"thud" poems
The English vice,
Some Etonian curse –
Set down in grass
And purple verse,
Lavatory bred
With ransacked blood,
Skin slapping and
With a falling thud –
Takes boys at childhood,
Wishes them away,
With promises of popper fuelled buffets,
And poisons them with
Vice and virus red,
And sees them unmarried
Giving head.
I don’t regret a single thing I am,
I’ve tried it out
And can’t abide the sham –
I’ll **** men
And make them beg for more,
I’ll scrabble for their love upon the floor,
I’ll love men
And love will love me too,
I’ll love for love’s own sake
And when I’m through
I’ll die and I’ll be thankful that your hate
Never made me beg that I was straight.
Jul 31, 2014
Jul 31, 2014 at 6:01 PM UTC
A black crow's darting eyes
spans the wheat field
and an orange pumpkin patch.
She sees
tall grasses of brown
seedlings,
bristling in the wind,
soon to be bushels of grain
and a pumpkin pie that she never savored.
She sits, atop her tree perch,
at times warm and storybook,
hidden by tree branches,
and at times out of harm's way
and infamy.
Her friends, the sun, and clouds in concert,
dancing along.
Her other friends bring alms and smiles.
Life is so good at times.
Down the road sits a mill
next to a waterfall
and a cabin,
with reindeer horns
hanging above the doorway.
She is in her element, happy,
carrying for her nestlings.
Back and forth her parental eyes dart
the hilly fields, a smoked filled chimney, and her babies,
all crawling with sustenance and awe.
Storybook.
A mother feeding a worm to her baby.
Storybook.
Off to her side is not a blind eye
watching her,
scary stick figures of
straw tucked under red shirts and hats,
with a tied tinfoil strips dotting
her eyes and tease.
Scarecrows, cease.
At times life is good nature, hand in hand,
knock on wood.
If only life could be circumspect.
Than darkness filling the light
and a stutter of life.
For a sad page is turned,
pause
... tears.
Then, feathers fall.
Hers.
The sound of a thud.
Silence and tears of her friend's swelling.
A baby's cry, missing her mother.
More orphaned tears.
Who would be this despicable?
On that rogue day.
A kick of a donkey,
an ***
one bad rock on her path,
breaks the air,
as three little elementary kids were walking along
to school.
One, me, with a rock in his hand,
taking aim at her perch
and the death of the black crow's pages.
I confess.
... Bless me, Father, for I have sinned
it has been fifty years since
my last confession ...
a Tom Sawyer-like childhood gone worse.
I repent.
Some fifty years later I think of those first cairns,
including stealing the reindeer horns and milling
my brother and sister's storybook.
Waterfalls
stream tears, and a sorry boat
rowed downstream
sadly
thereafter.
Logan Robertson
7/25/2018
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 6:02 PM UTC
When clocks strike twelve and trainings end
— lurk not, they say, in school at night.
Age-old stories tell of how there’re
things that throng in fluorescent light.
In toilets silence screeches loud,
for when school’s empty, they arise:
Ghosts of pregnant girls lie wailing,
with cleaner-uncle poltergeists.
For now I sit on chilling white,
resounding prayers in my mind;
my heart racing with dire wish
a friend of Casper’s I won’t find —
Then eeeeeeek!
Is that a door creaking?
Perhaps it stemmed from my own mind,
Hinges sing as they fly open!
Thou who entered, oh be my kind!
A thud thud thud as shoes traverse
across the glinting marble floor;
and louder,
louder as they get
much nearer to my sacred door!
THEN SILENCE
or so I wish!
But a loud knock takes my breath away.
The unlatched bolt lies there lazing
HOW’D I FORGET TO LOCK TODAY?
A hand thrusts in so hard and swift,
door’s open ‘fore I can react!
I’m facing now a girl my age,
She bawls at me with little tact —
Eyes bloodshot and tummy bloated,
“YOU DISGUSTING PIG! HOW DARE YE?!”
I dash out of the girls’ toilet
before she tries to castrate me.
Sep 6, 2014
Sep 6, 2014 at 12:19 PM UTC
There are no right answers.
The sky rejects the birds, turns them
over to gravity,
embedding them in the concrete and dirt.
The grit refuses to become a pearl,
just as the wound refuses to heal
and the flesh eats itself.
The market sees a sudden spike in
sales of Champagne and cyanide.
Coordinated efforts seek and fail
to curtail the rising tide of violence
in the nation's dreaming.
You realise that this crude, barbaric language
that you can't understand
is your own.
Beauty glitches and pixelates.
Frightened, furtive confessions of love
are unheard over proud, visceral
proclamations of hate.
Tongues divorce mouths.
Every now and then, a voice
inside your head says,
'Thud.'
The measures of sanity become
more quantifiable and
totally arbitrary.
The horizon
tightens
like
a noose.
It doesn't matter if this is wrong.
There are no right answers.
Jan 19, 2017
Jan 19, 2017 at 4:40 AM UTC
**† † †
A quorum of biblical scholars
turned their doubts into thousands of dollars.
Armed with Document Q
they revealed nothing new
but the dirt neath’ the white of their collars.
A proud “health & wealth” Oklahoman
was renowned as a gospel-tent showman.
While the scriptures he twisted,
their tithing assisted
his rise from poor hick to rich Roman.
A sexually diverse professor
(assured he was not a transgressor)
spoke only of openness
glossing sin’s brokenness;
rainbows and tolerance—yes sir.
A Mormon, who lost his own ephod
Realized he was running quite slipshod
and invoked Joseph Smith.
(Yes, it may be a myth—
but it’s not like misplacing your I-pod…)
A Christian whose faith was prophetic
held to views that were truly pathetic.
This crazed Pentecostal,
not quite an apostle,
had taken an End-Times emetic.
A sober and staid Presbyterian
was distrustful of thoughts millenarian.
After smoking some bud,
he awoke with a thud;
in his sleep he’d become Rastafarian.
A preacher who fleeced his disciples
overdrew his own balance of scruples.
He was finally captured
(defrocked and un-raptured)
and rent by his destitute pupils.
A sister who waxed Pentecostal,
mistook herself for an apostle.
Speaking pure glossolalia
she sure could regale ya’
with prophecy; crazy—but docile.
Sep 11, 2015
Sep 11, 2015 at 8:12 AM UTC
One swing
another swing
thud,
you fall to the ground
lifeless you lay
not making a sound
as I wipe the blood from my face
I think
why did things turn out like this
and what have I done
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 5:25 PM UTC
Muted, muffled, dull thud on concrete,
Staggered, drunken, half conscious nobody,
Starved, seeking, worried about payments,
**** in hand, knocking on the wrong doors,
Fire and brimstone stoked in the belly,
Mad, strange, appetizing burlesque eyes,
Obnoxious smacking and licking of parched lips,
Rolling on half rationed legs,
Quiet, sullen, mournful footsteps,
Presently placed awkwardly one in front of the other,
Memory serves correctly, destitute, reprise,
Thunderclaps and crashing roars,
Almost forgotten, with great relief,
Soon, very soon, to be lost forever,
Candlelight, sobbing vigils, no power,
Nail, Nail, Nail,
Praise in the box, graffiti walled,
Like a bathroom stall, just as ******
Docile dissolving vessels,
Brought to the commonplace dropoff,
Settled down and greatly relieved.
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 11:38 PM UTC
I want to live in a world
where I can be proud
of my body
And not fear that I’m a 12, not a 2
and accept myself.
I want to live in a world
where men are valued
on television
And women are not always supreme
in their tiny dresses.
I want to live in a world
where I do not have to fear
for my saftey
And not have to tell a friend I’m going
for a walk.
I want to live in a world
where I can walk home alone
at night
And not have every creak, every thud
set me on edge.
I want to live in a world
where gender equality
is real
And is not split through medial portrayal
and unsafe reality.
May 2, 2012
May 2, 2012 at 12:04 AM UTC
just when the dust
settles round my lust
and the thud
of despair hits bottom
just as I flail
and swim in this
blood-caked,
soulless earth
soup of the lost
abyss of unbirth
you plunge my wilderness
charred with remains
from hellfire
and we breathe
halos
our bones lighted sticks,
colors rising in
angel arcs
Your rib cage
is open
for my tremulous offering
as my lips imprint
a crimson O
upon the earthquake
of your chest
I am still down with the
earthworms
wrist **** sopped
by soil
arteries, bashed
split to the root
by verbal hurts
in a sliding psyche of oil
yet here you are
suturing wounds
with whiplash kisses
saltlick moans in my throat
You wrap me in gauze
through the imprint of your eyes
turn my cuts
into fresh brook
gaze upon my
deepest darkness
like goddess worship shrine
my **** is a funnel
for your whipped light
sacrifice ****** prayer
skinned to the core
all layers exposed
your lips slick
with the drip
of my bliss,
deep juice of
freshly-caught
jungle hum
all is bared
we stop at nothing
paint our tongues
with tears
adorn the face of death
with ripe guava
and, as you scream
my name into
a blown glass whisper
my soft fruit
falls into
the heat of
your palm
somewhere
in distance
a
moon
explodes
Mar 2, 2019
Mar 2, 2019 at 11:42 AM UTC
heavy, deep and dark.
louder, louder;
the twofold pounding
of clockwork respiration.
thud, (thud-thud)
goddess arms hang
into the abyss, like
dead weight.
depth obscures,
lesser life forms
meander on their own,
unaware of the wayward colossus.
/lonely/
a shroud of antiquity
suspended --
veiling the secret
of ages.
thud, [thud-thud]
percussive life
continues alone,
out of time.
evolving
longing
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 1:04 AM UTC
The sky is dark,
not pitch black but a deep
and dangerous blue.
Dark enough to hide the stars
but not enough to hide the clouds
looming above me.
My heavy boots thud
against the sidewalk
and they thud harder when
I walk against the howling wind.
I feel it blowing through my sweater
and chilling my bones as
bare-bones tree branches wave
above my head.
The darkness wind and chill
all point to the end times,
where green grass will never return
and the sun will never again
show its bright face.
Nights like this
are a spiritual experience.
The air speaks to me
in ways the sunlight never can.
I feel the apocalypse every time it storms.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 10:18 PM UTC
I Will Never Give Up on You
By: Miranda Martinez-Perez
I've been to a place "they" would consider "the top,"
And it felt great... that was.. until I fell.
It was a long way down. Would it hurt? I thought not;
And I was wrong, cause it hurt like H*ll.
I've hit rock bottom with an awful THUD.
Took me a while to realize I was still alive.
I wondered if it'd even be worth it to get back up..
Then pondered if I should just accept this is how I would die.
But something inside of me wasn't ready to fail.
I wasn't ready to give up the fight.
In my mental prison, I chose to make bail.
I can't change my wrongs, but I can make them right.
So I got up, though it took all that I had left inside,
Went to that place that for so long I feared.
I knew the first one with whom I had to make things right,
that one was the one looking back in the mirror.
"I'm sorry," I said, "your expectations were not too much.
I admit I've just let myself get in the way.
I never took it into consideration that I alone am enough.
And all the extras in life were only for show and play.
You are perfect, I love you, and I am going to change.
I don't deserve for you to believe me, but I swear it's true."
The response I got.. I never expected to hear MYSELF say..
That was, "I will never give up on you."
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 4:22 AM UTC
I beat my feet against the floor
Thud thud thud
Till the dark red blood
Spews from my new nubs
I bang my head into the wall
Thud thud thud
Till the crimson drips
Drop silently into the mud
I punch the glass window
Thud clash crash
The glass shatters and my fist
Fly’s past the panes
Again and again with no end
In sight
I rage against the night
Violence incarnate
Fury in human form
Flesh and blood storm
No sanity for this mad refugee
Just blood and gore
Jan 23, 2015
Jan 23, 2015 at 7:38 AM UTC
When his eyes first fell upon her
She was choosing avocados
In the fruit and vegetable aisle.
And he watched how her thumbs lingered
On the base of the alligator pear
And pressed, maternally.
He feigned interest in the cabbages
Whilst sensing her delicate architecture
Through his peripheral gaze.
He thought that somewhere,
In real or imaginary life,
They would soon bathe together.
And when they did,
They soaked for years in secrets,
Details suffusing through their lips and arms,
Water-hole satisfaction and moonlit deserts
To make them feel they might have transcended cabbages
And be pervading a rhapsodic realm
They forgot their friends watching in greenery,
Subsumed by each-other,
They felt no need
To live in a world of relativity and apples.
Their love-traced sphere tightened around them,
Until it ****** at the edges of their skin
And wailed when they parted.
Tighter it grew, elastic dug into their humid thighs
Contorting their once harmonic bodies
That used to fit like crosswords.
And they each became ugly to the other
As the seconds ingested their perfection
And they bickered like flailing urchins
In a deep sea soiled darkness.
Decisions were made and paroxysms detonated
And they were taken back by their
Fungal friends with tissue offerings
And ethanol.
Time passed, and memories were binned
Periodically on tuesdays
Until neither knew the other
And they would pass in the supermarket
With no more than a quickened gait
And a silent thud in each ribcage.
But neither could buy avocados.
Nov 16, 2011
Nov 16, 2011 at 12:18 PM UTC
Just in the pubs and clubs
******* our own gear around
Seemingly, always upstairs
For weddings and birthday parties
Sorting out miles of wires
Well-worked practise
But when those amps were turned on
With an audible amplified thud
As switches are flicked
And their lights gaze like tiny red eyes
That's when I am ready
First number and the drums and bass
Connect to create new heartbeats
And now I'm into it
Not the man in the mill anymore
I'm the frontman for the band
And the music soars through me
As the night goes on and grows
The crowd has grown and is dancing
Gaining energy from the music
And feeding it back to us in turn
Now THIS is being alive
And so it was
By Phil Roberts
Aug 29, 2016
Aug 29, 2016 at 8:31 AM UTC
Darkness, Shadows, Fright’ning screams
Red eyes haunt you in your dreams
With serpent coils and spider crawls
Clouded skies and banshee calls
Cold chills running down your spine
Something’s counting down your time
Monsters wait to draw your blood
Don’t listen for that sick’ning thud
With every turn you hear a howl
Eerie, freaky, creepy, growl
Apparitions all around
Voices groaning underground
Death and phantoms at your neck
Pirates on a grim ship wreck
Something’s coming down the hall
With fangs and claws and dying squall
Darkness, shadows, is this real
All this fear and dread I feel
I must wake up and see the sun
Or this nightmare won’t be done
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 11:15 AM UTC
My life was saved the other day
A golden retriever, both dumb and brave.
Country winds howling in their greatest defense
As I waltzed 'tween electric and barbed-wire fence.
He let out a bark, “It's time to turn back!”
Soon followed a powerful THUD and a CRA-A-A-CK.
If not for that old dog running after me,
I would have been stuck under a fallen oak tree.
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 8:57 AM UTC
Why do they say knitting needles go 'click'?
It's more of a 'squeak', 'shuffle', 'tap', 'shuffle'.
Is it the same way that rain doesn't 'splash'?
It goes 'drop', 'plop', 'thud'.
These are the thoughts that rise to the top as I sit
And knit.
Thoughts aren't threads to be woven
They are patches to be stitched together- each one a new colour.
Grey is when my brain won't stop- the colour of school uniform.
White is when I'm scared and alone- an ethereal mist.
These are the thoughts that rise to the top as I sit
And knit.
Recently there's been a lot of green- warm and swirling like a gemstone.
It is like marble in its pattern, layers of shades overlapping.
That's what your patches are. And here I'm
Trying to not think of you but you rise to the top as I sit
And knit.
I notice a burnt orange- like lava bubbling over a cool skin.
That is quiet anger. Not at you.
Not at me for thinking of you.
At the one who thought I could stop.
It is impossible, especially when I don't want to stop as I sit
And knit.
Even as I tried to write a poem withought you.
I couldn't.
You're here again- and these are just the ones I wrote down.
All these thoughts of you rise to the top as i sit
And knit.
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 5:44 PM UTC
He lets her touch him intimately, without emotion
when in some pretext she is alone,
in his cubicle with him, discussing things inane,
a software environs need not be concerned
some times when she passes through,
her longing crosses limits, these days
it has become frequent, to the extent others to notice.
she found silly excuses, fifth time this morning
but he can't hurt her feeling, a team member valued,
she contributes to his success, as the team leader
He can see her need for comfort,
under her tired eyes dark shadows of sleepiness
lay curled like a depressed mongrel,
yet another duel she had with that nincompoop
she calls her husband, all through last night;
a sudden pang he feels calls his wife
asks if she is fine, to ease his guilt that raises
its head like a snake from under the cover of grass.
"A housewife has a thousand things to do, why don't you
find a buxom colleague to flirt, if that is the need"
she banters and teases him on his illogical concerns.
Through the glass parting he discreetly watches her face
heard a murmur arising inside,"the ***** plans the next move"
panicked he tried to concentrate on the screen
that looked frightening, the deadline getting nearer and nearer
by each hour, he heard the heavy foot fall
at that moment he heard a thud, as if something fell down
everyone was running towards her workstation.
May 25, 2014
May 25, 2014 at 10:04 AM UTC
Depression tends to have a manipulating and controlling manner that spits and hisses from behind her snarled teeth,
Depression swallows the light.
And in doing so, depression gulps down yellow, drowning the sun and all his mighty.
Depression chomps on green, bits off grass and shrubble stuck to the inner corner of her lip.
Depression chews pink, each candy floss cloud tickling her taste buds.
Depression chugs blue, the ferocious waves sloshing down her throat with ease.
Depression regurgitates darkness, there is no colour when depression grabs my hands, looming shadows engulf my vision,
Depression’s feet start to move and I realise we are dancing to the dull thud of my heartbeat,
I dance with depression all through the dark, but it isn’t just dark, it’s the kind of dark with no moon, no stars or streetlights, it’s the kind of dark that creeps up on you until you cannot even see your nose.
The darkness slithers under my fingernails and slices back my skin, slipping beneath my flesh, it wears my hand like a glove,
It wanders upwards and claims my face simply as a mask,
As it seeps down, down, down, my legs now become stilts.
I am no longer dancing with depression, depression is dancing me, I am her puppet.
Jul 10, 2018
Jul 10, 2018 at 1:45 AM UTC
When you're around
Someone slips down the thermostat
Plays it like a violin
Drifting a decent toward
The most poignant Minor cord.
I feel lost within myself
Like an island watching a beautiful ship
Sail by without stopping.
And yet-
You leave and it aches;
Hurts like the thud of pulse
Behind a ripening bruise...
Feels as though my heart is about to
Rend my ribs and squelch
Painfully though the cracks
To slither away in your general direction.
In your absence
I realize that simple things
Can grow into necessity.
Tiny seedlings who take root
Can somehow cross time to become
A redwood with roots so deep
The foundation of the earth is never the same
When it falls.
Air is everywhere
And yet when its gone
Beneath tidal waves
It's more precious than gold;
Riches mean nothing when you're drowning.
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 1:12 PM UTC
Look, you have now broken your back bone
Because of climbing tall trees and high balconies
To spy on your wife as she roves the village,
You climbed a Tall baobab tree up to the apex
To play sentry and spy on your wife
When she went down the river to fetch some water
For you to bathe and wash your jealousy body
And when she met her brother-in –law;
The man from another village across the river
Who greeted her with a prolonged hug
Embracing your wife in his strong arms
They way a giant can do to a beauty model,
Feat of goofy jealous gripped you
And you forgot that you were perching in high danger
At the top of the baobab tree, you left yourself unsupported
As all selfish men can in feats of irrationality
Coming down like a sack of wet sand
Falling in a thud, breaking your poor backbone!
Dude; be warned from spying on your wife.
Feb 27, 2014
Feb 27, 2014 at 3:25 PM UTC
Hypnotic music, joyous sounds surround
The fans, all entranced by the performers.
The drummer happily bashes and pounds
Everything he sees shaped like cylinders.
The hi-hat steadily keeps the rhythm,
The bass drum makes a thud, quite powerful.
The crowd can't help but nod along with him
As he makes these beats so insatiable.
The cymbals create such fearful crashes,
And his finely tuned snare shoots roaring pops
Hurtling towards the off-guard masses,
This manic madness just can't seem to stop!
What exactly does he have left to prove?
*He simply wants to see everyone groove!*
Feb 20, 2016
Feb 20, 2016 at 2:59 AM UTC
I had not been born yet.
Still, I can see you at your labor -
alone, scouring the meadows
for the stones -
lifting their gray shoulders
from the moist earth -
pulling them from the
green grasp of briars,
goldenrod, and
Queen Anne’s Lace.
The smell of the earth
must have filled you with
your own childhood memories -
of plowing fields
and cold mornings
trudging across barn yards
mud thick on your boots -
promising yourself
that someday you would leave
and never return.
I can hear the pick axe -
the sharp strikes
against the stones,
and the dull thud
when the earth
swallowed the blade -
and the deep exhalations
when the stones tumbled into
the old wheelbarrow – new then -
that now leans rusting
against my garden shed.
Some of the stones were so large -
far too large for one man –
how did you move them?
I look at the old photographs
and you seem so young –
so much younger
than I am today - and so thin –
staring off-frame beyond the camera.
What were you looking for
in those fields?
I can see you sorting the stones,
stacking them -
building and unbuilding
and rebuilding the walls
and terraces
until the walls were true
and the terraces level
and planted with dogwood,
birches, soft grass for bare feet,
and bordered with roses.
Did you know
that you were building my castle?
That the highest terrace
would be my tower and keep?
I remember calling out to my
knights, my legionnaires,
and tribesmen –
rallying them in defense
of the citadel – ready for
the coming siege.
I also remember looking out
across that verdant kingdom
for the last time -
no longer a king or a boy –
and miles away, across the river
to the west, I imagined
the new home that awaited us.
I couldn’t know
how far away it would be
or what it meant to leave.
This morning,
as I looked out across
the garden that I have built,
I felt the weightlessness of time
and its gravity
settling me into place.
For a brief moment I had
the sensation that I was standing
on the shoulders of
gathered stones.
(for my father, Guy Spencer.)
Tom Spencer © 2015
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 12:13 PM UTC
I planted a seed of hatred inside of me,
Hoping it would grow,
Hoping the roots would be the beginning of the end,
To the repetitive thud in my chest
Aug 2, 2014
Aug 2, 2014 at 4:02 PM UTC