"teething" poems
Handbag~ 1994
exam timetable
£5 from my Mum
shiny key for the front door
fresh-mint chewing gum
Handbag~ 1998
keys for work
keys for home
£20 and a bit of change
photo of my best mate
and a bloke that's twice my age
lipstick~ lacy knickers
condoms~ ID card
ticket for a bus to town
UV sparkly stars
Handbag~ 1999
keys for work
keys for home
spare key for his flat
condoms~ contraceptive pills
No.7 powder-ivory/matt
VISA/Delta debit card
paper
gel ink pens
number of a bloke
who says our love
will never end
Handbag~ 2000
keys for work
keys for home
key for the gas meter
Teletubbies picture book
list of baby-sitters
new mobile phone
herbal teething gel
lipstick~ Anadin
vanilla impulse body spray
children's Nurofen
photo of my baby boy
really tiny socks
under-eye concealer
secret stash of chocs
Handbag~ 2002
keys for work
keys for home
pull-back-and-go car
baby wipes
mobile phone
estate agents' cards
picture of my little boy
list of things to do
Boots own brand pregnancy test
both windows coloured blue
Handbag~ 2005
keys for home
card from work
tissue full of tears
photo of my boy in school
that shows his gappy teeth
photo of my baby girl
and one of both of them
a ring that used to be my Mum's
Pro-Plus~ Diazepam
Handbag~ 2009
keys for work
keys for home
one SLIM~FAST bar
one Cadbury's wrapper
Haribo~ Calpol~ tissues
assorted Disney plasters
treasured stones~ special shells
sand and bits of twig
money to buy ice creams
photos of my kids
Oct 14, 2011
Oct 14, 2011 at 4:52 PM UTC
Ears pressed cool against
glass tables and vinyl flooring
words score high drained slowly
slow like wasps caught in guttered draining
not like velvet names etched in casing, but weathered like bricked and beaten graffiti –
Waning like wax always melting
Tools: spelling and grammar – uncheck
Don’t fret too many gerunds grounding air suffocating hearing between the lines that past lower truths out straight in dirt and stinky face: eyes drawn with pensive staring
lines drawn global remains of words unused: boycott form because it isn’t daring.
Adopt sonar because it traces the smokestack between eaves drop
and scrap metal hearing like thorns prickled cut by cleaver.
Clink, clink, clank.
Unlatch cellar doors of images fixed in meaning: glances slanted
heads poked out behind legs enchanting ink under eyelids.
Clank, click, click.
Wishing: Sunday morning came to rest and the cat perched rest without the windowsill and the space between my legs lost meaning.
Forgetting: Painted houses haunting furniture misplaced, training lessons in memory fading.
Dreaming: Sounds dipped in vegetable oil, Van Morrison in teething states caring.
Still lost without my last breathe wondering…
Mar 2, 2011
Mar 2, 2011 at 1:31 PM UTC
so i sit here
with a hole in my foot
with a hole in my head
with a hole in this book
with the hole in her eyes
when she gave me that look
with the hole in my face
when i saw what he took
the hole in my heart
i still don't know the crook
paper is just too easy to tear
and you think i'm easy
when you see i've been shook
i think i need a hook
now there's a hole in my stomach
and it's feeling tight and queezy as she ties
me up in knots of my poor esophagus
her knuckles white from squeezing
i breathing like a snake trying to shed
the desert sun is hot so
please lift this mask up off my head
i try to offer a white flag
but she kills me instead
cause she doesn't like the things
that she can't understand
and so she holds her fists like
they have holes in them
holds me like there are holes in me
cavities of ample opportunity
for punishment and further tearing, no tears,
none of this teething willful jeer
i'll split and rewire, i don't need old fears
i am only tired at best
the pieces did not defy gravity
they fell right out of my ****** chest
but landing is a skill you see
tear me apart for free and be my guest
ripping down the wallpaper
wrestling with the messes of stresses
no one will unremember
looking for the emotions
you desperately want to render
but while i'm still soft
i'm no longer tender
so remember when you enter that
no matter what the temper of the sender
or persuasion of the vendor
i will not surrender
to all these social mind benders
there is a hole in my flag
my blood is an involuntary badge
no more flags, white stains
too easily
Aug 12, 2013
Aug 12, 2013 at 2:07 AM UTC
NAKED BUS
She catches the London bus
in her fist.
Gnaws it...then throws it
through the window.
Lucky the window wasn't
closed.
She chews it when
teething.
Chews its redness
- off.
She is amazed to see
the real thing for the first time.
For her
her toy has grown into a giant.
Then she discovers double-deckers.
Counts: "One double-decker bus...two double-decker buses
...24 double decker buses!"
It is unbelievably so!
Doesn't know she is counting
the same bus twice!
And now to add to her
amazement she
encounters a green bus!
Will the excitement never end.
"The bus has changed its clothes?"
she says unsure that this can be so.
But now confounded by a bus
all in white!
Even we have never seen
a bus in white.
It looks like it has taken
all its clothes off.
A **** bus!
But to her it's worse
far worse than that!
"The bus has taken
it's skin off!"
She refuses to go on
this skinless bus.
We wait for a "normal"
bus to somehow appear.
And appear it does
busy being a red bus.
The world of buses
restored to its proper order.
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 5:07 PM UTC
I think that I shall never see
A thing as odd as eight baby
Eight baby from a single mother
Makes me roll my eyes- oh brother
Oh sister oh brother oh sister oh yeah
Mother looked like a Guernsey cow
Is there milk enough- I don't see how?
Eight colic'd infants wailing in the night-
Draw back, draw back- go fly a kite
Eight fitful babies screaming in duress-
Moved far away left no forwarding address
Eight poopy babies dragging two pound diapers
Went to the car wash and used the windshield wipers
Eight teething babies wrangling on the bed-
Picked up a gun and blew off her head.
Mar 10, 2010
Mar 10, 2010 at 9:49 AM UTC
On the twenty third of June, anniversary of my father’s death,
The United Kingdom voted to LEAVE the European Union.
It was a close-run thing:
Fifty two percent to forty eight,
Though over a million votes between.
A result that will go down in the annals of history.
Another vote the pollsters and bookmakers got wrong.
I voted Leave, confidently expecting to Lose!!!
My friends were split in two
As Remainers became ReMOANers!
For I’m now branded a nationalist, bigoted racist
Who has made a massive mistake.
But I insist: Britain has Rejoined the World
And Our Commonwealth.
We are reborn
So sure there will be teething troubles.
We’ll have to learn to walk and talk again.
Cast off your gloom, Remainers!
Rejoice the brand new day.
Britain can be great again
As the dawn chorus resonates around the globe.
Opportunity smiles down on us.
It won’t be easy,
But when ever was it so???
The Phoenix rises,
Unfurling its golden wings…
Paul Butters
© PB 27\6\2016.
Jun 27, 2016
Jun 27, 2016 at 6:10 AM UTC
It’s dusk
Lustful grapevines curl around my ankles
And I’m thankful it’s wine season, the pickers should be around shortly to save me
And bathe me in last year’s crop to scare the grape vines into submission
It’s a decision they have to make
Do they care about a perfect stranger enough to waste
Roads of trucks of crates of bottles of red velvet
Or white sunshine
Or do they allow this ensnarement and turn a blind eye whilst I sink
While thinking; pondering the fertility of the soil under my feet
I’ll wait for the pickers, just to see how they view me
And in the meantime the vines are spinning yarns around me
Crawling up my skin, holding me tight while telling me bed time stories
Once upon a time there was a vineyard struck by a drought
Caused by unrelenting calm, and clear blue skies with no clouds
And they resisted, rationed their water between them,
And it seemed then that everything was fine
The crop was harvested and won best wine, but failed to mention how many vines
Died in the making of their own blood
Morbid and dry, a pinot noir fashioned out of pain and scars
And tears in flesh, not human flesh, but the flesh of the landscape
I didn't smile
But it did make me sleepy
I couldn't fight their grasp
Addicted to their emotions
I let them take me down into their fertile ocean
And when the pickers came to discern the source of the screaming
A new grape vine had sprouted and was teething
Oct 16, 2012
Oct 16, 2012 at 2:19 PM UTC
teething on the knick in your lip, mind blinded.
seeping through dragonfly wings like syrup sunlight.
you emerge without an egg-tooth. draped in moist.
you loosen the nail in your coffin
with drowsy crowbars
and scones.
Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 3:49 PM UTC
it's all occupied with dark fumes of flatulence
the bus hanger
it's teething and earning a low ceilinged thrive
regularly cleaned the roof portal
with a large drooping eye
brags of blue sky
the coaches are idling
fretful to be burdened and go
elsewhere
the public urinals
there's a strong smell of iron
are the morning users dehydrated
malnourished or ill ?
i feel a little flated
elsewhere
in the waiting area
a neatly turned out teen
wants to give their seat to the infirm
does not and hurts inside averting
(a public act of courtesy
would after all be an embarrassing one)
attention back to the importance
my friend has ungreeted me
i have wished him ease
and he has passed between the cordons
amongst amiable cattle
he pauses at the authorities verification
who in turn
tails them to load up their luggage
and become their driver
- goodbye my friend
Feb 7, 2024
Feb 7, 2024 at 5:57 PM UTC
Do we notice the finer things in life? The husband's and wives, children that's been conceived! Thou and they are all thou needeth when thy roof springs its leak!
Sick
Wearied
Weak?
Looking in all the wrong places?
Itinerant in the stagnative imagination's
For don't even the mammals haveth a place to stay?
Like the son of man
I haveth no chapel
For this head to consecretly layeth!!!
Dog nights seem more teething!!!!
Vestige of all beauty
You've left that still life post,
Wherein thy mantra's I seeketh the most!!!
The I loveth thou's
And thou more....
Deluge of happiness
Covereth me
Bury me
In atmospheric condition,
Oh man didst thou not mention?
The plaques to ***** it's protract sorrow!!!!
Hath society made materialism
And the dollar sign
Their romantic gesture?
A pity to God
And me!!!!
Mobs of fleas
To calleth what they maketh
MANIFESTED TESTIMONIES!!!!
Wherein the frauds
Fakes
And phonies
Art thy t.v magnate stars!!!!!
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 6:17 PM UTC
1
The chards rising. Am I the praying bird?
In the gleaming sun my bones are negative,
My flesh a cypher walking through the plains
As ghost I move, my dark lord, above me
Flocks swirl and spike. I stand accused,
Your pointed face divining oblivion,
And no redemption in the rains of my
Cliff walk days.
2
I see my shroud pinning on the wires
His legs are razored forks spinning my
Compass from True North. Your dark brush-
Fire wings, the swept wind, wheels and strings
My fate. Such black rhetoric in a burn,
Your caws, loosed perches, on the stakes, picks
My crowning grave. Black dove, your feathers finger
As they slice.
3
Smoke, the cardinal blood caries my teething
Bone, spades my hand without a flight.
Taut, the pulled noose my hooded one
I see my scarecrow’s reflexion, the scar,
Let blood, the seeded droppings end trailed
To my door. Feathers, ferry to carry on
Dowsing downward, black knight of down, to sticks
On extended wings.
Jun 11, 2012
Jun 11, 2012 at 8:38 PM UTC
Maybe some doubt is exactly what I need;
the staleness may be temporary,
the hollow self-perceived.
I know being humble is exactly what I need;
forgetting who I have been
and seeing who I can be.
Maybe this monocracy is really what I need;
a self-governed dictatorship
that disqualifies my needs.
I hope feeling insecure is exactly what I need;
a push from behind will only make
a non-believer be believed.
But, maybe decision describes my every need;
without the aid of a constant bicker
and without putting off some heat.
I feel that this disclosure
of the real life I should lead,
may bring back the epic epicenters of things I can't believe.
But, maybe it's this doubt
that fringes the end of human being.
Or maybe its the chattering
of hate I've built while teething.
Or maybe its the "no one"
that stands beneath my feet.
Or maybe its the "no one"
that hovers over me.
This is doubt pure and true-
and I know it wants a piece of you.
Jul 20, 2010
Jul 20, 2010 at 1:38 AM UTC
Aches
From old mistakes
How foul have I been speaking?
Cracked smiles
From cavities
Causing a crevice in my teething
The price of penny candy
Is pain
Cheap sweets as artificial
As half-hearted attempts
To show love
Dove's chocolate boxes
Mean less
Harm than my intentions
Teeth missing
From grins
As grim as what I'm eating
Feb 27, 2014
Feb 27, 2014 at 2:10 PM UTC
Do we notice the finer things in life? The husband's and wives, children that's been conceived! Thou and they are all thou needeth when thy roof springs its leak!
Sick
Wearied
Weak?
Looking in all the wrong places?
Itinerant in the stagnative imagination's
For don't even the mammals haveth a place to stay?
Like the son of man
I haveth no chapel
For this head to consecretly layeth!!!
Dog nights seem more teething!!!!
Vestige of all beauty
You've left that still life post,
Wherein thy mantra's I seeketh the most!!!
The I loveth thou's
And thou more....
Deluge of happiness
Covereth me
Bury me
In atmospheric condition,
Oh man didst thou not mention?
The plaques to ***** it's protract sorrow!!!!
Hath society made materialism
And the dollar sign
Their romantic gesture?
A pity to God
And me!!!!
Mobs of fleas
To calleth what they maketh
MANIFESTED TESTIMONIES!!!!
Wherein the frauds
Fakes
And phonies
Art thy t.v magnate stars!!!!!
©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 5:33 PM UTC
among them, the lilies
you **** their froglegs and lavender
shades smelling of roses or
pond water
and you are teething again,
a child
sometimes with a pain so swelling
it shoots colored rockets
through your vein
the last that you could have,
snapped & floating
you do not feel anymore
hence the sinking of ships before
the draining of a lake before
killing lilies
that threaten you
more than arrows into your face
Nov 28, 2012
Nov 28, 2012 at 9:07 PM UTC
Wrapped round in swaddling clothes,
I saw her bright beaming face.
Lying helpless, still in a trance,
I sensed her soft soothing touch.
Warm it was when huddled tight,
Glad it was to be held close,
Pleasure it was to be lifted up,
And Heaven it was to be in her lap.
She took me in her gentle hands,
She fed me with her nourishing milk,
She made me sleep with lullabies sweet,
And kept alert on day and night.
As time slowly glided past,
I grew myself into a tiny tot.
Crawled around in sweeping haste,
Reaching out to all I could touch.
It left my mother so hardly pressed.
She never had even time to sit,
Cut down she, her afternoon nap,
Cast aside she her rest and respite.
My teething time – a real hard time!
For reasons none, I grew so irritable.
Itchy – fidgety, I cried on end,
Futile it went all her tricks to tame.
This made my mother grow jittery.
Consulted she every quack and doc,
Administered she every harmless dope,
And interceded to all divine help.
It was only a passing phase,
With consistent care, I grew to a buxom babe.
My childish pranks delighted all.
Too glad grew my mother to see me fare.
Soon I learnt to steady myself up,
The Toddler placed the first faltering step.
It was always with bated breath,
My mother watched my growing up.
She ever remained a pillar of strength,
In whom I saw a never failing friend.
She led me through the devious turns of life,
Always there to lend her helping hand.
In complex issues too hard to solve
Wise it was to seek her counsel
Sane and sound, she ever remained.
To trials of life, she never surrendered.
She taught me the quintessence of life,
She showed me the route to tread,
Her zest for life, never once cease,
Her trust in God ever on the rise
Now my mother ceases to exist,
But sure she will continue to live,
In my hearts domain, she reigns supreme.
No force on Earth can cast her out.
As I look back to days of yore,
All I wish is to conjure up the past,
To be reborn a second time,
To be my mother’s darling child!
May 8, 2016
May 8, 2016 at 5:46 AM UTC
sometimes I think
there might not be a tomorrow
so my time can't be wasted in any established institution.
whoops, there I go, wasting.
whoops, there goes the future.
band together,weird brothers.
a half assed attempt from one of us equates to a hundred ten percent from one of the others.
but what difference would it make?
there's like, a hundred million of them &
only one of me.
we're already snuffed out by the numbers.
so we throw ourselves off track; it's some what hypocritical - but hey -
at least we're following our hearts
or whatever *****
we think is the most vital.
simple existence is the biggest shame.
for the love of god.
you'll rot if you stay for the spindle,
drilling yer spiel & teething on the tiers, stagnating in the famous cesspools of shalott.
settle in, ferment to liquidity.
Imma just watch yall
waiting for the day
your stocking feet curl up &
die beneath the mortgage,
leaving the zirconia slippers
of a dream seeing red.
be clean
be neat
be nice
be right
be alive
& smile
but not too much.
that's the tell to tell em
something's up,
the specimen are not disrupted
or adapting to challenge
of being ******
with these conditions.
they appear to be happy.
too happy.
something's missing.
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 11:39 PM UTC
i'm sorry you find it necessary
to put other people's body parts
inside your mouth
like you're some teething mental infant,
or maybe you're trying to take the place
of the baby we're pretending never happened…
…fuck. i need a moment. .. …. …
ok.
anyway,
******* got you into this
so you think ******* will get you out?
it's ******* funny i have to flee the ******* country
to get free from your fingers' guilty grip
on a sad mind that can't ******* forgive himself,
on a mind muddied with so many mistakes
i get light-headed every ******* morning trying to decide
which regret to let ruin my day today,
but thank god you've always been there to remind me.
i thank that great guy in the sky
that you're always there
willing & ready
to rub it in.
maybe i just loved you too much,
i guess,
& you loved me just enough
so i'd still do favors for you
& god isn't that what Shakespeare was talking about?
we were rarely a well-written romance
but we ******* NAILED tragedy.
& i told you that first night
as we talked over
some movie i didn't care about
in some language i'll never learn,
that i ******* hated musicals….well
you must've read my subtitles
because you still sing inside my head sometimes.
Sep 7, 2012
Sep 7, 2012 at 2:45 PM UTC
this is my impossibility:
that I may still smell you
from the crevice of my curve
while the moon laughs at my folly
that I may still catch your laugh
through cracks in the pavement
this is the love of a patient
who knows not his disease
only the teething
this
is the difficulty
of breathing alone.
Feb 6, 2013
Feb 6, 2013 at 1:43 PM UTC
A little bite
A little bit different every time
In the bedroom
On the mat
All the scratching
knocking
kicking
pulling
And yes biting
Deep down inside
I know what you like
Know all the things you bite
I recall where it all started
I wash and scrub and brush and clean
The more I struggle, the more you bite
I want to make you stop
But you go for the next thing
And more...
Dec 30, 2014
Dec 30, 2014 at 12:08 PM UTC
Teething abdomen,
We've eaten ourselves into abundance!
And we're so very desolate,
Lonely,
Beside our digestive pile of excremental idioms.
I am God,
He said,
Then choked to death on a raisin.
God is subject to nothing!
Except raisins,
It would seem,
Then he woke,
God was having a dream.
I killed God,
It said,
As it sat snugly in the throat of God!
No figment of imagination,
Could make believe me,
It said,
Then poofed,
And became nonexistent.
No more late nights he said,
Then went to back to bed three days later,
And dreamed himself a woman to make love to,
And woke alone.
Apr 24, 2010
Apr 24, 2010 at 12:02 AM UTC
I believe in predestination like a hard cover
book lying open underneath a ceiling fan. I believe
in imagination unfettered like the wheels
of a bike kicking up rain. I believe in tasting
everything like the teething puppy chewing
all the furniture. I believe in arrangements
like the photographer with no camera. I believe
in impetus like the dry clump of dirt that erupts
into fine powder because of a little tension
in between your fingers. I believe in relevance
like the poetry addict who wants to ask Emily
Dickinson where she got her cardigan. I believe
in economy like Curiosity who found her way
home by following the trail of cat crumbs she left earlier.
I believe in complacency like the larkspur
in love with a promiscuous hummingbird.
I believe in delusion like the saxophone player
who can’t distinguish Carnegie Hall
from the subway station.
Aug 5, 2011
Aug 5, 2011 at 9:53 PM UTC
And so as a man, a job,
a cactus wearing a business suit sharing relations with the hydrant down the street.
A ***** strapped to a baby carriage with plastic baggie cellphones
yelling "run away now"
to the grass at his feet.
A man devoid of water, rather.
These are the times
A well, emptied.
Rather death
find waves of spilled milk and
all the fat people, skinny.
A dry mouth desert, kneeling
In either breath of a living feeling
or the one that talks of so much
for only the wealth of his screaming.
Some tiny furniture talked all night about running through wheat,
ebbing and flowing against the end tables,
then falling short as crumbling tree leaves.
An ottoman as recycle bin holding stem
from stem of watermelon children
and vine-ripened acetaminophen.
Some odd truth told the blowing wind that
God does cartwheels with Lucifer at random.
It then billowed out about
his ***** underwear and holy fodder for memorandum.
I would say a man, a vision,
A little girl using a GPS to calculate the distance from the rest her teething.
Instead, she found a funny barbeque ***** playing hog-tied pharmaceutical reps into neoprene
mud-flapping pigeons.
I would say the sinking plastic six-pack islands revealing trash limbs,
sunken,
honest,
grim.
Life, itself, must move in tandem to only fleeting geese.
Though in plan, the artisan-picking fruit of word must be depicted.
Live in sin and ignorance much like the
breaking news walking on broken record.
And so as a man; a fear.
He looked down, staring at no one
with bare feet and shaken, coconut flavored palm trees.
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 4:27 PM UTC
I don't know why my teeth,
Continuously seem to be preying
Upon my very own flesh:
Choking my words,
Devouring what I am saying.
I really can't control
Their spiteful, teasing tenses.
But it's starting to hurt:
My lip's swelling,
Alongside my senses.
Jan 4, 2011
Jan 4, 2011 at 2:54 PM UTC
Eventually
We all become believers
You will see
We all hit the gutters
And deceive
What we know
Into what we need
Feeding
On the hope
To cope
With the NO
Of every plea
Foiling
The gaping holes
While fruitlessly
Feathering dreams
Of ceasing
To be
Anywhere but there
Anywhere but here
Afraid and aware
Lying barren
On a hair
To everywhere
But where we want to be
Your everything
Believed in our belief
In our grieving
Of a meme
Obsolete and teething on a ***
Seething in seeing it
Unseamed
And undone
Unto nothing
Disconnected dots
Unlit
Breathing out
And away
From meaning
Slightly clinging
To the things
Believed
To Matter
Scattered over
The tattered matters
In meteor
Metaphors
Seeding
The other chapters
But not until after
Factoring in
The tractor beams
Of nothing
Just waiting
On the bottom
Of the gut
Crawling up
The throat lumps
And stuffing our luck
With all the succulent stuff
We are made of
Until eruptions
Of higher functions
Save us
From the ****
When enough
Is enough
And we just stop
Giving a ....
And let go
Blow after blow
Until we know
Who is in control
Of what is real
And what is
Made up
From atoms to the eave
Of our dreams
We must glean
What we need to
To get us through
These words
Of hurt
Out from lurking
In the work
Of our enemies
Forever tempting me
To blaspheme
In the wake
Of your passing
The endeavoring
Ever lasting
In careful mapping
Of the synapses
Collapsing
Into relief
Though brief
Locked in eternity
Oh the possibilities
My everything
And my humility
Locked in a single thought
In anxiety
Gone quietly
My hands before me
Steady
Always ready
Blanket me
In blank
Make me
Or break me
Take me
To forever
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 1:03 AM UTC