"swished" poems
It is only in the state of galvanization,
do I realize what it means to be impervious in youth.
I have a father who stresses to me this:
"Happiness is elusive."
This is the kind of statement that must be swished around in the mouth,
only to be spat back out.
"Happiness is elusive."
It is cause for concern,
really.
I will do my best in order to refuse to believe it,
to believe him.
Happiness is achieved through discovery.
I think that I may have once had a sister (in my recollection she was very pretty).
I was around her whenever it was deemed possible to do so -- it honestly wasn't too often that I could.
In the very nooks and crannies of my childhood,
if I could fall back unto the natural sublimity of it all;
I do recall that I had a sister.
Her features must have been youthful,
from what I remember she was no more than inexplicable.
If it were not so ambiguous,
I might feel more inclined to speak with her again some day.
The past is a scary thing.
I feel pain in thinking of the lengths behind me,
for what I have cultivated is sour.
Recently a good friend accused me of this:
"Being a recluse, spiteful, selfish person."
Her notion both confused and throttled me,
and only afterward did she speak in such a fervently aural tone:
"That is o.k., you're only human after all."
This is the very comment that sliced my being into a duality,
leaving me to write poetry in order to attempt to find higher acceptance.
Wisdom is a well, funny euphemism for delusion;
And in my youth I am impervious.
Apr 9, 2013
Apr 9, 2013 at 8:26 PM UTC
One night in the middle of summer,
I was given my favorite dream.
And in it, I was her;
the girl you'd think about when you sing.
I woke up, glazed in melancholy-
in sparkle juice sheen.
And I touched your bracelet to my lip,
the one I stole right before we kissed,
and when our mouths swished
dreamy washing machine.
Cleaned our inner depths of psyche,
anointed with love poison-
unable keep the thoughts of longing, dry,
strong desires are the knife
that cuts the girl from your cloth
the one you think about when you sing,
the one I think you like.
So shredded and clean I bound my lips to you,
I didn't stop until dreams came to life.
Jun 2, 2014
Jun 2, 2014 at 8:27 AM UTC
Stung by an angling fad
He took a fishing rod
And sallied onto the nearby stream
That leaped down a rocky shelf
Forming small cascades
But running down into plain ground
With a placid demure face
Uttering soft murmurs sweet
Aiming at the darting Trout
That made the still waters into spiraling whirls
He swished the rod in the air
With the alacrity of a practiced bowler
Looking at the line sinking low
He waited for the fish to nibble at the bait
Meanwhile, inhaling the salubrious air
And watching the limpid movement of the stream
As the hook line went taut in his grip
Hopefully he pulled it up
But alas! With no ***** to boast!
Patiently sat he there for hours
Like a sculptured God upon a rock
Oh! It requires immense patience
With adroitness to boot
To be an angler, no doubt
That sure is a sedate man’s pursuit!
Angling rarely fetches any major luck
Except now and then a fresh fish upon one’s plate
Yet following one’s heart’s pursuit
Is worth more than all tangible reward it brings!
Jun 8, 2016
Jun 8, 2016 at 12:14 PM UTC
Indiscreet Parakeets
*Lovesick parakeets,
Eager wicked fornicators,
climaxed with a shriek.*
Bat Trick
*This bat, wants to act,
Only in a position
Other species find
Hard to imitate.*
The Serpent's Last Chance
*Hissed aloud, in vein, none seemed impressed.
Swished around, **** it's polished marble floor.
Only makes miserable after all the false moves.
No escape route found after so much struggle.
Serpentine arrogance desperately seek a burrow,
Finding the lethal poison of King cobra useless.
In a situation too slippery to bite or frighten
He could only coil in dejection, pretending dead.*
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 6:01 AM UTC
Penny vase made from
the brown voided canyon rusting.
Friends that were made of waste,
they said time was simply turning,
the boat spoke back and said the depth of ones nature
could walk on water
But a deep voice
Was all that sprayed in pungent
aerosol and
displeasure.
Do we need to be on the same boat?
To drift into the beguiling surf?
Altogether
Better if we were dispersed
Dropped by the caving soft curve
Sliding through the unseen wash, watching your muddy glare.
Track the force in
blueberry motion
pulling and pushing us,
a sollen hand
and flying sleeve
The touch of flaunting fingertips and strings,
The fluttering wick
Swing and swished.
The chest of wonders beaming
Transmitting
a map
and lines like hay and wires
They were all exposed in the lines of her eyes
Maps
You frightened me that sleepy day
The dusted arsenal stick
Casted me on a rod made of hibiscus dew and syrup
A venomous hook that entangled my earrings
The push and her wave of desire,
Maps
To her treasure,
Reeled it now all over her wet webbed feet.
Caged,
Maps
and pressure
of the rocks falling against the time ticking
Hours away from the swaying shore.
Oct 18, 2018
Oct 18, 2018 at 8:56 AM UTC
In the backwaters, as waves lapped on a canoe violently rocking
we kissed; two eager lovers quickly turning in to winged creatures,
eyes shut, she crushed her malleable ******* against my chest,
we took this journey through the labyrinth of love leading to
the gallery of ****** artifacts, arranged in progression, in our minds.
Her lips swelled up and took mine so deftly in to their control,
and in some moment when our languid eyes opened unawares,
the kiss , a golden fish swished in to the water, gleefully swarm around,
the gathered backwater fish , viewed astonishingly this rare species.
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 12:08 PM UTC
Swamp Tigers
No matter the monsoon rains that swished the tall grass
In the rivers journey downstream through
tea bushes on a symmetrical hill where
baskets dangled on nun dressed heads
collecting two buds and a burst of beauty
for tea bags.
Hidden in the dense foliage
Semtec strapped to her belly
She walked from bush to bush unafraid.
She had died many times before.
When gathered around counting tables
Her mind tripped as a childs cry found her heart
and she pulled the umbilical cord to a bomb trigger.
and the muffled sound escaped
as the fifty mothers melted in the searing heat
and the factory flattened against the hillside
burning roasting tea and flesh together.
Deep in the jungle the Tiger growled
a low menace (of rejoicing?)
Other tamil tigers stalked the night in camouflage
jackets, strapping other mothers
to the savage sword of an enemy side.
Lost forever in the mayhem.
Author Notes
Its all over now. It happened once before the revolution faded against brutality.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 2:58 AM UTC
Ah, t'is dream is but so strange-o, strange, strange, strange!
And how an impediment, and a burden it is-to my brain!
O, I saw thee in t'is morn's dream,
So clearly and purely-just as I hath loved 'im.
Thou wert as adorable as thy picture canst be,
and upon gazing into thy posture-
t'at very strange feeling swished into me;
I felt it my mistake not to be close to thee;
To embrace thee and adore thee in my arms;
To cup thy cheeks with my round hands-and kiss thee;
Kiss thee so smoothly and lovingly for it shall take away all thy pains.
I woke up and looked for thee in vain;
I wanted to retreat into my dream,
And remove all the vagueness on thy face,
Whisper only the best loving words into thy air.
And to rub my palms about thy dark hair,
And assure thy hesitant, and dreary soul-t'at everything
shall be all right; and tomorrow shall be fair.
Ah, indeed-indeed; 'tis but indeed so strange!
For I thought not of thee before;
Thou wert not the one I wanted;
Nor the one my fertile heart adored.
Ah, thee! What is wrong then-with me?
Where hath all my hating feeling gone to-and hath it been for nothing?
Ah, canst but fate be true-t'at I am to be thine; and thou be my darling?
And in the adjacent minutes thereafter-I saw thee roamin' about alone;
Thy face clouded by dull loneliness-ah, seeing which indeed made my heart torn;
Thou wert too fatigued-very unlike thy usual bright complexion;
Thou wert indignant, and perhaps all too dark-and forlorn!
From thy face had faded all means of loveliness,
And thou wert mourning over such loneliness,
Loneliness t'at was evil-and haunted thee, and fiercely mocked thee;
Rendering thee agreeable not-much less deserving; of thy immortality.
Ah, thou art immortal, immortal, immortal! And how canst fate deem thee not?
How violent-how strange! How dire and petty-how impertinent!
Ah, but t'is feelin' really is absurd-in every way;
For hath I never thought of thee, and praised thee not;
Only at night and noon, thou hath oft' attended my poetry;
but still not my joy and woes, and even not my story plot.
Ah, thee! But t'is hope is dangerous-for I am supposed to hate thee;
As well defile, deject, ****** and abuse thee;
For I needst to despise, strangle, and destroy thee;
For I remember how thou wert once not sweet-and bitter to me;
And thus put the wholeness of thy being forever, into fires of struggle-
For thou art still-not the one I hath precisely been destined for;
For I hath not loved thee like t'is-for t'is feeling is all new; like never before.
Jun 15, 2013
Jun 15, 2013 at 6:50 AM UTC
his hair swished to the side
he flicked his fingers through his bangs
his eyes darted down to me
his hands exited his pockets
mine reached towards his face
"If you want me to make the first move, you're going to be up for a wait. You're half a head taller, I'm not growing six inches at this rate. . ."
so he holds my hands
he lowers himself down to me
his lips hover in front of mine
he flashes a smile
his hands drop mine and grab my waist
"This leaning down better be worth the back pain,"
He smirks and pulls me in
I laugh while my lips touch his
he dips me and spins me around
his height doesn't matter in the end
Because we will both end up on the ground
Jan 12, 2018
Jan 12, 2018 at 1:01 PM UTC
Your lips were
at the bottom
of the shot glass
in that dim
blue bar.
Disembodied.
Bluish pink,
and swimming as I swished
around the last
of my drink.
Usually when I drink
I try not to think about girls,
because I get depressed
easily.
You rub my body
in moving beads
and your lips
and the bluelight
are usually the last thing I remember.
Maybe if I
take a girl in the bathroom
and ********** her
on the sink
as the oil in her hair
greases the mirror
and the flies watch,
maybe I'll be able
to blur myself out,
and not even go back
to you
as you stagnate
in a blue glass
full of
blue fluid.
Dec 4, 2011
Dec 4, 2011 at 10:47 PM UTC
There was a place where a light wind blew
And swished away the leaves,
Pushing past the great, exposing the new,
Meandering through the trees.
A place where many trod but few could see.
Where all had been and come to pass
But more than often leave.
Considered by none, walked on by many,
This place was no ones first time,
A venue so guilty of mass interception,
Now a place that is momentarily mine.
Fingers sweetly stained, ripe for a licking,
Bushes bow to greet, the artist who is picking.
Carefully placed signs to protect outsider intrusions,
No handprints or footprints in sight.
All access not granted, made more appealing
By the unmasked blanket of night.
Bowed branches hung slightly,
Not tampered, cut or blown.
This dwelling reserved for nobodies pleasure,
Leaving the lost be unknown.
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 9:53 PM UTC
She strode the stage in swathes of silk
That swished in synchronicity
To the drum beat,
As in the heat
Her voice oozed electricity.
It coursed the room
With her perfume
In concert with those sultry tones,
Deep in the groove,
So velvet smooth
Like chocolate o'er the microphone.
All eyes were fixed
Upon that mix
Of swinging hips
And painted lips,
Her clientele a lust fuelled fire,
All whetted mouths and dark desire.
Yet in the midst of all those cheers,
The wolf whistles and sexist jeers,
She played her set of old school jazz
With elegance and pure pizzazz.
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 8:55 PM UTC
She opened my mouth
And began to throw all of her
***** things inside.
The collar of her shirt laced
With a smirk.
She filled my mouth with soap
The seat of her jeans between my teeth.
Normally she'd walk away
But today
She sat on top of me
My insides swished around & around
Thumping & bumbling around.
She closed my mouth and sat on my face.
A collection of all her ***** things
Coming clean
Including I,
Without need for a change dispenser
Jan 3, 2020
Jan 3, 2020 at 10:13 AM UTC
i loved
you in
pajamas
and royals
shirts, black lungs
and black tongues and
windy mornings heading
to the train while you pulled
me along behind yourself in a
fury of cigarette smoke and sea
water stored in your fingers
i never expected us to be
anything to be apple pie
and an i love you from
your mouth in your
grandma's living
room i was
content with the
bit of you in chicago
i had swished between
my teeth i did not want
those coffee shop
goodbyes
i did not want those
coffee shop goodbyes
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 12:54 AM UTC
The dragons lair
So deep and dark
So be careful not to stare
Or you may be dragged
Into the dragons lair.
When he drags you down
He wonders what to do
Should he cook you up?
Or cut you in two.
Should he cut you into pieces?
And stir you in a ***
He starts to grin
But you beg him to not.
Should he tie you to a wheel?
And spin you around
Should he grab you with his claws?
And smash you to the ground.
Should he burn you to crisp?
And blow you away
Or should he let you go?
And be on your way.
You finally open your mouth
And looked into the dragons lava red eyes
Then you say let me go and I have a surprise.
You smiled at the dragon
Then he smiled back
As soon as he put you down
You were on the attack.
You grabbed your sword
And swung and swished
But every last hit
You terribly missed.
The dreadful deadly dragon frowned
for you have betrayed him.
Then you thought in your mind
Your chances for survival were very very slim.
You then threw down your sword
then ran like an coward
But the entrance was blocked by the dragons dark wing
for it is your final hour
your death is all the dragon desired
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 2:55 PM UTC
His bag of accusing words was opened and ready her heart to fill.
Her swear about playing fairly by being in love was like a bitter pill.
A subject to change himself was his escape from her malefic mess
And all the power she used had the purpose to gain her own success.
She summoned a huntsman asking him to push the little Snow White
Into the woods, to stab her to death just in the middle of the night.
As a proof of the her death, he had to bring back her lungs and her liver.
‘Cause the queen wanted to cook, to eat them and to feel that shiver.
The girl was scared to death, when she saw him taking out his knife.
She convinced him to find, however, a good solution to spare her life.
After promising to run away and never to return from the forest's core,
She asked him to give the queen the liver and the lungs of a young boar.
She admired the accidental depth, with which the oak forest was draped,
She went quietly and very quickly, because from her death she escaped.
She stood for a second, while the breeze was flowing with her breath,
She heard the voice of her mother telling her the secret about life and death.
She heard the birds singing and she wanted to be like a little bird so much
Sitting under a huge mushroom's umbrella, she avoided the light's touch.
Like shining diamonds were the misty clouds above the oak wood's trees.
She stayed there for a while to enjoy the symphony of some honey bees.
However, the cold night time came to hold all her empty unwanted dreams,
While hallucinogenic horror images were there to catch all her bleeding screams.
She woke up, but the fog's confusion enshrouded the whole dawn's entrance.
In that forest, the mystery was cast in some strange fairy shapes by chance.
Dry huge branches hardly hit her and swished in her frightened ears,
She noticed that her wet clothes in the rain were mingled with tears.
Suddenly, she found a very little house in the middle of that forest.
It was well hidden and nicely surrounded by red flowers as a florist.
Apr 12, 2012
Apr 12, 2012 at 6:02 PM UTC
Far over the mumbling Mountains of Moan
Where blazing hot Firebirds are nurtured and flown,
Through silver veined canyons and mines filled with gold
By Dwarves in their halls seeking riches untold.
There lives by the side of a babbling brook,
Buried deep in the earth, in it's own special nook,
Underneath a quite small yet conspicuous knoll,
Hidden from prying eyes is the home of a Troll.
Alone in his cavern of amethyst ore,
He sleeps undisturbed with a grunt and a snore,
And makes the ground tremble with dream induced growls
That fly up with spit from his thick flapping jowls.
The floor all around is a sea of gnawed bones
Stained pink by the light from those crystalline stones,
That shimmer and sparkle like miniature storms
Left raging for aeons in mineral forms.
His slow beating heart sounds a deep thumping boom
That scythes through the half light and twinkling gloom,
By which, if you look in the cold that persists,
The Troll's heavy breath funnels up into mists.
A great iron club with its spots of rust red
Stands upright and ready close by to his bed,
The Troll's hairy fingers draped over his prize
To ****** at the hilt should the instant arise.
One beady eye open, the other shut fast,
Only the foolhardy would dare to creep past,
Wake him at your peril, no need to surmise,
You will meet a brutal and violent demise.
A wrinkled behemoth with rings through his nose,
The truth of his origin, nobody knows,
Some say Trolls were spawned at the dawn of the world
When primeval magics and such swished and swirled.
While others less fanciful look to the West
Where dark Elvish wizards in black arts invest,
The wrong incantation performed on a man
Is rumoured to be how the Troll race began.
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 7:56 PM UTC
I refuse to relate her to the sunrise and the sunset-
as there are already far too many things that remind me,
but I'll have you all know-
I think of her every single day.
This morning I bit my tongue in fear that maybe...
I am in love.
I thought that
there could be no other explanation
for why someone who isn't even present in my life
consistently
rips herself into my mind.
But that is only I shining light on her once again.
Like I've done so since we became friends.
No. I am not in love.
I am
I was betrayed.
And I have not
can not
forgive.
My trust began to vanish
when the hot air of her whispers
tickled my ears
and fear swished inside of them.
Her pleas for friendship
were seasoned with 1-up mushrooms,
and she always saw the bigger firework,
dreamt the more vivid dream,
had the better taste,
in self-righteous scream.
Love?
I politely decline your offer, miss.
I don't care to love you, miss.
For the last time
Goodnight.
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 10:29 AM UTC
There's ***** on the train ride home
and I'm sitting next to it.
It's not on purpose, of course.
Mind you though, I cannot say,
for sure, that it isn't mine.
Putrid, 2am wetness
rises into my nostrils.
From floor, this airborne form
lacks the blacked-out, bile-wine color,
but the stench more than makes up for it.
I'm in and out of consciousness.
"I'm just tired," I swear to the ticket-ticker,
"and my memory mind haunts me."
That's why I truly do not know
whose what this belongs to.
I should bag it and take it home.
With cooled hand on warm, glass cup,
gulp it down and let it simmer.
Chunked broth, swished bitter,
headached pieces puddled on the floor.
I'm not home yet, I've got an hour to go.
Seat reeks, I smell. Hands tremble and a girl laughs.
The train begins moving and I without it.
Can you taste the sickness?
I still do, my mouth fills out with it.
Dec 11, 2012
Dec 11, 2012 at 12:28 AM UTC
Inner Conflict
(deep growing inner sadness for society)
If I were ninety
I might think
It’s time to leave this world. And if
I thought I’d incarnate, re-incarnate,
Then I would hesitate
To have this wish
For just the reasons
Swished before,
Since this old world is goin’ to hell
In a ****** wheelbarrow, and
Who’d wish to stay here till tomorrow
Or come back to what’s to be?
Inner Conflict 6.27.2016
Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin
Jun 28, 2016
Jun 28, 2016 at 8:09 AM UTC
If we could escape this heat
I think we would.
With a choice of geography I could see us somewhere cold,
Somewhere where our hands couldn't touch
Anything but the inside of gloves
Where our hearts wouldn't break with our fevers
Because only our memories would know what it was
Like to always be so hot.
We would never sweat next to each other
We wouldn't dare to.
We would know that each bead that dripped down our brow
Would harden into a marble, and we would never
Throw those stones at one another.
Besides, we never be so close to one another anyway
Not with our layers of fabric hugging our bodies so tight
That we would eventually forget what was underneath
And only recognize the form of each other by the patterns on our jackets
We wouldn't see each other as anything other than
A pile of laundry.
The site of piled clothing would not remind of us nakedness
But of how it felt to lay as children
Underneath a freshly dried pile of garments.
How we would feel the warmth as good at first but were then
Deceived by a burning hot brass button
That puckered the skin on the back of our
Necks, of our legs.
We could remember heat as heartbreak in our
Memories and it would be too far erased to ever recreate.
We could live for the cold, the sharp air
That would still the boiling liquids in our veins
That once made our hearts beat too vulnerable to not be hurt.
Our core would adapt to the cold
And it would harden our hot feeling and small morsels
Of memories together like a bag of peas in a freezer.
We can’t be so hot.
Not you and me, not together.
Not with mouths so dry from each others
Our bodies would have to make water for us.
Not with heads so full of steaming blood that feelings melted and
Swished together in a liquid until they were no longer distinguishable
As real things and were often so misunderstood
We added more liquid dilutions
Until they filled our bodies too full
They spilled out of eyes and burnt our faces.
We should move somewhere cold
Where everything is too solid to connect anything
And too still to break our hearts.
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 6:07 PM UTC
It rained the whole of last night, dearest.
The banyan tree beyond my window
swished and swayed in the storm.
How bleak the wet luminance of my wait!
No streetlamp blinked
on the riddle of your returning trail
over the desolate stretches of the night.
My eyes stood sentinel,
the whole night, dearest,
for the faraway flicker of your torch
hurrying home...
Only fireflies wheeled lost and hopeless in the gale.
And there was lightning too, dearest—
white stallions carting the chariot of faceless shadows
down the valley of my gloom.
My-heart-leapt-at-each-thunderclap...
Did I hear,
muffled in its rumble,
your fumble at the gate,
knock at the door?
Dec 23, 2015
Dec 23, 2015 at 6:07 PM UTC
We had left early morning for sight of the phallus stone
Dragging our feet through the stones of ice mountains
Our horses plodded on with us some times and without,
Our behinds aching with their bony backs in contact.
Old men sat hunched up in two feet long wooden boxes
On young men's shoulders , latter feet dragging stones
The boxes felt like our old men's journey of no return
To a stone phallus to be bathed in tears in the snow hills
Where they will join a mountain stream and flow as river
To return to plains and land in the seas of their villages.
The mountains were cruel and beautiful to our tired feet
The horses zigzagged their way up with their droppings
Filling the cold air with a warm smell mixed with bodies
Their tails swished unending imaginary flies in behinds
As they were lost to their green dreams of the mountains.
Old men paddled all the way up in their wooden boxes
Crouched as in their mother's stomachs,with eyes shut
From their lips came muttering sounds like buzzing bees
That filled the empty silence of the hills in the morning.
It felt as if it was a return to where they had started out
Where this thing had begun, the sea of their first floating.
May 11, 2012
May 11, 2012 at 4:09 AM UTC
she had a yellow swing skirt on
and it swished and shown the sun
upon her pale white skin.
her lips tasted like fine wine
and it wished and won the sun
upon her teeth in sin.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 2:38 PM UTC