"squalor" poems
i felt like talking that night
reciting poetry to your big blue eyes
and raw pink mouth smiling
high as a wind whipped kite
discussing
art, ontology, and existentialism
sitting like lotus
at the
Cafe Figaro on McDougall st
in the west village
belly of a ghost
lost in a vagrant memory
afterwards
we went to a
little one bedroom flat in the east village
haunted by the vapors of its history
a slight stench of ****
and dingo tongue
dripping toilet
all peeling walls
intimating births, cheer and squalor
after a hot bath
of lathered torsos
we followrd each other naked
winding around a table
into a swaying bed
that beckoned
**** here my darlings
and i licked and drank out of your drenched
rose red blossom for hours
it licking back
I salvaged the loneliness
of my soul between your thighs
like a desolate dog whimpering
thanking God with every graze and ******
of your all supple shifting limbs
your company
your company
your sweet droplets
of company
in moon rise
summer balm
we looked in the mirror
reflecting on my glistening face
all red raspberry
my lips like blood hydras
laughing our ***** off at how artsy we looked
smeared
with your rouge painted thighs
appearing as if half eaten
you growled swallowed and
licked big butter piggy
till your nose ran like the Ganges
gagging
eyes bloodshot pools of fire
cooing and oowing
driving me maniacal
with every ****** of your wild flicking tongue
we poured our selves into each other
viscous creels gushing
coursing like slime silver
radiating
and finally used to the marrow
we found ourselves drooping sails
our eyelids leaden
the night mist fell upon us
muttering shadows
and our *** shriveled
like cast-off umbilici
and we fell to sleep
steep steep
buoyant
like two buttermilk clouds
adrift
your company
your company
your sweet droplets
of company
in moon rise
summer balm
Nov 28, 2017
Nov 28, 2017 at 1:50 PM UTC
On winter’s margin, see the small birds now
With half-forged memories come flocking home
To gardens famous for their charity.
The green globe’s broken; vines like tangled veins
Hang at the entrance to the silent wood.
With half a loaf, I am the prince of crumbs;
By snow’s down, the birds amassed will sing
Like children for their sire to walk abroad!
But what I love, is the gray stubborn hawk
Who floats alone beyond the frozen vines;
And what I dream of are the patient deer
Who stand on legs like reeds and drink that wind; -
They are what saves the world: who choose to grow
Thin to a starting point beyond this squalor.
8.4k
Rust downing like bayed menstrual blood--
booming steel walls...a rattling sanitation truck.
Housewarming...'the rough beast' in
fetal orbit...nay-toothed in squalor.
Whose gummy roar shall presage the
audacity of all places, that call forth
houses!!!
Oct 9, 2012
Oct 9, 2012 at 12:10 AM UTC
The stars try to shine
Down through indifferent clouds.
Her tears mix with rain
and water her path
defining the moments
Of forever.
Love is the fiercest part
of her being.
Though she struggles to
find it’s authenticity
Hiding her codes
behind barbwire and thorns.
Her hands are bloodstained
in the hours of time.
She is mysterious
With many latitudes
Calling from a different
Kind of universe.
Yet she walks that path of stones
Believing she is a different
Person than the one she leaves
on the trail .
Walking away from that
Hushed comfort of
understated majesty.
Hearing music amid
The squalor of verse
With strangers who love
among the poetic’s
of language.
I grow tired of the
Deep waters
I’m learning to navigate
the shallows
Where purring oratory
Captures me and leaves
Me spellbound beyond
All measures and time .
Mar 22, 2018
Mar 22, 2018 at 10:36 PM UTC
Now, the truth
Luke & Leia is this love
Thank God not the wrong kind
Siblings apart since birth
Together till the end of time
Darth vader concious
Dark, evil, twisted
Luring Luke innocent
No Luke! Don't do it!
Doesn't matter he's your Dad
Doesn't matter how sad
He doesn't give a hoot
Who on earth he shoots
Stormtrooper beware
Puppet of your master
You will be beaten big time
By a gorgeous little Ewok
Chewy & Han
You are the man
Milenium shoots them all
You saved the day
Kept Darth vader at bay
You saved our heros
Wicked
Poor Han solid
In some ungodly squalor
Not the nicest end
Certainly not Han Solo's plan
Geez George ... really ...
Tin & metal
R2, See threepio
Nitter natter chatter
Lots of friendly banter
Cuter than buttons
You just wanna hug em
Jedi Knight Yoda
Played his part of course
Strong in force
He helped the cause
Although he has passed over
Goodness wins in the end
Good force takes the flag
Mighty, Epic, Timeless
And gloriously mad
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 3:46 AM UTC
Through grain fields with bayonets fixed,
from Belleau Woods the Germans came.
The sixth Marines in shallow pits
unleashed a deadly metal rain.
The French collapsed upon the left
Their flank exposed by craven fear
The Marines held fast when urged to flee:
"Retreat?, Monsieur? We just got here."
By June the sixth, it fell to them
to take a Hill to save the French.
A German company with machine guns
waited for them, well entrenched.
Their tactics from another war,
Audacious yes, but not too clever
"Come on, you ******** Dan Daly roared,
"Do you really want to live forever?"
With casualties high, so many dead
The Marine Corps held the hill by night.
Counter attacks were fended off
some times with fists and K bar knife.
Now the cannon of both sides
rained steel where the combatants stood:
A once beautiful preserve of princes
was turned into a shattered wood.
Through mustard gas and cannon fire
The Marines advanced into the Wood.
Silenced machine guns and cut bared wire
till the enemy fled, this time for good.
Before the flag at Iwo flew,
Before the Canal's jungle squalor
Marines were nicknamed "Devil Dogs"
by the Germans who admired valor.
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 3:37 PM UTC
It's poisonous claws
scratching up from the inside
of my chest, they open
a path of lurid squalor
festering the internal wounds
with rotting meat
that spreads from within
to the skin that crawls
and dies, cell by cell
into the empty stale air
surrounding our conversation
The words float
from one breath to another
without ever really landing
to a precise spot
of connection
They just mimic meanings
and thoughtfulness
when they are void of any feelings
There is no spark of life
no life itself
denied to us
by the putrid scent
we ignore the existence of
No knowledge of pain
or reality
just a dull sense
of immortality
as we still
like the dust suspended
motion our lips without sense
nor sense of self
Corroding second by second
by second 'til we
become dust ourselves
Apr 25, 2022
Apr 25, 2022 at 8:53 AM UTC
There is nothing here
Not the façade of a façade
Can’t you see our idea fading?
We thought we were Hobbes’ Leviathan
The modern alchemists of state
We’re nothing more than rodents!
Scurrilous, maladapted membranes
Spewing from democracy forth
Ought they to encapsulate us?
They must needs encapsulate the naïve!
Whiling away at the trough as though livestock
I’m to be ground on the wheel regardless;
Nay, stretched on the rack of modernity!
By the comforts of progress and superficiality
Sought after as if vital
By the people, “We the people!”
Rallying cry for throngs, imprisoning themselves
With society, a subtle hocus pocus
The trite, aged argument
Of those who’d force you build your very tenement
Paying rent to breathe,
Countless yet believe
Tripartite consumer, greed and slavery
Surrounding you and me
Separating ignorance from squalor
In a ghetto of the mind
You're right, we're alright
Jul 28, 2010
Jul 28, 2010 at 9:11 PM UTC
we,
as potentially conscious beings,
do incur such fantastic Purgatory
and yet we seem
indeed so very keen
to choose to wallow in
vain and irksome squalor-
a comfortable yet blind stupor
when it comes to
the very real causality
wrought of our intention:
yes, you read right:
i said "potentially conscious."
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 7:25 AM UTC
*Squalor and affluence
Live off each other’s benevolence
Albeit unknowingly.*
Oct 16, 2014
Oct 16, 2014 at 5:02 AM UTC
You were amazing, I’d like to think so.
While you constantly scorned your finest poems
I’d squander on the disincentive ruins of a thoughtless mind
coaxing my envy to calm.
I longed to see what you saw and how you saw it.
You became the conquest,
the prize of my eyes, to affection’s surprise.
I started playing with words and sentences I had never read nor said before,
reading Plath and Baudelaire to join in your mind’s conversation.
Always striving to surpass your expectations of me, expecting nothing.
I gazed at you often, marveling at your squalor as if it held great significance.
Infatuated with your capricious mind, your pathetic whims, I craved for your approval.
For you, were the idol.
A far cry from the adolescent shell of a man that I cocooned in.
Jealousy would eventually consume me.
No manner of abuse or lust could explain
this psychotic affection towards your promiscuous apathy.
I started writing poems because of you, they were never any good,
I feared my crudity; you liked them all.
You always knew what they spoke of and I could never imagine yours.
But to you every opinion mattered.
The truth was still writing itself in your mind when you chose to fritter away
fornicating on all fours secretly, desperately, looking for the one.
Would you give it all up to write again?
I apologize for not telling you,
you were my first poem
I couldn’t impress you.
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 5:15 AM UTC
The coffee cups are *****
But it’s the cleanest way
To drink whiskey here.
The barman lost half his right fingers
To a wood chipper in his early 20’s
And spent the rest of his adult life
Flipping the world off.
He got it down to a fine art
By the time I showed up.
He didn’t smile when I ordered my drink.
He didn’t smile at all.
The jukebox hasn’t changed
For two stagnant decades
And most everyone but the regulars
Are too scared to use it.
It’s the same rotation
Of Elvis,
Muddy Waters,
BB King,
John Coltrane,
And early Bruce Springsteen.
Not a woman in sight
But every song is about them
And we are all here
Because of them.
Certain patches of carpet
Have not seen a crack of light
Since the Berlin Wall fell.
Nothing changes here but the customers-
And that change is incremental at best.
The same filthy etchings over
The same filthy cubicle doors.
The same Cherokee Indian
Smoking a Cuban Cigar
In the heartland of America.
I can’t find myself here
But there is no feeling of loss.
There is no profundity in anything here.
Just squalor
And enjoying one’s squalor.
I think that is what it means
To be truly happy.
Aug 17, 2018
Aug 17, 2018 at 5:24 AM UTC
What is it to be free in an unfree world?
Madness, as the only escape, is what I have chosen.
Madness in the sense of unrest,
Disavowal of the properties proscribing my actions
I smoke and drink to put off life
to ensnare nothingness with breath
and feel contingency take its hold on me
I want wine, furies and song to be my epitaph
and grasp at meaninglessness with two sweaty palms
I am not comfortable and never shall be
with this notion of decidedness and squalor of the mind
yet it is I
I know little of the great works and can hardly hold a pencil
This is where I meet myself, a worker, unfit for labor
exposed to existentialism and sick
I shudder, alone forever
Good things given to and wasted on me
I am death encapsulated
Apr 21, 2013
Apr 21, 2013 at 2:02 PM UTC
Ancient Athens
demonstrated a demise of democracy into despair and squalor
at the hands of the voters.
Ancient Rome
recounts a reduction of a Republic into nationalist rancor
at the hands of the state.
The United States of America
is a sort-of culmination of both;
of how a Democratic Republic may fail,
impoverishing and subjugating it's own
as well as it's proximity,
reducing itself and any it can drag with it
from a respectful idealization of Human Experience
to a bloodthirsty, greedy, vapid shell
of Fascisms past.
Nov 23, 2015
Nov 23, 2015 at 1:27 PM UTC
we did what we could that night
and a supernal being is ashamed.
this is the drift of thought
in the vast ocean of gilded gold
frothing at the edge of rotund:
giving back a silenced enigma,
spewing the answer in an exhaust
of white rancid smoke
dharma burns plastered to cigarette.
burning and burning, afloat are the high-pouncing embers looking for fleeting shades and dagger-ambulations
of a shadow's swagger in tectonic soiree.
we did what we could that night.
like a flash of lightning at the back
of hoarded hills,
or say, something brutal and brash with
modern sensibilities we never jell —
we come not with softness or life
peering out of our eyes like little girls
serenaded by mad men in the eve of
forlorn nights. we did what we could
and some god cringes, winces away
like the erratic dance of candleflame.
the leviathan black spreads its parasol
and we are no strangers.
when our veraciousness starts to pierce
the veil, the populace should start
to worry of their trapped conditions.
we came here for something:
be it flesh, be it wisdom, be it plain inebriations — we will never flinch
at the squalor of tomorrow's sobering.
keep in mind, kaibigan.
it's all levitation and transcendence.
the darkness wept as the car
groans near the end of its immaterial life.
i flick the last cigarette into the grey-faced pavement.
all oceans drowned,
all shadows burgeoned,
all fires emerged plump,
this silent radio rivers
through the wave of this ephemerality,
the onomatopoeia of strangeness,
the thud
of the senseless head of metal
on the body
the clackety-clack
of hours thereafter!
ayeayeaye! the streets sing no mild
appendage. the solstice is lost
in the length and precision of all things.
bringing ourselves to the brink of absence,
our pallid selves set ablaze, emblazoning
the quick life of matchflame or rumble of
thunder — the steady phoenix of
that night! this is learning
to breathe again, o, what currents purloined in vicious swarth as we keep
this river flowing into our throats,
jamming our souls to compelling music.
remember kaibigan,
it's all levitation and transcendence.
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 8:03 AM UTC
Today I battle
my own negativity
the dark side of
my moon
glowing cold
in the sear
of burns
those little
inflamed live
scars receiving
the salt
of tears
that I gather
in opaque blue
and indigo-hues
in the privacy
of the soft spaces
in the drawers
of my heart
little aches
that grow
as the hours
get smaller
little quakes
on low
in emotions'
faded squalor
and as I plunge
over that
spiritual abyss
draw in my
knees, let the
winds brush
my lips
in a mocking
lovers' kiss
and try to catch
that beating mass
as it bursts
right through
my chest,
in broken slips
of shattered
glass
I tell myself
in whispers
"No, warrioress!
This time
you will not
be destroyed"
and I fling
my heart,
so bruised
into the
burning,
golden
void
Jun 8, 2016
Jun 8, 2016 at 10:00 AM UTC
As i tip-toe through the violence of our steamed peaches
i'm at least speechless. a weak link-ness
in your valley. a thorn ! -
of unreasonable size. you vie for the deep regions
of our shallow demise,..
for thine is the kingdom of no Mercy !
yours is the thing that screws -
where the knot is trixy.
we forgot how our terrors nursed the oblivion of our kisses.
we forgot how to lie.
as i tip-toe through the two lips, like low hanging fruit to wax eloquent by...
i delight in speeches. in the thunderous hush of fairy wings in a hurricane
as i blend margaritas on the back porch of our squalor....
with a terrible blender. i'll toss in
the splinters of our tyranny.... how we waged war on innocent fallacies !
how we gathered our storms in the basement.
tripping over land mines
in the shape of human hearts.
YOU had your nerve.
and I had us both
blind.
as i tip-toe through the violence of our steamed peaches
i'm at least speechless, but yes ! i'm most ******
for mine is the kingdom that has no sun
but on Thursdays we have these banquets that starve you to death -
Right in front of Everybody !
you might get to talk about sport
but you're more game to wander off
from the insipid herd
to gather moss from dark pavilions.
you might nurse the ****
of **** all !!!!
but you'll be ****** if she's not there
to see it !
we have gardens that have no center. wild things in us.
believe.
Oct 2, 2013
Oct 2, 2013 at 7:51 AM UTC
Winter nomads
Reclined in a Maytag box
One after another, like Legos
Discarded “Hungry, Please Help” signs
Defines this squalor
Young or old, it shows no discriminating
Countless families, countless vets, countless children
Are lost to this
I am afraid to stare on their plight
Afraid of self-fulfilled prophecy
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 3:43 PM UTC
Zero One and modern blight
Travel at the speed of light.
We wondered on the Wandering Jew,
Or, in lieu,
Orthon, Urian or Lilitu.
We trepanned our empty skulls,
Searched our humours,
Were touched by Rulers!
Now troubling symptoms of want and need,
Have blighted growth of yesterseed.
Patient Zero left no lead.
East fingered West
(and vice versa)
Was Ireland really the cause of cholera?
Did Blacks languish in Tuskegee squalor?
We christened Mary, but drank the water.
Fracked Incubus and Succubus
From son and daughter.
Patient Zero left the slaughter.
We deprived women of their tea
To cure wandering womb hysteriae.
Deviances and leaking lesions
Were headwaters of women's *****
Patient Zero has no season.
The barber sensed it might be smell,
So our widened streets became a sulfurous hell.
And wastelands swelled
Where curled cats dwelled.
(no talk of Michelangelo)
II
Our children's blight has a techno name,
Like the rose, IT smells the same.
With zero tolerance I lay blame
On screens and phones and video games.
The world wide box stores flipped their lids,
Touching all who crawl the social grids;
From the base of Mammon's pyramid.
Now Jake believes he's a gangsta dude
Since posting whatever on You Tube.
Nothing to gain, nothing to lose:
No services rendered but expects what's due.
Inflated egos are a system symptom,
Clearing firewalls, reaching children.
Patient Zero is no phantom.
There is no tale of rat or flea
As cause of lost immunity.
There is no open sore to fester,
The Selfie is the X-ray picture.
Patient Zero is so much quicker.
In our gel of techno bliss,
On our elliptic petrie dish,
Bathed in more than we could wish,
Patient Zero will finish,
And with that whimper
All vanish.
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 8:53 AM UTC
Pardon me, sir.
May I borrow
your squalor
for a photograph?
I love
the repetition
of those wrinkles in your brow.
Hold it, please.
The contrast
of your brown skin
against the white plaster chipping
is marvelous.
When I
get them developed
I'll send you a print.
They'll look great in my portfolio.
Thank you
and your wife
and your eight kids
for this pose in poverty.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 19, 2019
Jun 19, 2019 at 10:03 AM UTC
They see us mesmerized
before the television screen
watching obscene celebrities
basking on the beaches
in the sun
having fun
sipping margaritas
with the pretty senoritas
and they realize the wool
is already pulled
over the eyes
of America’s bleating
sheep who sleep and dream
of Kardashian glory
forgetting the gory
reality of the children
dying from the missiles
flying overhead
beneath wings
of killer drones
launched from the home
of peace and prosperity
three thousand miles from
their dessert squalor
Jun 28, 2012
Jun 28, 2012 at 4:53 AM UTC
Kalifornia sub-let of the love set / squatting in squalor to dwell in splendor / Temporary Autonomous Zone ignites ignoble night / misfit labyrinth of fire / in dearth of **** the mirth of Death / coming to Crowleyan conclusions / smoking to get lit / the flaming maze, maiming, flays / demonology of **** vs. methodology of death / distinguished Burning Man, extinguished / idyls of the idols reduced to ash / Light My Fire / sitting shiva vs. dancing shiva / rave on
Dec 13, 2016
Dec 13, 2016 at 8:44 PM UTC
Another building jumps
into the terrain, its lights charge
the hollering in the barbershop.
I remember how you hated
those who defended the sanctity
of this place, now you stand there
alongside the protesting.
‘The renewal is eating-up
the neighborhood,’ you say,
‘this is our home,’ but this is no home
for rising. Even when they level
the derelict charm of tenements,
there will always remain those who yell
at the progress of things. You stand firm,
believing in the value of this place
and this life, and you will teach
our child to value the comforts
of squalor. You see me behind a counter
to feed our son, but I won’t see him,
bitter, or worse, in love with this
hole. I’m leaving, but you will always stay–
Fear is your life.
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 10:25 PM UTC
for me it's still the memory
of travelling on the no. 86 bus
to school, really
loving robert plant's song
darkness, darkness
and morning dew reading
voltaire - both songs from the
album dreamland -
a compensation for the last album
by led zeppelin having exhausted
their togetherness of stating something,
i don't know why i sided with
collecting the oeuvre of led zeppelin
and not black sabbath -
but still that bus journey that took
about an hour and two buses -
across cold crisp green belt, just sitting
there listening to music and reading
a book, while the same of rosa parks'
effort sat in the back (as usual) jabbering
like parrots and not stoic enough
to place all our supposed origins -
rosa parks, your effort became futile -
your kindred still preferred the back
of the bus, where they could get rowdy
with girls who'd not **** me, thanks,
i can't be bothered to live a white girl,
i'll stick to the art,
now i couldn't walk down a high street
eyeing shops' content holding her hand
without being too irritated and wishing
to run into a forest
and swim in fallen autumnal leaves
smelling the sweetness of death
where death sweet, the only sweetness
of death is among autumnal leaves fallen,
this strange Aphrodite, this
strange autumnal Aphrodite sea, this sea
of leaves, and i have, fallen into it
and swam in it in the brisk cool of night
when this sea is most porous to
secrete the perfume a dead body of a man
or fox could never do;
O the sweet scented dead sea of the
autumnal Aphrodite balding and shedding leaves,
to litter the forest floor, and me
slain in it nonetheless still living -
parisian perfumeries can hide and squalor in shame
compared to the odour of the autumnal Aphrodite sea
of dead leaves beneath the craniums of alveoli
sketches of the naked trees.
Mar 11, 2016
Mar 11, 2016 at 6:49 PM UTC