"straws" poems
There were dividing lines
between Springfield
and Mariners Gate
soft, subtle lines
that spoke of origin
and code
and biting union
it was all
the reason
for being;
alive and living
dead or dying
deep in a pack
of pint size resistors
hell bent on the
marsh crow
and cannabis tower
jumping the rush
with *** shots
and anchors
and tribunals
camouflage creepers
and transient floaters
marked rebellion at the gates
(skullduggery and taunt
high on their favor list)
jack straws and flat paddles
for the evening charade
beakers and flailing hands
from the foot washing baptist
(the Pleasant Street conservatives with their
own something to say…“there’s gonna be hell to pay!”)
there's a
lingering effect
to this sentiment
(evident in the pump house stride)
the river winds
blow gently
into the night
as the huddling packers
and **** backs
chase the evening hours
it’s a bitter sweet
end of an era;
those traction bars
hood scoops
and nickel bags
will always
be the rage
Feb 21, 2017
Feb 21, 2017 at 11:13 PM UTC
death wants more death, and its webs are full:
I remember my father's garage, how child-like
I would brush the corpses of flies
from the windows they thought were escape-
their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies
shouting like dumb crazy dogs against the glass
only to spin and flit
in that second larger than hell or heaven
onto the edge of the ledge,
and then the spider from his dank hole
nervous and exposed
the puff of body swelling
hanging there
not really quite knowing,
and then knowing-
something sending it down its string,
the wet web,
toward the weak shield of buzzing,
the pulsing;
a last desperate moving hair-leg
there against the glass
there alive in the sun,
spun in white;
and almost like love:
the closing over,
the first hushed spider-sucking:
filling its sack
upon this thing that lived;
crouching there upon its back
drawing its certain blood
as the world goes by outside
and my temples scream
and I hurl the broom against them:
the spider dull with spider-anger
still thinking of its prey
and waving an amazed broken leg;
the fly very still,
a ***** speck stranded to straw;
I shake the killer loose
and he walks lame and peeved
towards some dark corner
but I intercept his dawdling
his crawling like some broken hero,
and the straws smash his legs
now waving
above his head
and looking
looking for the enemy
and somewhat valiant,
dying without apparent pain
simply crawling backward
piece by piece
leaving nothing there
until at last the red gut sack
splashes
its secrets,
and I run child-like
with God's anger a step behind,
back to simple sunlight,
wondering
as the world goes by
with curled smile
if anyone else
saw or sensed my crime
22.4k
This is the Last Straw –
and Something About Sacred Buckets of Holistic Ice Water
****** predators, human smugglers
Starvation in the Sudan, civil war
in Syria, mass executions in China
Journalists murdered almost everywhere
Fashionable infanticide, homelessness
Unemployment, urban terrorism
Mass ****** school shootings, wildfires, racism
An unstable national government
Anti-Semitism, border desperation
Riots, arson, ecclesiastical corruption
**** alcoholism, historical cleansing
Skinheads, abuse, Khardassianistas
Volcanos, the death penalty, free verse
Affluenza, Jerry Springer, The View
Herbal tea, antifa, anti-antifa
And the soul-sucking existential despair
Of inspirational singer-songwriters:
Nah, not a bit worried about plastic straws
But I must go now; The Voices are telling me
To pour a bucket of ice water over my head
(As long as it’s not a plastic bucket)
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 3:58 PM UTC
Waiting for spring to return this winter’s day.
Straining to touch warm breezes of the past.
Caught in this prison of gray and white.
Wishing to break these dark chains that hold me.
Remnants of fall, crumpled like brown paper on the ground.
Straws of pale brown growing up through the snow, ******* it dry.
Seeds and freeze dried fruit lay scattered about under trees.
Bare limbs and stalks drip with liquid glass.
Trees hanging bare, gray in lifelessness.
Winter birds call out, single in their pursuit of leftover meals.
Tracks of animals unknown dot the landscape with patchwork.
Waves of ridges etched in white lead off to nowhere.
Sparse, sun filled days bring brief glimpses of hope.
With the promise of warmth waiting to banish the cold
that holds me to my past and this existence;
waiting for spring to return and thaw this frozen heart.
Aug 20, 2012
Aug 20, 2012 at 9:29 PM UTC
somehow sweet in his want of no trouble, the unwashed man takes the door from your father and there they go hand in hand to the backyard where they wrestle as if hurts were people keeping them apart. your father’s jaw comes loose, the man’s ear seems held by too small a magnet. at window you a sickly child with overbite and a scarecrow’s pipe stroke the puppet corn hair of a sister’s doll and walk it cloud to defrosted cloud. amidst this bartering of vanished weight your mother is being made to balance on her bare stomach a glass of lemonade.
in three days the man will come back; your father a bit healed, your mother less angry about straws.
Jul 13, 2012
Jul 13, 2012 at 9:31 AM UTC
the boy outside the pizza place looked tired
and the way he smoked his cigarette wasn't seductive
it looked like he was clutching at straws to feel something
when he told me he liked my outfit
i wanted to stay, get to know him
but my mom hurried me along
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 8:17 PM UTC
I had a dream This
One time where you were
All up inside and I was
all upsidown at camp
and there was rain and baked challah
with hair and dirt inside, but hey
why argue with free food?
And you were feeling me, making my hair stand
On edge and taking your time
Even though an avalanche was ready to hit
Come, bury me in snow and leave me to die in
Ecstasy, come, throw me off a building and
Let me fall into your dark
Gaze but don't let my boyfriend know, I don't
Let the devil out to play when he's around.
Baby, your fingers were lightning, breath like
Cigarette smoke and can you do
The french inhale because I want to be hot
Hot for you, but not only you
Don't forget, I like to roam wild, test
How far I can get you to go.
Manipulative? Nay, ingenious.
But somehow, you end up on
Top, getting me to beg for more, beg for you
To allow me to come and seep through
And you laugh as I grasp at straws,
Smoke some **** boy, its how you feel alive
You're how I feel alive
Passion, pity, cause me pain
But just a little, I like to be handled rough
Hair pulls, slaps, punish me
I've been a bad girl, I've been naughty
Cheating on my boyfriend in my head with you and you're
EVERYTHING THAT HE ISN'T
And nothing that I want him to be, so let
My fantasy continue, see you in hell
You make all my muscles clench with just
A tiny graze of skin, a stupid
Text and I know you don't mean it
You just want some, trying to get down my pants, it's
A game to you
Maybe I want to play
**** I know I want to
Me, a girl like me
As if you could possibly
Hard, let me feel you
As you run your teeth down my
You, stoner boy, make me scream for
Can you make me feel?
Aug 20, 2012
Aug 20, 2012 at 11:48 PM UTC
When daisies pied and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!—O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!—O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
4k
Named for you alone
I call it 'Sugar Apples'
Green apple schnapps
and thimbles of a pink
pomegranate liqueur
add some **** tamarind
then sweet chilli sugar
before splashes of gin
to your taste and cry
Shaking in romance
and a lovely organic
cloudy apple juice
A pianist sings love
"*Moonlight slumbers
in your heart*..."
A rosy red jug full
to sweeten our kisses
sipped from each
carved sugar apple
through long straws
Where do I shake it
to cradle your heart
David x
Jul 18, 2010
Jul 18, 2010 at 11:51 AM UTC
How will we progress today?
Will we risk life attending Mosque,
Or have an affair with our spouse's boss?
Will we take the dog out for a walk,
Step on a landmine, use plastic straws?
Perhaps we'll play with our kids today,
Or call Amber Alert, wait scared, and pray?
Will we defy authority with a righteous tone,
Or leave our tail tucked, like a dog with his bone?
Will we gauge goods today for our Vegan menu,
Or show a distention as millions today do?
Will we drive around town for cheaper gas,
Or choose our pickings from picked-over trash?
Do you sling eggs and sausage for sub-minimum wages,
Or attend a visitation in a tortured MADD rage?
Will you tee off at eight, or do a spin class,
Or sit solitary watching the hourglass?
Did we place our script at the shiny drugstore,
Or wade across water to Jordan's fair shore?
Will we question the teacher at our kid's school,
Or play Avatar falling off our bar stool?
Did you set a reminder on your AI phone
For chicken delivery to your suburban home?
Will you lift copper tubing from construction sites,
Proclaiming your station in life gives you right?
Do I recline in my La-Z-Boy for a nap with a book,
Or teach someone to live with a line and a hook?
Will you take out your family,
Are you last on your list,
Will you reciprocate a handshake
Or raise a gloved fist?
Our words can't bind all our wounds,
Few are born with silver spoons,
We're not wrapped in silk cocoons.
A metamorphosis is coming
To this world of gloom,
A rousing group flight,
And it can't come too soon.
Feb 1, 2019
Feb 1, 2019 at 9:36 AM UTC
I
Half of the fellow father as he doubles
His sea-sucked Adam in the hollow hulk,
Half of the fellow mother as she dabbles
To-morrow's diver in her ***** milk,
Bisected shadows on the thunder's bone
Bolt for the salt unborn.
The fellow half was frozen as it bubbled
Corrosive spring out of the iceberg's crop,
The fellow seed and shadow as it babbled
The swing of milk was tufted in the pap,
For half of love was planted in the lost,
And the unplanted ghost.
The broken halves are fellowed in a *******
The crutch that marrow taps upon their sleep,
Limp in the street of sea, among the rabble
Of tide-tongued heads and bladders in the deep,
And stake the sleepers in the savage grave
That the vampire laugh.
The patchwork halves were cloven as they scudded
The wild pigs' wood, and slime upon the trees,
******* the dark, kissed on the cyanide,
And loosed the braiding adders from their hairs,
Rotating halves are horning as they drill
The arterial angel.
What colour is glory? death's feather? tremble
The halves that pierce the pin's point in the air,
And ***** the thumb-stained heaven through the thimble.
The ghost is dumb that stammered in the straw,
The ghost that hatched his havoc as he flew
Blinds their cloud-tracking eye.
II
My world is pyramid. The padded mummer
Weeps on the desert ochre and the salt
Incising summer.
My Egypt's armour buckling in its sheet,
I scrape through resin to a starry bone
And a blood parhelion.
My world is cypress, and an English valley.
I piece my flesh that rattled on the yards
Red in an Austrian volley.
I hear, through dead men's drums, the riddled lads,
******** their bowels from a hill of bones,
Cry Eloi to the guns.
My grave is watered by the crossing Jordan.
The Arctic scut, and basin of the South,
Drip on my dead house garden.
Who seek me landward, marking in my mouth
The straws of Asia, lose me as I turn
Through the Atlantic corn.
The fellow halves that, cloven as they swivel
On casting tides, are tangled in the shells,
Bearding the unborn devil,
Bleed from my burning fork and smell my heels.
The tongue's of heaven gossip as I glide
Binding my angel's hood.
Who blows death's feather? What glory is colour?
I blow the stammel feather in the vein.
The **** is glory in a working pallor.
My clay unsuckled and my salt unborn,
The secret child, I sift about the sea
Dry in the half-tracked thigh.
3.9k
On Lolham Brigs in wild and lonely mood
I’ve seen the winter floods their gambols play
Through each old arch that trembled while I stood
Bent o’er its wall to watch the dashing spray
As their old stations would be washed away
Crash came the ice against the jambs and then
A shudder jarred the arches—yet once more
It breasted raving waves and stood agen
To wait the shock as stubborn as before
—White foam brown crested with the russet soil
As washed from new plough lands would dart beneath
Then round and round a thousand eddies boil
On tother side—then pause as if for breath
One minute—and engulphed—like life in death
Whose wrecky stains dart on the floods away
More swift than shadows in a stormy day
Straws trail and turn and steady—all in vain
The engulfing arches shoot them quickly through
The feather dances flutters and again
Darts through the deepest dangers still afloat
Seeming as faireys whisked it from the view
And danced it o’er the waves as pleasures boat
Light hearted as a thought in May—
Trays—uptorn bushes—fence demolished rails
Loaded with weeds in sluggish motions stray
Like water monsters lost each winds and trails
Till near the arches—then as in affright
It plunges—reels—and shudders out of sight
Waves trough—rebound—and fury boil again
Like plunging monsters rising underneath
Who at the top curl up a shaggy main
A moment catching at a surer breath
Then plunging headlong down and down—and on
Each following boil the shadow of the last
And other monsters rise when those are gone
Crest their fringed waves—plunge onward and are past
—The chill air comes around me ocean blea
From bank to bank the waterstrife is spread
Strange birds like snow spots o’er the huzzing sea
Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled
On roars the flood—all restless to be free
Like trouble wandering to eternity
3.7k
Why did the sun not rise today
Why was the sky not bright today
Leaving darkness there to stay
I'm scared, dawn has not arrived today.
Or that my eyes are closed?
Unable to see
The straws I clutch are not enough
To replace the sense I've lost.
Craving imagery,
where there is none to be found.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 9:25 AM UTC
Green crooked straws
******* water from the ground
Supplying the leaves
The thorns
The petals
Helpful and delicate
The thorns
Taking
Not supplying
Anything
But blood
No beauty
Just pain
The petals
The flower
Beautiful
Colorful
Fragrant
The reason for the stem
For the thorns
The thorns protect
The stem provides
The flower blooms
Then the flower dies
The thorns once again
Useless
The stem
Preserving
Until the thorn’s time
Comes again
Apr 4, 2016
Apr 4, 2016 at 2:47 PM UTC
So many people into soft drinks think soda is soda
It’s a general subtle to that order
However, there is a feud going on between Sprite and Coke
It may sound like a joke
You might even choke
But to Sprite they have appeal
Then there’s Coke who feel they are for real
Pull out your straws and open a bottle of Coke and Sprite
Let the soda challenge begin
The texture of Sprite in the see thru glass with its lemon and lime
The Coke having its own ingredients with assorted flavor combined
However with every pour
It is the every soda fizz that is galore
Sprite says, “They have the taste that dazzles the mind”
Well Coke responds with, “We have been around since time”
The Coke’s story centered around some Poplar Bears
Well Sprite in that instance can’t compare
Sprite is determined to have the customer obey their thirst
That’s all that matters when doing it first
Well this challenge is really hard to say
But to this poet that is ok
Sprite and Coke both have good taste
Surely I am not going to spend time and make waste
So what if Sprite is clear and Coke is dark
Both have been around and made their mark
This soda challenge is done
It was a matter in thinking soft drink fun.
Mar 18, 2014
Mar 18, 2014 at 6:47 PM UTC
isn't it funny how someone
who never ever crosses your mind
could be thinking of you, obsessed
consumed with love, guilt, hatred,
consumed with thoughts of you
you try to hurt me, but you don't understand
you're a child, a nothing,
grasping at straws to try to
what exactly are you trying to do to me?
embarrass me? oh, child,
i've been through things you could never think of
i've been down, humiliated, stepped on
your foolish attempts to hurt me are
flattering because
you're reminding me that
whether for good reasons or bad,
you care about me.
and knowing that, you can never bring me down.
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 6:01 PM UTC
shared portions:
two straws in one
glass
a panini split in
(even) halves
one bowl of soup
twice as many spoons
smooth butter finely spread
over generous slices of bread
(still warm)
all begins
the moment one
of us says
"hi"
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 4:17 PM UTC
…thus riding on a memory-bicycle those people who used to go to pick up dry straws, grasses, twigs from the daily-wage of the squirrels are neither the husband of any wood nor the wife of any wood-apple … at the best they may be one page full of must-dos regarding keep-fit practice of one’s health…
around the grazing field of the night-gowns
in course of a long-journey by train one has to cross
so many grass-hopper-points
one-piece of life is this
in its daily hopping to pick up the pebbles of
which is the amplification of what
the bodies of all prose and poems are touched with
by the sunshine… by the wind… by the rain…by the water
it-may-be-for-you afternoon
is running
running
is the people after the office-break
running are the broken people
the sullen public
due to late-running of train
before the darkness sets in
on bare branches of the tree
clusters of crows
are running
forward steps of the return-home people
are running
many invitations has been remained
unattended … accumulating…
accumulating…
so much anger… many secret pains… tears…
the life is running
in the rows of the flying birds
the life is running
in the meat-houses…
in the shopping-malls…
in the churches…
in the wheat-fields…
running … running … running…
salad poetry and salsa-dance
are also running…
in the letters of the alphabet…
in the swarm of mosquitoes…
from William Shakespeare
to Rabindranath Thakur
the sky is running …
the air…
the sunlight…
Sep 8, 2010
Sep 8, 2010 at 6:47 AM UTC
infatuated with me
you became my biggest enemy
something insincere about how you wanted me
i was there to take the edge off
coke binges at the bar every other night
and you wonder why your hairline is moving backwards
you caused my mood to lose all stability then
crying for your attention
you were starving for us to look past your lack of personality
you didn't need a reality show
you needed a reality check
at the time you were 23
way too old for me
you were grasping at straws to be pretty
we can see the crow's feet setting in and your liver failing
no amount of jogging can bring back your peak
you're the biggest cliché
you go to emo night unironically
you said you saw yourself in me
we are not the same
remember you were a prom king
Aug 7, 2021
Aug 7, 2021 at 6:50 PM UTC
We run blind,
Hair blowing, arms flailing as
Blithe heart’s make a blind start
Into the sweet unknown.
Stop.
Taste the tangy so-its-sore,
Make-your-eyes-screw-up
More-than-your-contorted-face
Sweets.
Such as licorice sherbet straws.
Poor blind hearts.
Caught in the net of Time,
Sickly sweet now obsolete,
My heart starts to beat
Away from my running feet.
I don't like those straws no more.
Oct 11, 2010
Oct 11, 2010 at 11:05 AM UTC
My Strongest, My Weakest
My strength where it be my weakness
My weakness, it seems to be my strength
Alone on a bench of thoughts
Pulling out memories as straws
******* out the moments so I don't feel numb again
Waiting for the sun to shine
At night I look for the brighest star
At home I wait for the hour of glory
I write futuristic promising romantic stories
Searching and digging into the pit of opportunity
Grinding and drilling so I can find what the world has for me
Is the rock a diamond uncovered?
Is the diamond a rock long discovered?
What good am I in a hopeless world?
How strong am I to be still standing?
I have been blinded by pride and reputation
The chances flew right past me
This was my weakness
An illusion which seemed to appear as my power
Only to allude me and send me to the depths of hunger
How do I survive in this incessant famine
My strongest, my weakest
Is my prowess both a strength and a weakness
Is my power a fist that concentrates my potential,
filters all doubts and confusion,
then send me back to a writer's rhythm?
For the muscle of me, what is love?
For the scars on my back, do tears set a heart free?
On my back are scars which smymbolize the pain
The pain caused by those who have turned their backs on me
The muscle of me a solidified lump of heated chemistry
Chemistry broke for the vision was divided
For one side a poetic love affair
Another a fling of **** and ego boost
Lies lie hidden in a black book of truce
The tears shower and the pain overshadows,
and the lies fly out and the book burns
Nothing left but hurt, resentment, hunger and thirst
A chance of love comes again and again I am underrated
Shots that succeed lack poise and weight
I levitate onto the pillars of loneliness
The trial gives me cold but also clarity
A fool never unless my heart learns to jump again and I,
I will set it free.
Is this a mere cry due to weakness?
Is it a last strike so I can find my strength again?
All is revealed and I slip into a stream
I am on the prowl once more and I will never be the same.
But soon I will find, the lines that divide
Strength and Weakness
And the balance therein
I am in it and I search for the limit... The limit within the dimensions of existence's summit.
Dec 29, 2012
Dec 29, 2012 at 3:23 AM UTC
--I. M. Edward John Henley (1861-1898)
Where are the passions they essayed,
And where the tears they made to flow?
Where the wild humours they portrayed
For laughing worlds to see and know?
Othello's wrath and Juliet's woe?
Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall?
And Millamant and Romeo?
Into the night go one and all.
Where are the braveries, fresh or frayed?
The plumes, the armours--friend and foe?
The cloth of gold, the rare brocade,
The mantles glittering to and fro?
The pomp, the pride, the royal show?
The cries of war and festival?
The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow?
Into the night go one and all.
The curtain falls, the play is played:
The Beggar packs beside the Beau;
The Monarch troops, and troops the Maid;
The Thunder huddles with the Snow.
Where are the revellers high and low?
The clashing swords? The lover's call?
The dancers gleaming row on row?
Into the night go one and all.
Envoy
Prince, in one common overthrow
The Hero tumbles with the Thrall:
As dust that drives, as straws that blow,
Into the night go one and all.
2.6k
Scarecrow
Made of sticks and straw !
Certainly
It ain't I what scares ya !
--
Death do its own song
Got its own crew
It's own posse
Now
--
We watch
We see eachother
We laugh
Ha! Ha!..
..
Trying to ignore
Our own isolation
That which will
**** us in the end
--
Our poetry
Is just the wind
Soon to knock
The scarecrow down
--
And we fall down
Grasping for straws
Tryin to gather
One last dream
May 16, 2013
May 16, 2013 at 2:51 PM UTC