"tallow" poems
Here is the girl's head like an exhumed gourd.
Oval-faced, prune-skinned, prune-stones for teeth.
They unswaddled the wet fern of her hair
And made an exhibition of its coil,
Let the air at her leathery beauty.
Pash of tallow, perishable treasure:
Her broken nose is dark as a turf clod,
Her eyeholes blank as pools in the old workings.
Diodorus Siculus confessed
His gradual ease with the likes of this:
Murdered, forgotten, nameless, terrible
Beheaded girl, outstaring axe
And beatification, outstaring
What had begun to feel like reverence.
11.3k
The Sunday lamb cracks in its fat.
The fat
Sacrifices its opacity. . . .
A window, holy gold.
The fire makes it precious,
The same fire
Melting the tallow heretics,
Ousting the Jews.
Their thick palls float
Over the cicatrix of Poland, burnt-out
Germany.
They do not die.
Grey birds obsess my heart,
Mouth-ash, ash of eye.
They settle. On the high
Precipice
That emptied one man into space
The ovens glowed like heavens, incandescent.
It is a heart,
This holocaust I walk in,
O golden child the world will **** and eat.
8k
My heathen greeting for I am old now
Wildfowl whispered on marshland like maidens around burning fires,
The Norse winds breathing in my soul ‘Odin doth call’
Blood is the sweat of this iron sword; proud are war smiths
I watch the coal biter musing in blood damp earth,
Before a fire and smoke of tallow he dreams of war
Fill these horns to brim, for I shall drink to Odin’s law
And eat I this meal of bread oyster and mussel shell
I see heavens stained blood red clouds as we cross the rainbow crystal bridge, we shall enter Valhalla victorious once more,
Lo shall they bleed at shores blooded by iron the Saxons fall,
Raged fires shall consume their roof as thunder of north comes forth
You call us ****** that which pierces dark shadows,
We blow our horn in assembly before Odin warriors of the north
Settings suns shone red as quiet falls, serene I see Valhalla
the goat and mead hall, roasting beef and herring
I no longer fear drowning suns for the Valkyries sweet song I do hear
Freyja shall breathe my new reign at dawn
The old wars are over but our fight shall ne’er end,
─ Lo I see my father
ASPAR (Arnay Rumens) © 2013
Dec 29, 2014
Dec 29, 2014 at 7:40 AM UTC
abused aromas
fuse the dwelling
throats slacken and tighten
good cooking can make a home
a rooted clut of tallow
home
sweaty home
ignite another cigarette
scrape a fingernail on the sofa
a white grippy trail
scrunch your toes in the deep greasy carpet
and salivate on the wender of smoke
from the cooking of the roast
Dec 27, 2021
Dec 27, 2021 at 11:38 AM UTC
.
*Light hits my retina
through the prism of a tear,
distorted faces pass
with images fragmented
inside out
and the smell of tallow
as a candle splutters,
falters and winks out
for the wick collapses cruel
like a hamstrung dancer.
The tear exits stage left
and rolls down the wings
of a thoughtless cheek,
teeters on the brink of catastrophe
and falls upon a blank page,
reviewing its brief life
as a lazy metaphor,
so I look at the remaining solitary candle
and grieve for the lost tear,
as an understudy takes its place.*
© Pagan Paul (28/05/19)
May 28, 2019
May 28, 2019 at 7:34 AM UTC
The decorum of fire...
-- Pablo Neruda
We learned the decorum of fire,
the flame's curious symmetry,
the blue heat at the center of the thighs,
the flickering red of the hips,
& the tallow gold of the *******
lit from within
by the lantern in the ribs.
You tear yourself out of me
like a branch that longs to be grafted
onto a fruit tree,
peach & pear
crossed with each other,
fig & banana served on one plate,
the leaf & the luminous snail
that clings to it.
We learned that the tearing
could be a joining,
that the fire's flickering
could be a kindling,
that the old decorum of love--
to die into the poem,
leaving the lover lonely with her pen--
was all an ancient lie.
So we banished the evil eye:
you have to be unhappy to create;
you have to let love die before it writes;
you have to lose the joy to have the poem--
& we re-wrote our lives with fire.
See this manuscript covered
with flesh-colored words?
It was written in invisible ink
& held up to our flame.
The words darkened on the page
as we sank into each other.
We are ink & blood
& all things that make stains.
We turn each other golden as we turn,
browning each other's skins like suns.
Hold me up to the light;
you will see poems.
Hold me in the dark;
you will see light.
2.3k
Parsimony Antipathy or Prudent Hostility
Locked-up Cuspid Of the One Celled Organism
As the Augury tends to its Auspices oddities
One Weak Ordeal and your reward will be handsome
Ceteris paribus when Ockham’s blade gets dull
Get a loan from your Karma or come back as amoebae
Hearts won’t be practical until they’re unbreakable.
But if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
Sometime this week I’ll hang from the gallows
Every drip of the tallow brings closer the end
But I’ve got this imp secured in this bottle
And you can have him for a price less than a penny
Yeah, I’ve got a genie who’ll grant all your wishes
Just pay for this bottle and your family gets fed
But act fast, for soon I **** my last twitches
By this time tomorrow I could very well be dead
Salivating tadpoles for Hegemony crickets
All imprisoned here with this repressionist peasant
By a singular stroke into Jove’s black booklet
Lucidly errant, who hasn’t been flippant?
Clever Arachne, my love, oh thou immodest spider
All I ever wanted, she picked a fine time to leave us
My days squandered eavesdropping Apocalypse riders
But if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
Sometime this week I’ll hang from the gallows
Every drip of the tallow brings closer the end
But I’ve got this imp secured in this bottle
And you can have him for a price less than a penny
Yeah, I’ve got a genie who’ll grant all your wishes
Just pay for this bottle and your family gets fed
But act fast, for soon I **** my last twitches
By this time tomorrow I could very well be dead
Jan 2, 2013
Jan 2, 2013 at 11:29 AM UTC
We shall keep the poor poor.
We shall be on them like
a master's whip on the backs
of slaves; but they will not
know us: we are too far and
too near. We shall use the
patois of patriotism to patronize
them. We shall hide behind our
flags, while we hold only one pole.
We shall have the poor fight our
wars for us, and die for us; and
before they die, they will **** for
us, we hope, enough. In peace,
we shall piecemeal them, and serve
them meals made of toxins and tallow.
For their labor, we shall pay them
slave wages; and all that we give,
we shall take back, and more, by
monumental scandals that subside
like day's sun at eventide. We shall
be clever, as ever, circumspect and
surreptitious at all times. We shall
keep them deluded with the verisimilitude
of hope, but undermine always its
being. We shall infuse their lives
with fear and hate, playing one
race against another, one religion
against a brother's. Disaffection is
our key; but we must modulate our
efforts deftly, so the poor remain
frightened and angered, but always
blind and deaf and divided. And if,
perchance, one foments, we shall
seize the moment and drop his head
into his hands, even as he speaks.
This internecine brew we pour, there-
fore, into the poor to keep them drunk
enmity and incapacitation. Ah,
eternal anticipation! Bottoms up,
old chaps! We, those who rule,
shall have them always in our laps.
We are, as it were, their salvation.
Tod Howard Hawks
Jun 9, 2019
Jun 9, 2019 at 7:28 PM UTC
Tallow
The candle and I bear witness
to the long, lone, and restless night.
With a match, we bring ourselves to light
brilliant reminders of finer days past.
forced forth
out of love
not meant to last,
We complement each other in our fading vigilance,
twisting,
smoldering,
struggling
we fall,
exhausted or, dripping
We grow ever small.
Used,
they saw the one true answer,
and so it was
the only light.
No will,
no arms
with which to fight,
no rival to the endless stars, the all shared night
a sky that taught the world to dance.
Symbols of hope and knowledge
not brought into this world by chance.
To flicker and hiss or claim our right.
Wax sealed the deed and blinded our sight.
Born to burn and ever so fast.
Brilliant reminders of those finer days past,
wrought for a purpose,
understanding, it was never to last.
Illuminations are made,
in shadow we cast.
Those that sputter and waver,
gutter and wane,
flee before storms, slip from the reins.
Yet from us,
the lights still glow,
revealing the truths the Greats longed to know.
Some writhe .
Others twinkle
I smoke
and then fall
until there is nothing left
of us at all.
Here but once, and once alone
Is it just once, and all from a spark?
Our essence is , YEARNING
not Dawn, nor the Dark.
Feb 6, 2025
Feb 6, 2025 at 12:48 PM UTC
Thy tallow flame burns brighter than the rest, my love,
Warming the jealous heart within my breast, my love!
Thou art the envy of all lovers' lovers eyes,
Thy whim commands me unto thy behest, my love!
Arcadia proffers to thee her beauty throne
Where shepherdesses gather to attest, my love!
Wild winter plants her lilies over autumn crown,
Setting pure ice born crystals for thy crest, my love!
Yggdrasil bows and offers thee a fledgling branch,
A gnarlèd sceptre, life and spirit blessed, my love!
Erato guides old Argo unto Colchis bay,
Thy stately robes to fetch from hydras nest, my love!
All-seeing Delphi Oracles gaze heavenward,
To beg thy wisdom (or they lied and guessed), my love!
And I, your humble servant Tryst, declare to thee,
Thou art my sacred never-ending quest, my love!
Aug 31, 2015
Aug 31, 2015 at 6:38 PM UTC
Morning melts and dribbles
through the blinds,
where it rests
in molten puddles on the floor.
If you are very still
you can hear the tap...tap
of its fingers as it
tries to seep under the door.
Afternoon is a
pyroclastic lava flow...
devouring each bit of flesh,
******* the breath
from laboring lungs...
melting flesh into tallow
for the candles of night,
to be lit upon
the sacrificial altar
of your tongue.
Hide wherever you want -
go ahead, find a place.
Count to one hundred,
hands over hidden eyes;
childish giggles bubble
from your lips,
but it will find you,
no matter your disguise.
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 8:57 AM UTC
He stands
A silhouette against a lifeless flat expanse
His flaccid tallow-yellow hands clasped awkwardly across the rails
The skin is white beneath his nails
The fear beginning to ferment
His shallow-knuckled grip indicative of lunatic intent
Intent to finally insuate his end into the books
To compensate for all the awkward silence and dead looks
Insinuate himself amongst indifferent carbon molecules
His skin and sinew separate from all the inconsistencies
Immortalised in asphalt now
A martyr on the asphalt now
Away from death and listing eyes.
Jul 2, 2012
Jul 2, 2012 at 12:02 PM UTC
here mid the ripest, rawest thoughts
we touch the silk smooth skin of
luscious fruited feasts to come
my feet are barely placed to dance
such mischief needs in teasing taste -
that call of honeyed saffron sway
breeze blows the heady mix of
man and mate, full awed of now
on bed daubed sweet in midnight's stir
the blade awaits its stealthy move,
soft sighs, then powders space to dust
and, sighing low, we start to melt
our table set and scented tallow lit
stars gasp full argent paused applause,
we wait, anticipate.. and eat yet more
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 2:07 PM UTC
The cryptic mystic climbed the stairs to put fire to the lighthouse candle.
Two hundred circular winding steps to his nightly destination...lives hung in the balnce....you see the ships at sea clung desperately to the streaming beams of salvation......To guide them past the ragged reefs and jagged rocks.
The Cryptic mystic huffed and stumbled, and grunted as he mumbled " one hundred more to go".
For forty odd years, the mystical cryptic did dilligently climb to task as the setting sun did glow and bask the tower in fading light.
Preceeding dark and blinding nightfall.
Forty years and to the day or forty one I dont know which the crypic one was dutybound.
If he had only thought to look in the cellar there, he would have seen a light switch on the southern wall.
In the lantern two hundred feet,high a massive bulb hung high above the wick and tallow
And to this day,the old man makes the climb on creaky knees a penance paid pain.
A beam of hope for ship and scow still pierces blackest night as the cryptic one will still be found climbing up and hobbling down the winding staircase dutybound.
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 12:51 AM UTC
**Thinking her thoughts of mischief before
a Guy of the fifth, with bonfires bright
and works of flame to light the sky,
but Hallows eve starts, on the thirty-first night.
Faces in pumpkins, scooped out hollow
flickers from tallow, giving them life,
silhouette on the moon, she rides the night
in pointed hat, upon her broom.**
... ... ...
Jul 9, 2011
Jul 9, 2011 at 4:00 AM UTC
THOSE WHO RULE
We shall keep the poor poor.
We shall be on them like
a master’s whip on the backs
of slaves; but they will not
know us: we are too far and
too near. We shall use the
patois of patriotism to patronize
them. We shall hide behind our
flags while we hold only one pole.
We shall have the poor fight our
wars for us, and die for us; and
before they die, they will **** for
us, we hope, enough. In peace,
we shall piecemeal them and serve
them meals made of toxins and tallow.
For their labor, we shall pay them
slave wages; and all that we give,
we shall take back, and more, by
monumental scandals that subside
like day’s sun at eventide. We shall
be clever, as ever, circumspect and
surreptitious at all times. We shall
keep them deluded with the verisimilitude
of hope, but undermine always its
being. We shall infuse their lives
with fear and hate, playing one
race against another, one religion
against a brother’s. Disaffection is
our key; but we must modulate our
efforts deftly, so the poor remain
frightened and angered, and always
blind and deaf and divided. And if,
perchance, one foments, we shall
seize the moment and drop his head
into his hands, even as he speaks.
This internecine brew we pour, there-
fore, into the poor to keep them drunk
with enmity and incapacitation. Ah,
eternal anticipation! Bottoms up,
old chaps! We, those who rule,
shall have them always in our laps.
We are, as it were, their salvation.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jan 6, 2023
Jan 6, 2023 at 1:00 PM UTC
I don't know whether I should revile them
or revel in them.
Tucked/ perfect frame/
eyes that make me sick,
if only for lack of love.
empty but for lust/ it's a shame/
to think what love might have wrought
for these shapely circadian tallow hues.
Plastic is bought again.
Jul 3, 2011
Jul 3, 2011 at 9:46 PM UTC
Entertainment comes in many forms
One without Nielson ratings
presents daily shows
below the garage gutter
Weathered leather shoestring
strains under the weight
of unfilled feeder
long exposed to wind
and air until
it's original surface
contains only flecks
of it's original varnish
When filled, squares of suet cakes
fitted between wire grids
entice chickadees
early in the day
before nuthatches, wren
and downy woodpeckers
peck and feed on the
nut, corn and protein
snack. Bluejays struggle
without success to
hang sideways and gather
specks of nuts from the tallow.
Other large birds, cardinal
and red-bellied woodpecker
show-up the jay as they feed
with ease at the suet rack
Each day suet sinks
slowly descending until
little is found by
winged visitors
Begrudgingly he rises
from his chair, tramps to the
garage to find a new
insert for the feed box.
Hands, weathered like the
pine of the feeder
unpack the next cake
to refresh the lure
as the scenery of wild birds
return to their feeding
and refill his soul
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 12:38 PM UTC
We blew the brains out
of midnight
under a root beer sky
and followed the tawny
streetlights like a spindle on a B-side.
Ever effervescent
we tango on piano-key pavements
dancing like febrile bacchants
under a tallow moon.
And we might amble into
crepuscular philosophy
whilst alley dwellers
Do their best to stem
the global water shortage
and graffiti artists
sharpen their spray cans.
Inevitably we perambulate in to lamentations
ruminations on ************
over those we loved from afar
like jackdaws gawking at carrion
we just don’t put it in so many words.
Later we get home and ****
because once you’ve murdered midnight
and the doves come up
and dawn is born
it’s the only thing left
to
do.
Jun 26, 2015
Jun 26, 2015 at 12:20 PM UTC
Photograph by Michael J. Sullivan, 2010
Listen up, you little ***** and let me
teach you a thing or two. See this skull here,
poised and serene? How do you know it’s poised?
It’s dead, for Christ’s sake! The only thing it’s
poised on in the edge of this stump—“ye olde
dead tree” holding “ye old dead head.” He had
a name, you know—Yorick—I didn’t make
that up. I knew him; good friend of my mum’s.
This sword here could have been what ran him through,
you know. Coulda got him straight through the gut,
and you’re all sittin’ here admiring its
craftwork. It’s the fancy hilt, isn’t it,
the bright metal chasing its own tail in
golden loops. Warm yellow over cold steel,
that’s what you people like—spectacle, shine—
not dust and history, like Yorick over here.
You don’t mind if I smoke, do you? Only
thing these candles are good for, really. They’re
tallow—stinking, smoky fat made by Jen
on her weekends off. She doesn’t know much
about candles, but her Wench’s Special
Draft is the best mead made for this dung heap.
Anyway, I gotta piss. Leave Yorick
with your tips, and remember: what glitters
here isn’t gold, just paint over old age.
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 7:29 PM UTC
We shall keep the poor poor.
We shall be on them like
a master’s whip on the backs
of slaves; but they will not
know us: we are too far and
too near. We shall use the
patois of patriotism to patronize
them. We shall hide behind our
flags while we hold only one pole.
We shall have the poor fight our
wars for us, and die for us; and
before they die, they will **** for
us, we hope, enough. In peace,
we shall piecemeal them and serve
them meals made of toxins and tallow.
For their labor, we shall pay them
slave wages; and all that we give,
we shall take back, and more, by
monumental scandals that subside
like day’s sun at eventide. We shall
be clever, as ever, circumspect and
surreptitious at all times. We shall
keep them deluded with the verisimilitude
of hope, but undermine always its
being. We shall infuse their lives
with fear and hate, playing one
race against another, one religion
against a brother’s. Disaffection is
our key; but we must modulate our
efforts deftly, so the poor remain
frightened and angered, and always
blind and deaf and divided. And if,
perchance, one foments, we shall
seize the moment and drop his head
into his hands, even as he speaks.
This internecine brew we pour, there-
fore, into the poor to keep them drunk
with enmity and incapacitation. Ah,
eternal anticipation! Bottoms up,
old chaps! We, those who rule,
shall have them always in our laps.
We are, as it were, their salvation.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Dec 30, 2022
Dec 30, 2022 at 4:56 PM UTC
I knelt at an altar of tumors and severed feet,
begged contorted constellations
and unfeeling particles
for a minuscule breath of your luminous brutality,
for the terrible knowing you impart through fever dreams of the flesh.
sweetheart
you came to me
laughing venomous tides of fury and revulsion
forcing your unyielding fingers
into my open mouth,
gone slack with involuntary music;
a baby bird, warbling frenzied, desperate songs,
imploring eternity
for a taste of forbidden worms.
you split the winking aperture
between my thighs with effortless disdain
ate my animal sounds with your
massive hands and the slickness of your sulfured tongue,
murmured of filth and carrion,
poured monstrous poetry into the holes in my head,
until alpha and omega erupted
through my corrupted cells;
miraculous fetters
engineered to hold
sparks of God's fire in captive isolation.
shattered and coiled
round the smallest of your fingers,
slave to the fluids
humming through this
heap of tallow and sinews,
a spent marionette
imperfectly rendered by relentless obedience to the stars.
Jul 6, 2016
Jul 6, 2016 at 10:54 AM UTC
Doom laden
Light my way
With candle of blackest tallow
And flame of brightest white
I follow my nature
My gravitation
Without question
Godless and lawless
Out of the wild I came
Still wet and trembling
Hairless and bared to all
I lived off the fruit of the land
And open to the sky
As is the way of my kind
What did I know of fences?
Or of lines on a map
All I saw was plenty for all
I knew nothing of money
I knew only being fed and being hungry
So they called me thief
They called me savage
Doom laden
Light my way
With candle dripping tallow
And flame of dimmest red
With hesitation I follow
Stumbling and lost no doubt
Yet still I follow
By Phil Roberts
Dec 29, 2015
Dec 29, 2015 at 12:02 PM UTC
a curious pallor
in the tallow beneath my skin
strained of nutrients
drained of nerve signals
a cold dough of bruise yellow
expanding in blottings
spending
into a skimmed milk white
weened hollow in my desperate fasting
put myself into a 'gallow gasp'
heartbeat ? Quite undetectable
feigning death to evade a debt
but 'Shh !...'
(i'm just in a pale hibernation)
Jul 24, 2022
Jul 24, 2022 at 9:30 PM UTC
I always think of you this time of the night
When the moon glares down on my linen tomb
And a part of me feels hollow
I demummify myself and slog to the sink
Then gaze to the mirror and stare death in the face
Sunken peepers and tallow skin
So is the front of a hopeless romantic
I think about galumphing to your window
And my body longs for fulfillment
I limp silently in the moonlight
Along barren, windswept streets
To gaze upon your somnolent being
With my silhouette etched behind the curtain
I see you wake and quake with fear
My knees tremble as I nervously moan
To let me in and eat your brain
Jun 6, 2010
Jun 6, 2010 at 10:33 PM UTC