"stumps" poems
I wish they clipped
the wings off Icarus's back
before he took flight.
It would have been easier that way.
He could have stayed flightless,
some sort of meatsack
with little wax stumps
growing out of his back,
not unlike those of trees.
The story of Icarus
was not made to scare us
away from flying
too close to the sun.
The story of Icarus
was made to scare us
from flying at all.
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 12:48 PM UTC
Rodin: My love, I am on my knees facing your beautiful body. My mouth is drinking your fire. I ***** us in stone. We are indissoluble.
Camille: I am heaven and hell. I am goddess and fire. You are my chauvinistic art-boy concubine.
Rodin: My dear Camille, can you not see my love for you is rooted in passion not stone or clay or bronze? Can you not feel my tongue lapping at your feet?
Camille: Foolish man. My feet are broken. I walk over you on stumps.
Camille leaves for England. Rodin follows.
Camille: You are boring.
Rodin: My love, can you not see that I am in a depressed mood. Can you not see that your capriciousness plagues me?
Camille: I love another.
Rodin: How can you say these things to me? I give you my heart. I give you my soul. I give you my artistic genius!
Camille: You’re right. You are a genius.
Rodin: Shall I write us up a contract?
Camille: As long as you don’t touch me.
Camille and Rodin return to Paris separately.
Rodin: It has been written. I will mentor you, write you in newspapers, place you in museums, and find you buyers.
Camille: You will not love another? You will spurn all but my art?
Rodin: I will. And you will marry me in return.
Camille: …
Rodin: Is there something wrong, my love?
Camille: Can you not see I am being facetious?
Rodin: My dear, you are my flora and gaiety. You are my chisel and stone. You are my breath and lungs.
Camille: Learn how to breathe without me.
Camille exits. Rodin crumples at the feet of Eternelle Idole.
Rodin: What have I done wrong?
Camille re-enters, her hands caked in clay.
Camille: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Rodin: Shall I get the handcuffs?
Camille: No. The lion’s cage.
Strong tides and wet fuchsias. Camille enters the cage forever.
Mar 20, 2016
Mar 20, 2016 at 12:40 PM UTC
*rocks don't care
all stubble and stones
a difficult geometry
so if they don't fit
they are hammered
and
crushed to rubble
jammed together to make virile walls
and if stabbed with swords
care not about
torn bellies and broken necks
soaking them crimson rust
or drowned nautilus
beneath the sea
humans
have futility in common with rocks
except that everything
girds and gnaws
at their belligerent sensitivity
all clouded soft towers
bi-pedal mortal spires
with tender flesh
beaten into place
lacerated
truncated amputees
to fit the outer life
of status and statues
a scandal to the inner coves of self
I'm envious of rocks
except for moments of
shifting watery kisses
clamorous for love
we remain
disfigured terrains
hunters of souls balmy unguents
while
fluctious immolating moons
unravel
in a hidden grieving
oh countenance of apathy
only to be more like you
a wilderness of stumps
and
dead rock gods
and our aspiration
indifference
our exit
the path of the renunciate
a penitence
feasting only on futility
and the vagaries of spirit*
Nov 21, 2017
Nov 21, 2017 at 2:36 PM UTC
Everyone you have lost is gone forever.
If you try to call the dead, the phone won’t ring.
You won’t hear their voices.
The ground will shake like your wrists.
You will realize this sometime, when you’re in the bath and every nerve in your body is screaming at you to put your head under and count to a thousand.
You are more than a suicide note.
You are more than a suicide attempt.
You are more than cuts and bruises, and friends that abandon you and don’t even say hello in the hallways anymore.
People will leave you, daughter. People will leave you alone and shaking.
You’ll find solace in the most unexpected places, in the boys that look like they belong in the 1970s and in the vinyl that whispers to you while the sun is going down.
Eventually you will find the people that will bend the sky down to you so that you can touch the clouds.
They will become your motivation, they will become the glow in the dark stars on your bedroom ceiling.
You will forget that they are plastic, and often mistake them for the night’s sky.
Memories do not always hurt, it’s okay to be nostalgic but do not drown in it.
Do not drown in anything but love, daughter.
Love every leaf, every lover’s vein.
And every single time you think you’re going insane.
You’re not.
Remember that the door is always closed, but always easily opened.
Remember that you can leave.
Remember that you can take the next flight out, start a new life.
Remember that the world is in your piano hands.
You’ll meet someone and call them love because they don’t know the difference between the dull and sharp edge of a knife.
You’ll write poems.
Lots of them.
You’ll write enough poems to fill the walls in all of the rooms in all of the houses you have ever lived in.
You’ll scrawl them on the tree stumps you find temporary homes in while walking in the forest.
You’ll engrave them on someone’s bones after they tell you that they would rather die a thousand deaths than go a second without your energy warming their cheeks.
For every accomplishment, erase five shortcomings from your mind.
Be yourself before you forget who that is.
Be, daughter, be who you want to be;
Be who you know yourself to be.
When the world is sleeping on your shoulders at 4 in the morning, don’t wake it up.
Take a deep breath, rock the earth into a deeper sleep.
Tell the walls your secrets because they don’t whisper.
Don’t tell anyone with a tongue something you wouldn’t want to end up floating back out of their mouths like a catchy song.
When you’re standing up on stage, waiting to start your poem, do not avoid eye contact.
Make everyone nervous with your metaphors.
Make everyone nervous with your passion.
You are the strongest soul you’ll ever be.
And when I die, shall we not meet again,
Remember that I am your mother, daughter.
And mothers, always know best.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 10:24 AM UTC
i have fallen
between the stumps of the mango trees
to me their
leaves have become my umbrella
i sleep surrounded by dark soils
a typical shade of my mind
while watching each fruit bloom
green to a yellowish red
my skin starts to mold
its still a pretty site to have
seeing others shine
seeds of envy aren't planted in me anymore
cause i know
when their brown branches brake
from teach fruits gluttony
i will have company
by gobbling up
there's plenty of space
between the stumps of the mango trees
Dec 8, 2012
Dec 8, 2012 at 7:43 PM UTC
Winters can be tedious.
Sun dips into early dusk.
A dead fire refuses to ignite.
There's a quick repetition
of opening and closing blinds
over a barred window.
In need of reflection
I search a familiar face
in an unfamiliar landscape.
I have her in my grasp,
half illusion, half real,
a symbolic mask denies
her true face,
her glittering crown
divides us by its radiance.
Groping in darkness,
I stumble over objects
of wood and stone,
my unsteady tread tripping
over their contours.
I light a candle.
Bathed in amber light,
our shadows merge.
A new door opens,
stretching the perspective.
No formal borders here,
they wouldn't survive
the present climate.
In their place,
intricately carved
figureheads and totems-
a vision of the past.
My eye is a camera,
retinas branded with imagery
for the photographer's delight-
coloured pebbles, carved wooden animals,
tin cans, bones.....
....A Glass Sentinel
(though she isn't visible)
I can see right through her-
a vision of smokescreens
and subterfuge.
Past stumps of driftwood,
past the uncut grass,
a few flowers...
...to the fabricated backdrop
of a burning house, black smoke
rising
in
a
thin
stream.
At the open door -
The Guardian,
(I know her inside out)
unmoved,
(she didn't bat an eye)
defiant in a new skin,
a softer version-
The Mother protecting her children,
arms splayed, prepared
for fight or flight.
A russet flame
Licking her spine exhales
'Get out of my way!'
but she wasn't listening.
Smile fixed,
eyes of a phoenix,
a lion,
a raptor,
protector.
We all need feeding,
but not this way!
Throw me a cloth,
a napkin,
a man-size tissue
a lifeline!
She wanted this,
no, wished it-
this symbolism,
this burning of ironic portraits,
to clear the deck,
make way for new.
It shook the house,
its fate sealed behind closed doors.
I compose myself,
pull her back from the perilous edge,
gather her in my arms.
Fragments of shattered words
flutter in the ether.
What is real?
What is fiction?
A carbon copy of thousands?
A charred corner?
A forgotten candle?
WARNING:
'Eating fire' is a risky business
but can attract a large audience.
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 11:29 AM UTC
As one who's born in England
There is something I don't know
Exactly what is "cricket" ?
Please tell me so I'll go
Both teams dress in white
The bowler doesn't bowl
He doesn't bend his arm to throw
I don't understand the goal
The ball goes out it scores six runs
But it must go in the air
The ball rolls out it scores four more
Is this really fair?
The games can last for days and days
But what confuses me
Is that every game at four o'clock
The players stop for tea
A game is called a test
But is every test a game
some may last for just one day
The length is not the same
There's a throw they call a googly
I know what that means
I got hit there playing hockey
It ***** your breath so you can't scream
There's wickets and there's bails
mid slips, and those silly stumps
I'm sure that if it confuses me
What does it do to umps?
The biggest question that I have
Besides, what's a sticky wicket?
Is of all the players on the field
Which one of them's the cricket?
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 11:47 AM UTC
a passing balloon piece,
his, within in a message,
makes the imagery explode
with numerous contractions,
even confusions, and requires an
explaining explication and a fresh
application of sealant
men see the words ~ think war or football,
women think of the lyric, phrase in a sad
love ballad that means recall, and a
moistening tear drop that liquifies but doesn’t drop
but that word, pulverized, has an enormity
attached, that conjures destruction total,
s battlefield’s aftermath, tree stumps cut
down, synchronized with bodies in parts,
sole souls departing
without reasoning/justification
the lineage upon her face,
pulverized by sorrow and
no expectations for the morrow,
gaveled into existence,
by losses and carried
for a length of a term ill defined,
as “life”
with no hint of irony, for it’s not life
when it’s spent reminiscing remembering
the dismemberment of what was a
joy taken instantly and perpetually inexplicabe
the tragedies multicolored in black,
a solid stolid state that nary a meter,
talking centi’s here, pinch of breeze
and /or hurricane alters status quo,
both of us have long known that, but
we nonetheless pick up grains, single
alphabet scrambled pieces to put the
whole together again, but it’s a cause
hopeless cause we be
are
pulverized inside so
the chorded chore is
a double whammy
and still
and yet
we say
but,
for we cannot stop our fingers
from their appointed rounds
and we think in term not of hope
but a thought out louded,
the eternal question,
what if
we do not try?
Sep 30, 2024
Sep 30, 2024 at 10:18 AM UTC
i
a wee shaft of beam
across
a sea of chilly darkness:
dashing on, dashing long
a chain
of disturbing crispy waves.
a haunting pitch
of sirens, of winging gulls.
…then
a whistle in the dark
ii
i have bled.
and ever bleeding
is resurgence.
the stones are stained now
not all are stained yet.
but i can hold no more.
no more.
iii
to listen would have been enough
but spoke i
to deaf-mutes, clayey forms.
and every uttered little word
faded like receding undertone.
and then
conspiracy of silence,
misquotations,
sharing of once
too friendly shoulders.
a nod would have been enough,
or a pat,
or any like gesture;
they turned askance
and i fled… fled away.
iv
back to my chambered shell
back to my cradle
where there are many whispers.
and every fateful swing
of the pendulum
i reel and ride the wheel of fancy,
embrace false idols
like one fearful of his god
if only to escape the haunts
of conscience;
tremble at approaching footsteps,
shriek at every shadow.
v
i shall walk barefoot again
past leafless stumps
windborn, heated, and bowed,
‘cross an oasis grown desert dry,
past anthills now dunghills,
‘neath rapid flutter
of widespread murky wings,
past cliff edges
where resound pampered echoes,
while arched in deceitful hues
a rainbow.
…i scan the blue… i pause…
vi
i await a lily-white stork
or there shall be no curtain speech.
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 8:02 PM UTC
on one fine morning i found you sprouting from the ground,
a burst of pastel among wilted leaves and tree stumps,
i could not understand how you came
to grow in such barren lands.
i spent days sitting by you to study you—
the way you'd respond to my touch, to the sun,
i was never used to such beauty in my life.
i fell in love with the flowers on your fingertips,
the petals that fall from your eyelids
when you cry as the sun sets,
the way your hands are gentle and soft
when they rest on the small of my back,
and the lingering fragrance you leave behind
to cast a child of nature's spell on me.
and i promise,
i will do anything to keep you beautiful and alive,
i will water the lands around you
and protect you from the crushing steps of people
and the drought of this world's ways,
just please promise
you will never wilt and fade away.
Aug 12, 2016
Aug 12, 2016 at 12:21 PM UTC
Evening was in the wood, louring with storm.
A time of drought had ****** the weedy pool
And baked the channels; birds had done with song.
Thirst was a dream of fountains in the moon,
Or willow-music blown across the water
Leisurely sliding on by weir and mill.
Uneasy was the man who wandered, brooding,
His face a little whiter than the dusk.
A drone of sultry wings flicker'd in his head.
The end of sunset burning thro' the boughs
Died in a smear of red; exhausted hours
Cumber'd, and ugly sorrows hemmed him in.
He thought: 'Somewhere there's thunder,' as he strove
To shake off dread; he dared not look behind him,
But stood, the sweat of horror on his face.
He blunder'd down a path, trampling on thistles,
In sudden race to leave the ghostly trees.
And: 'Soon I'll be in open fields,' he thought,
And half remembered starlight on the meadows,
Scent of mown grass and voices of tired men,
Fading along the field-paths; home and sleep
And cool-swept upland spaces, whispering leaves,
And far off the long churring night-jar's note.
But something in the wood, trying to daunt him,
Led him confused in circles through the thicket.
He was forgetting his old wretched folly,
And freedom was his need; his throat was choking.
Barbed brambles gripped and clawed him round his legs,
And he floundered over snags and hidden stumps.
Mumbling: 'I will get out! I must get out!'
Butting and thrusting up the baffling gloom,
Pausing to listen in a space 'twixt thorns,
He peers around with peering, frantic eyes.
An evil creature in the twilight looping,
Flapped blindly in his face. Beating it off,
He screeched in terror, and straightway something clambered
Heavily from an oak, and dropped, bent double,
To shamble at him zigzag, squat and *******
Headlong he charges down the wood, and falls
With roaring brain--agony--the snap't spark--
And blots of green and purple in his eyes.
Then the slow fingers groping on his neck,
And at his heart the strangling clasp of death.
3.6k
There is a cage around my heart
Made of rose thorns
They do not touch the muscle
That thrums fearfully in my chest
But only because the proximity of the thorns
Make it too frightened to swell as large as it could
Or should
I am afraid to breathe
Or feel
Too deeply
For fear the thorns will lodge themselves inside my heart
And never let go.
My daily life is a practice in moderation
And careful measuring
Of how much I can breathe
Feel
Speak
My existence is a study in control
And management
How many breaths of ten does it take
To slow the frantic beating of my anxious heart
How many tapping fingers does it take
To quell the urge to drive my nails into the soft skin of my arms
Like the thorns that threaten the exhausted muscle I call my heart.
I am the product of war
Waged on my home soil
The forest has been burned to the ground
Leaving nothing but stumps
And burnt top soil
And thorns
There might be rosebuds somewhere
Among the thorns
But I am afraid to prune them away
They dig into the bones of my ribs
The top of my lungs
It would hurt if I cut them away.
It is said that burnt soil is the most fertile
But I don’t feel like I’m being re-born
I feel like I am nothing but burnt branches and scarred flesh and thorns
If I clean and trim and prune them away
There will be nothing left of me
Nothing of who I once was
Or who I might have become
Sometimes I cannot feel my heart beat
Beneath the cage of thorns
I am afraid I might have died
That my heart may have ceased to beat
While I was too busy being afraid.
Feb 11, 2014
Feb 11, 2014 at 5:57 PM UTC
I walked down alone Sunday after church
To the place where John has been cutting trees
To see for myself about the birch
He said I could have to bush my peas.
The sun in the new-cut narrow gap
Was hot enough for the first of May,
And stifling hot with the odor of sap
From stumps still bleeding their life away.
The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill
The minute they heard my step went still
To watch me and see what I came to get.
Birch boughs enough piled everywhere!—
All fresh and sound from the recent axe.
Time someone came with cart and pair
And got them off the wild flower’s backs.
They might be good for garden things
To curl a little finger round,
The same as you seize cat’s-cradle strings,
Small good to anything growing wild,
They were crooking many a trillium
That had budded before the boughs were piled
And since it was coming up had to come.
3k
I ask that you be heard, tossed about and dreamed of.
It is your thoughts, my upset energies, and nightly turbulence.
Sleep provokes night and life and darkness prevailing in us.
When we wake up we are gone as our night precedes dawn
It is always the other way, bottom up and spaces spread.
At times we hear the police van’s shrieks, in night’s iron grill.
I ask that you be heard, tossed about and dreamed of.
It is not always the stick beating the road in rhythmic silence
And olive-green overcoat with flapped pockets and heavy boots
And six months old large-sized memories of a Himalayan home
With black-lined large dove’s eyes flitting among coal fires
Their smoke towering over the pines in snow-bound peaks.
I ask that you be heard, tossed about and dreamed of.
It is the turbulence we are speaking of, in the foggy sea we are
Or on the peaks where everything is bound in fuzzy snow
At the mountain passes where vehicles duly pass oiled by hot tea
Or in the mist-filled airports where aircrafts do not take off
Of politicians who decide mankind’s future in the apocalypse.
I ask that you be heard, tossed about and dreamed of.
It is my dreams as they were and the neighbor’s dreams
In the straw-roof, in the banyan trees with glints in their eyes
And much fine-powdered dust on their thick –coated leaves,
In lonely watchmen’s houses on the bleak stony spaces
And lonely watchmen keeping vigilant eyes on boulders
Strewn in brown spaces and scraggy bushes with strange lizards.
I ask that you be heard, tossed about and dreamed of.
It is the towering tombs and the trees that enveloped them
The children playing cricket in flying bats and stone stumps
Outside the vaults where kings and queens lay dead for ages
Their cold breath felt on the broken glass of Time’s windows.
I ask that you, I and women play a game of kabaddi in the trees
When it is still not dark enough in the minarets in the west
And children are still hitting ***** visible in the green of the trees.
Jul 15, 2010
Jul 15, 2010 at 3:33 AM UTC
There is not much more than lunch of your poor soul's gut. That which has hidden your chase,
Be it the same flurry you face, or the chaste, widowed band of loons
Supplicate snail-movements, while wading through the stiff lagoon.
Everything must, while the fissures grow grumpy.
While the dust settles inwards and the cracks fill with stuffing.
The particle stands stiff, while each nursery cries.
A pitter-patter of rain drops lurch the birds forwards towards flight.
Say the gumption to roost was the dork lit and idling,
Each abortion towards space, kept the rocket from flying,
Like the cannonball sneering, or the whistle of men
The trial and tribulations of the miserly pens.
If be swore the moors, concrete beds shuffle the snores.
Unlike any trumpet of nose notes or horns.
How each curious grumbler failed the ewe of his flock.
Lil' crock lodgers counting sleep of each lot.
Who can practice commands, width that makes up a strake
In the morning the weir-men quaff each tea of their tastes.
Then comes to the rind, the hands each guided by eyes.
Stumps the bard of his nightshade in imported glass vials.
Show whomever the pleasure, the happy hell once began
Because under each gambit is the king of a lamb.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 5:10 AM UTC
Between the din of dusk and dawn
Runs Sleepy Pillow Lane,
Where gators guard the Gates of Thorn
And cryptid creatures reign.
They glide across the midnight sky
Like grime in sanguine sewers;
White canines long and talons drawn
Spike rodents on a skewer.
Gray giants glare from full-moon eyes,
A ghastly ghoulish spell;
Sweet sleepers swell the wells of Nile
While centaurs swing the bell.
Horned vipers writhe into your fears
Like scythes through strangled weeds;
And severed heads of angel hair
From shouldered stumps relieved.
A putrid pile of newly-deads
Awaits the devil's scorn;
And legless maggots gorge in beds
From which the fly is born.
Hungry hyenas howl in packs
While circling carrions crow;
And chunks of flesh are torn from backs
Cracking bones bare below.
Scavengers feast on man and beast,
No rotting limb is spared;
From hanging tongues to napping feet
Blood splatters everywhere.
Brimstone and thunder fill the air
With hail presaging doom;
Ten toothless witches shriek and cheer
As zombies creep from tombs.
Masked mummies stalk with stakes and stones
In search of sleeping heads;
They crave the skulls and living bones
Of bodies slumped in bed.
Through R.E.M. you toss and turn
And roll on restless wheels;
Alas Red Rooster blows his horn
To end your grim ordeal....
~ P
(January, 2013)
Jul 20, 2013
Jul 20, 2013 at 3:22 PM UTC
Past altered states tests postive and subtle
******* So and so's teeter Paleolithic après time puddles
And submit terrible philosphies
Ashy stubble ticks politics
and sacrafice to peer approval sacralige
Test probably appears stable
Top patriarch's able suddenly to
Pop above submerged tables possibly
After, something tests patience awkwardly
Stumps tarot practioners and *** testers poor application sterily
Topology plain, astrology scorpio
Torpedo power aptly strikes to pedal antlers sour
Take particular appointments
Stop testing please apply sorted
Terror power and sexless torn pigs
afterhours pen and store tips, plow.
Alter simians testosterone, pow!
As scientists type papers about sexing tasteless past alligator snouts
testing partly after science takes party alliance south to pawn army
subtle tipped passion. artsy.
Start these.
pick atoms smarmy
Tally past all sentences take pride
As stencils test pestilence. And sigh.
The previous alterations simply tried.
And didn't work, hence the present
Path lit incandescent.
I'm looking towards the east waiting for positivity to peak
You're turned backwards nostalgic for something that'll never come repeat.
May 18, 2010
May 18, 2010 at 5:02 PM UTC
"Gone to one’s Glory" so they say.
Where exactly is it that, if we’re all headed that way?
Let ’s ask around to see where and what people think Glory will be.
It might be one place for you and another for me.
Some people, view Glory as a place out beyond the blue, with pearly gates.
They imagine it will be like walking into a magical, nirvana escape.
"I am a restricted diabetic who must pass up the desserts that I like.
Glory for me would be a place like Food Network where I can indulge and delight, and never worry about an insulin spike"
"As an athlete who loves to train my body to the highest level of fitness
Glory for me would be a place of perpetual summer Olympics."
"I am an obese lady with a hundred pounds to lose.
Glory for me would be a place that receives all, even those as big as a caboose."
"As an amputee who lives with stumps
Glory for me would be a place where you get new legs, to run like Forrest Gump."
Winfrey, Bezos, Buffett, and Gates?
Have you discovered Glory here on earth?
"For me, an astronaut, who loves to travel in outer space
I would find Glory to be a place to encounter those outside of the human race."
Glory might not be as far away as some make it seem; we may be shocked!
Glory may be another town, another neighborhood or just around the block.
When ones we love go to their glory we moan and we grieve
But what if we’ve got it all wrong like most other things we believe?
Going to one’s Glory might just mean going on to achieving one's highest dreams
The ancestors described what they thought glory would be
Using their highest imaginations and creativity.
For us It may be imperative and the right time to change that old narrative
Glory might be one place for you and another place for me
In the meantime, in this life, let’s stay present, and be all that we can be.
Feb 9, 2019
Feb 9, 2019 at 9:15 PM UTC
Doctor and Mrs Granger
took Mrs Thrift to the zoo
she was captivated by the antics
of the Zambian gnu
Doctor Granger took a photo of her
outside the lion's cage
he instructed Mrs Thrift not to upset
the lion as he'd go into a rampage
Mrs Granger was going to make a cup of tea
for all of them on their return
but she couldn't boil the water
as there was no water for the urn
the electrical pump on the water storage tank
had blown up
so there was no water at the Granger compound
to fill the tea cups
as soon as I heard about the water pump
at the Granger compound
I phoned Major Rogers
to bring his electrical repair kit around
he took a little over an hour and a half
to fix the ailing pump
so we'd be able to have a cup tea
whilst sitting on the tree stumps
next week there will be a recess
from the Granger tale
as the writer is going to take care
of her mountain load of mail
she appreciates the many good reviews
of the Granger series
and thinks that the fans of the said series
are a lovely lot of old dearies
Jul 18, 2014
Jul 18, 2014 at 8:51 AM UTC
this is a poem about happiness.
this is also a poem about how great life is, see? here's a metaphor
comparing nature to the faultless
form of a pedastalized lover,
here's a description of the
effect of changes in air pressure
and localized temperature
fluctuations
on physical matter in a given area.
here's a bland truism that
anybody can relate to.
here's a couple rhyming stanzas
about the ethereal shifting of
connecting threads which
cause all life to dance upon
the cosmic stage like food poisoned marionettes.
here's an ode to the wrinkles of
my ******** and
the bits of fuzz that occasionally
find their home in my *****
here's a sonette to the drop outs
doing better than me
here's a dirge for the businessman
that hangs himself
and a jubilee for his widow
who earns nothing off his death
because he left his entire estate
to his catamite.
I'm writing a symphony in color,
notes of fermenting wood
dogshit and coffin dust.
the violas swoop and drone
the piccolos trill fast enough
to excise your gastrointestinal system
the barotone sax wheezes
and the timpani drum rumbles
(the flutes sit motionless because
**** flutes)
the pianists fingers are bleeding
hes banging with stumps now
his face contorted in ecstatic glee
as if the face of god has parted
the clouds just to scrape his gums
clean with his dietous ****
and lo faint is the whisper
which climbs and slithers
between the
false,
bash upon life with both hands.
here is life here is death
let me show your life
let me breathe your wretching
like squandered
like roots in the soil,
paint your everlasting cave drawing
in the face of your kitchen
and dance around a fire
let the embers lick your heels
til pagan viciousness overtakes
your quivering form.
gasp it in
Jun 20, 2014
Jun 20, 2014 at 2:47 AM UTC
Is it odd that I hate tree stumps?
I mean, really, is it just me?
Is there something wrong with me?
I walk past them on the roadside
And something seems to break free.
I feel tense and taut;
A green branch pulled tight
On the saw edge of a gardener’s knife,
Peeling back one fibre at a time.
I can’t stop it to save my life.
It makes my skin crawl
To see the corpse left jutting up
Like the last tooth of a diseased crone,
Like a tag on the skin of the earth,
A drying scab to make the mother moan.
Couldn’t they just dig it up,
Or is that too much to ask?
Not enough to slay the ancient tree,
But to leave it lying on the ground;
Like leaving the foot of an amputee.
It makes me so mad
That I wonder I don’t complain,
But then I know a letter will be ignored,
As the death of such a mighty sentinel
Is a thing our conscience can afford.
It’s not like it was alive…
But the sarcasm doesn’t matter,
And the funny looks I get while I weep
Sink like the teeth of a saw,
Cutting through the body at my feet.
Am I the only one who hates tree stumps?
May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015 at 5:03 AM UTC
The two nurses
strip me off
for a blanket bath,
said Grace,
I lay here on the bed,
my blind eyes
staring at blackness.
They lift each leg stump
and wash them gently
and with care;
they wash me where
only mother ever touched
when I was a child;
they wash me
with the warm water all over,
talking between themselves;
they talk of the bombing
the night before,
of the people brought in
from the raid;
of the many dead
who lay
in the mortuary now.
One talks of her night out
with her boyfriend
home on leave,
the other asks questions;
I fail to listen to.
I think of Clive
and the last time
we made love
in my bed
before he went off to fight
and was killed at Dunkirk,
and the night my house
was bombed and my maid
was killed and I lost my legs and sight
and thrown into this dark night.
They dry me gently
and dress my stumps again
and the put on my nightie.
They have gone
and I lay here
musing on Clive
and the man Philip
who came with Guy
and who talked to me
and promised
to take me out.
Why would he want
to go out with a legless,
blind woman?
And where
would we go?
He never said
and I may never know.
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018 at 3:14 AM UTC
Take me into the depths.
Show me the underwater beast,
the Leviathan, the oceanic Medusa,
the wet, slithering, Hydra.
Let me breathe in the sick algae,
and bury my eyes in floating sand.
Fill my lungs with coral and stone,
and grind my feed to stumps
so I never escape.
Bind my hands with a seaweed embrace,
and let me bite the fisherman's hook,
fool such that I am.
Worthless drifting piece of trash
cast into the ocean tides,
starved of affection,
and bitter in the world.
Drag me down into the depths
and leave me there
where I belong.
Aug 2, 2018
Aug 2, 2018 at 10:09 PM UTC
Is there one word that holds the power?
The breath created by humble lungs
The frequency resonating a once unheard ********* thrum
And cunningly shaped by a Loquacious tongue
To awaken the minds of the sleepers
Or is it emotion soothed by an ancient vibe
Of Universal Love
But what is Love?
Like a tender mother’s hug Found in the eye of your first friend
Before gazes averted strangers
And embraced the world by steady trust within
Separate tables pushed together
Greetings warm with heartfelt laughter
Everyone singing their own song
As a global chorus comes
On like a rushing blast of heat from the opened oven of love
Forward like the sea foam after the rip tide fades
Onward like the feathered wind, invisible
Yet its presence manifest in ethereal ways
The crescendo of 7 billion voices strong
The thumps of our brothers’ hearts beat out a mighty tune
Pounding the drum of a once deafened ear
The fiddlers from the forest meadow and the rushing of the leaves
Reminding us of our nature
As Oxygen consumers
And carbon dioxide providers
Have you heard the killing of trees?
No, but its seems to be all the Rage
Everywhere I go, seeing tree stumps line the way
Yet green grows evermore
Our living spirit chooses life
Because of darkness
The Light must shine
If I am You and You are Me and no one gets lost in-between
the cracks and the gaps of the sidewalks separated by all too distant train tracks
and the windows of the restaurant protecting the paying customer from the reality of the man
on the street corner
surviving the long night of the soul
Urban deserts, Moniless pits
Filled with human suffering
but human all the same
we are One
God
Different faces
Different Eyes
Different names
Wandering the Earth
Waiting to be saved
Or for those on top
maybe just judgment day
Sep 22, 2013
Sep 22, 2013 at 9:12 PM UTC
The Marshmallows decided to have a top Party
Dressed gaily in white, pink, red, green and yellow
They mingled and floated around looking arty-farty
We're going to dance in town not partying in a garage
And guess what, We won't invite Toffee he's not like us
Go melt and burn says Toffee with rightful disdain
who wants to party with a bunch of soft silly buffoons
Overblown and presumptuous you lot melt in the rain
Nothing to you all but egging and hot air you poltroon
Who wants to dance with mixed up softies with no brains
I am Toffee hot and hard and always ready for the bite
You can't lick me in a hurry and I take a while to crack
I am brown with brawn and brains and ready to fight
Got rhythm with the moves, tastes and flavours top whack
Not some boring twirls or stumps gathered together tight
Come try me if you dare and see me squash you down flat
I'll go into you hard your softness yielding like knife on butter
Can marsh you with my strength till you're nothing but mellow
Or stick to your puffy wooly state and squeeze you still flatter
Till you beg and squeal your surrender showing you're shallow
I am not like you and don't think, see, look or taste like you
I am brown and sweet, hard and chewy and I really don't care
For emulsified vain brainless no substance marshmallow tools
Who can only be brave and big when all packed together like
So go party and kid yourselves softies I don't party with fools
Sep 5, 2018
Sep 5, 2018 at 8:34 AM UTC