.
Ay, bee, ay-
F SHARP
SCREAMS THE OFT WRONG HARP
OF JITTERING FINGERS
AND PIANO FARTS ENRAGED
WHILE MOVING UP AND DOWN
WHITE AND BLACK KEYS
FURIOUSLY ENGAGED.
BUT CUT THE TIME
AND DO IT AGAIN.
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
Keep thumb under hand,
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
Though left hand's undermanned.
"More fingers, more,"
It sputters into the night,
While sore fingers, sore,
Start a whole new blight.
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
Now 4 and
Rest.
Everything is winding down,
Flushing away into soft,
Pianissimo serenades
Of sweet, sweet See-
BUT BEE FLAT
MAKES SEE RATS
EAT THEIR MOLDY FLESH,
BECAUSE BEE FLAT
TO SEE RAT
MAKES EVENING NOT SO FRESH.
Piano farts,
Just do it again.
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
Now 4 and
Rest;
Second time through
Makes it the best.
May 22, 2010
May 22, 2010 at 3:00 PM UTC
I’d **** to fall asleep
these ever sinking eyelids
break the black, the darkness parts.
Behind slits of light
reddening eyes weep
sitting moist, unnerving endings:
shards of vision ignite
swirling thoughts, impulsive pulses
of rapid electric sparks.
Sharpened spiralled contemplation:
daggers, knives of stimulation
emulating scythe like sweeps;
cutting spirals in the throat
I cough and splutter, mutter, choke.
What madness and envy lay
in the thrusting of hours passed.
She wouldn't let me fall away,
slump to slumbers thrown, alas
such beauty to demise,
roll down the blinds on rising skies.
Our crimson sheets grow ever-green;
her sunken body, lifeless, bare.
I imagine her final unbroken dream;
she finds this wealth, too hard to share.
Mar 20, 2014
Mar 20, 2014 at 8:04 PM UTC