"tinned" poems
Coming home from a fair,
cusped between your lap
a globe of darting eyes,
your hands rested atop
the thin film of a world
as you endlessly peer in.
Are you scrying over
your future career?
Here a tungsten bulbous
body, a chunk of flame,
swills itself in spins
and mindless dances,
as you think you could
be so careless like them
to live hazily in a framed
bubble of treasured youth,
fed by some divine fate
looking over you. Golden
scales make your skin,
binds you as if you were
a chocolate in a wrapper
for people to circus over–
every flicker being edible.
Or maybe you're like
those tinned peach slices,
posing in a cage for all
as a marvel to feast with
until you end up rotting,
there in your tomb-space,
muttering an open mouth,
“help me” before they serve
you up on a silver-lined dish.
I assure you, you'll forget
these childish thoughts
of aspirations and dreams
sooner than you think:
no matter how much
you think they want you,
I'll bet they'll let yourself
drown in coming weeks.
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 6:15 PM UTC
Tuesday night and it’s Baked Beans AGAIN! Does she ever stop talking.
I used to fool myself that her snore was musical like a sweet sounding flute,
Now it’s just a snore. Too loud, all too familiar.
What would happen I wonder if I took that tin of Baked Beans on the table
And battered her to death with it.
They found the ****** weapon in the cupboard on the top shelf,
Next to a quivering can of rice pudding.
It didn’t look overly angry or guilty, it looked (for what it’s worth)
Like any other tin of beans.
However it had blood and hair around the rim.
“BAKED BEANS **** the front page of The Sun would say,
Amnesty on all tinned goods called for, as the masses
Started taking ‘tin(g)s” into their own hands.
All over the country, partners dying at the hands of Heinz,
Or possibly cans of spam or pear slices.
The Army may catch on, a major new part of SAS training,
Close quarter baked bean tactics.
The wail of sirens as Police arrive at an incident
“Put down the weapon or we shall be forced to fire… tinned pineapple”.
A can of alphabetti spaghetti could spell death.
“Let’s not have Baked Beans tonight my love… Chinese?”
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 5:09 AM UTC
Tax the poor and reward the rich
This line should be reversed
But, the politicians always use this line
It's a line they have rehearsed
As soon as they are voted in
They give themselves a raise
When we question what they did this for
They just sit there in a daze
They use all sorts of doublespeak
To tell us all their reasons
For taxing poor and elderly
The rich are out of season
A few cents here, a nickel there
No one will notice that
While our old folks sit at home
Sharing tinned food with their cat
Tax the poor and reward the rich
This line should be reversed
But, the politicians always use this line
It's a line they have rehearsed
As soon as they are voted in
They give themselves a raise
When we question what they did this for
They just sit there in a daze
The veterans they are targets too
Their pensions get rolled back
They hit those who can't defend themselves
Or are too poor to fight back
They give out tax cuts to the rich
Big business gets the most
While our working poor are stuck at home
Finding new ways to serve toast
They sell our jobs and tax our lives
Until we're better dead
But then we can't afford to die
We've no place to lay our head
They sit in ivory towers
Looking down on those below
Wondering how to get more money in
How to make their pockets grow
The parties not in power
Try their best to make a change
But to do that, we need lots of help
Parliament must rearrange
The way the parties govern
The way they ***** the meek
There must be changes at the top
To help strengthen the weak
There's people on the system
Who worked hard and did their part
Now they can't afford an apple
Let alone the apple cart
Tax the poor and reward the rich
This line should be reversed
But, the politicians always use this line
It's a line they have rehearsed
As soon as they are voted in
They give themselves a raise
When we question what they did this for
They just sit there in a daze
So, at the next election
Don't just vote because you should
Go and vote for something different
Go and vote for something good
Because your parents vote one colour
And you choose to do that too
Is not a true democracy
You've a choice in what to do
If you're voting for the first time
Think real hard before you pick
All their promises look tasty
Until you give them a good lick
Remember how your grandpa
Said "It was much better when"
"We were treated fair and equally"
And it can be done again
So if Tax the poor and reward the rich
Is the motto that you choose
I hope that you'll rememer this
When you can't afford new shoes
The time to change what's wrong is now
Start giving money back
To those who can't afford to lose
The one's who fall between the crack
So tax the rich, reward the poor
Take the tax cuts all away
And make our seniors equal
Don't make them be the ones that pay.
May 13, 2012
May 13, 2012 at 7:46 PM UTC
. . .
. . . .
. . . . . . . . .
i stare at a docile ocean
waveless sun accosted
dark and shadow edged
tinned with men's brave
history of misconception i
'Dragonne'.
'Colossuus'.
'Cetaecean'.
- Leviathan ?
As sure as hope setting sail -
Past shoal, past shallow,
So each chase begins.
Lines parsing out,
Expectations coyly
Embroidered,
Entwin-ned.
- Leviathan ?
Pray please this narrative be drawn :
Truth for sake of safe harbour;
Stillness without caution;
Softly ripening dawn;
Jupiter and Venus descendant,
Celestial promise anon ?
- Leviathan .
Violence
the casual violence of life
the worst kind
not casual really but whats violence anyway
few knew why why ask why the few
once the dice flipped get
its a flying a mind a dunzo game
gravity responds we hope hope together sake
to gether
we short the freaks short em' all them freakin freaks freaks
i want you I want yours
i want to take you over
take control take over
29' run kontrol all night day
long time end time
everthing happens forfurfor fit ur
once and done (nature) forfeiture
reason or ur other or ur another or ur a altogether reason
or simple GP drunkworld
reason (nurture)
surprise my ripest faither - less
5 rise 10 run huh
up the down and dumb
dumb ber right left left right thum ber
number one number
numb - ber
one ones
another
come
under
the
(tumb)
.
All Rights Reserved.
James R. Morse, NYC 2013.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 9:48 PM UTC
Shrivelled Strawberries are all juiced out.
The fields are to long they block out the streams.
Save yourself from the grains then dropped to many blind mice.
Mines a fried egg , in demand for a content Sunday morning.
Existing for your touch and picture in a frame.
There will be nothing left yearn for but the nest in virtual gain.
Never warranted, never examined.
Dripping taps and a head full of sour *****
Get born again and have the hourly flap jack.
What’s the reason? Give another slip.
I saw this coming, the brand new exclusive six hour clip.
Loaded in a dangerous weapon of peace.
Embrace the floor, thought it shallows the soles of boundless feet.
Inherit the soul that squeezes.
There are the strawberries in a picnic in the middle of winter.
Call us callous and homeless with bitter springs.
Must I follow gutless, mute kings?
I ate the dinner and the news does stink.
You must forgive, you must forget.
This demon sinister is hell bent.
No better to speak the truth.
Jockey full of **** will coil, shake and drain the juice.
Much love and strawberries thought the mouths are dry.
Much prefer a leg of lamb.
Near Apocalypse and blessed is the tinned spam.
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 9:52 AM UTC
Imagine the first rumor. The first grunt of gossip
The first finger-point of prejudice. It was probably
like noticing the sunset for the first-time. How it
stretched out across the entire scope of your vision,
peeled back into a city that wasn’t the one you were in,
like an orange peel, one skin at a time. Eventually,
the world rounded, the ice melted, homo-sapiens
grew taller. Our voices deepened, bodies thickened.
We learned to survive the cold, the floods,
the irrational wars, and crescent-mooned nights
underneath tinned roofs. Then came the enlightenment,
the evolution of speech. The first cousin of Germanic
languages; the second cousin of Romantic languages.
And then the first rumor. The first appraisal of good
or bad actions of people hardly known. I imagine
my ancestors, 1.9 million years ago, grunting
with raised brow in her partner’s direction. Pointing
at two men crouching behind a large, fallen boulder.
Pointing at a man who belongs to her neighbor,
crawling out of a cave that doesn’t belong to him.
They are probably turning over in their bone-filled
graves as I think of what to say next, laughing at how
far we haven’t come from the ghouls of gossip,
discussing how out of all the occupations in this world:
bricklayer, lawyer, educator, their descendant chose
this noble profession, this calling up of events.
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 7:00 AM UTC
Our faithful black Labrador, who was an old lady when I was just a boy, had six pups and despite the grey on her muzzle, produced enough milk for them all. She would take her bowl to the sink when thirsty, tinned-meat to the can-opener when hungry. When tired, she would sprawl out on a rug before the coal fire, on occasion, licking her master’s feet before falling asleep.
Sometimes, I would rest my head upon her chest, listening to her breathing. In her dreams she would sometimes yelp softly and I would soothe her nightmares away by stroking her sleek black coat.
In our garden, during the pleasant sunshine of a warm afternoon, we used to play together. Throwing a tennis ball that she would chase then fetch back and drop in my waiting hands for me to throw again. This was by far, her favourite game.
Some considered that she ran out in front of the School Teacher’s speeding car deliberately. “Because of her age,” they said, and “her inability to cope with the pups, only just turned two weeks old,” — that my mother reared, against all predictions.
I never accepted this nonsense. At the time, such a thing never crossed my mind as I looked at her, sprawled across the roadside verge. Her eyes were open, but through my tears I could see they were sightless. I also saw the muddy tyre-print across her unmoving ribs and how her legs twisted at an unnatural angle. I could not help my crying, but I felt no shame: none at all.
The sad regret I saw in the School Teacher’s red-rimmed eyes did nothing to ease my pain. If anything, her sorrow made me feel even worse. I felt guilty because I wanted to hate her. Perhaps I did hate her! I can barely remember now. With the passage of time the pain and the hate, if indeed there was any hate, has faded.
Whenever I pass our old house, where Moss is buried in the garden in which she played, I recall our times together and give her good thoughts. For good thoughts are all that I have for our faithful black Labrador, who was an old lady when I was just a boy.
Aug 25, 2015
Aug 25, 2015 at 6:53 AM UTC
The rain came down.
I sat on the doorstep,
eating tinned peaches,
and the rain fell.
Walking out, into the city,
life falls in one-two beats;
being nothing and comfortable,
the architecture stows straight lips,
moves on, the rain falls.
Freight rolls, wet tracks northbound,
over-bridges exuding fine china,
two fishermen idle away remaining hours;
concrete bunches the rain into shallows.
How hollow the sea, that home,
the crooked lines of the inland peninsula;
how strange, this routine, in
how so very full of emptiness I have become,
like the rain, having fallen upon ebbing tides.
The rain no longer falls.
Mar 17, 2013
Mar 17, 2013 at 12:16 AM UTC
If I could recreate reality
I'd soften the finality
Of your forced farewell.
I'd make it so
That I can peel
Your every kiss-shaped memory
From my skin
And keep them in a tin.
So that when I miss
Your goey lips
Against my cheek or chin
I'd simply take them out
And let them kiss themselves
Onto my skin again.
If I could recreate reality
I'd lessen the enormity
Of my endless emptiness.
I'd sew a song
Into the you-shaped hole
Of longing your life left
Imprinted on my soul.
A never-ending
Heart-mending singsong
To fill me and
Fulfill me.
But wait...
If I could recreate reality
I'd have no use for tinned kisses
Or pointless paltry poetry
Or stitches in my soul.
Because you'd be here.
And I'd be whole.
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 1:24 AM UTC
SMELLS
WET WOOL
HEAT
BREWING TEA
YEAST AND WARM ROLLS
TINNED MEAT
DAMP WOOD
MOLD
OLD
RAIN
OLD MEN WITH MUSTACHES
AND UMBRELLAS,
SITTING IN CHAIRS
EMPYING DINING ROOM
GRAND STAIRCASE
FADING RED STARRED CARPET
HOTEL RUSSELL
BLOOMSBURY
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 5:49 PM UTC
a friend posed the question
there is a first world
and there is a second world,
but where do you find the
second world?
and sadly i think i know the answer.
the second world lives is
the hidden shadows of the
first.
and is populated by....
.....those who live in the shells
of architect designed houses, with no power running
water,
..or worse live in cars or
couchsurf.
....it is those pensioners who
exsist on tinned cat food
and teabags re-used
seven times.
....old people who wear their entire wardrobe in the winter
cold.
....children with bad teeth and chronic health issues
un-attended because they
can't afford a doctor
...it is the man,
who died the other day.
hit by a train,
while his children watched,
retrieving some dropped groceries,
he got from,
a food drive van.
...it was the first food
they would have had in 48hrs,
the child stated for reporters.
this .....
is the second world!!!
right here ....
mostly hidden from sight
not even reminded by sad
tv ads
only when abject utter tragedy
happens
do we see a glimpse
of the second worlder's
desperate plight.
Apr 8, 2014
Apr 8, 2014 at 11:26 PM UTC
Sing a little song of rain,
to wash away the heartache.
To scrub clean your skin, clench your teeth and take the pain.
"Flush out your mind, it's all fake."
Sing a little song of sun,
to crush your chest into your ribs.
To change your name, lower your head and know that respect can't be won.
"No one will believe you, you're telling fibs."
Sing a little song of wind,
to ride the kites into the sky.
To hang on tight, 'cause this tempest tears silks and requires fears to be tinned.
"Everyone watching from below had waved their goodbye."
I can no longer sing the little songs from my jaws,
my throat is swollen and raw.
The rain has flooded my thoughts,
The sun is what I have become,
From the wind, to a better place I'll be brought.
May 12, 2019
May 12, 2019 at 6:52 PM UTC
you stopped visiting the ocean after your brother died
so we drove inland, instead, that day
and found the pit of old bunkers
left to decay
from a more actively
apocalyptic age
and, inside, the
eschewal vision of
tinned food,
concrete pillars,
liquid flesh
warm comfort in disintegration,
emerald concavities that lace the sky
we considered stealing some **** but just drove on back instead,
leave history to history
if you stack the boxes, there will be more space, you-
yeah, just like that.
the chairs have no back, sorry, so you'll have to be careful.
sorry, i just have to deal with,
yeah, the drain pipes broke again,
it now decants into the living room, all
dammed up with paper mache and static
so uh
make yourself some tea if you have to
-ah, no, sorry, i didn't mean to be curt
it's just,
there's no time
but stay, anyway, please
it gets lonely at night
all boarded windows and
old casements
till in the end you're just
embracing a
damp ****** guilt
just to pass the time
with a forgiveness complex
do you think you'd do it?
they make you wear their shirt, and take a photo,
but they give a free ice-cream at the end.
i mean, it doesn't cost you anything,
nothing palpable, anyway
remember that time we drove inland?
and found that petrified forest,
buried in basalt and pumice?
we walked among treetops, near the old crater lake
and
skipped stones
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 7:09 AM UTC
I love the vintage crackle
Of a passive microphone.
Each warm hum captured like
Our campfire in a Polaroid.
Every lethargic pop sounding like
The raindrops on our car roof.
I am swirling and lost in your skin.
Your voice glides through the current-
Distorted and tinned.
I am drowning in the static.
It started with gentle waves
Nursing on my pruned feet.
But they soon tugged me away
From the sand beneath you and me.
I am soaked from the ocean!
I am burning from the fire!
The hiccups and coos of your voice
Is something I no longer admire.
My time was consumed
As I swallowed each lotus flower.
I forgot all that I needed to do.
I forgot all that I wanted to happen.
I burned all of my bridges
because you made me believe
you were my only dream.
But I’ve awoken from my hypnosis,
and it is too late to repair who I once was,
because all I have become
is the vintage crackle between your words.
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 12:04 AM UTC
Hello Alfred where ya bin?
Cruising aisles of memories tinned, a good deal
thinner when you last checked in.
Back slapped worn, born of songs between
your ears, evenings out are scrims on which
you show your friends what is what and what they fear.
Oh you pickled miscreant.
I dare you. Eat me. All up.
Apr 27, 2016
Apr 27, 2016 at 7:16 AM UTC
The day we roared with infinite jest the
larder packed tight with provisions burst.
So much canned meats, tinned, pemmican
hardtack we had stored knowing our
journey north would be sufficiently trying
that sustenance would prove difficult.
The slog. The slacking day when you rolled
off the sled, creviced. Your voice booming blue
crystalline as we see, no escape. Trapped and
the cans I hurl into the hole.
Hours I read to you lipped, curled into a
snail, a shell, a crocus of yellow
a dread of
finishing the story and saying to you there is
no
more. So you cannot tell, when the pages have ended
I make up confabulate truth and fiction
embellish.
Pretend the story line marches
forward decades and we are in the Amazon;
You’ve discovered
that the water
that seemed
guileless is crocodile filled.
They bite hard and
you can imagine.
All primary colors on the
floes, all glacial movement, slow to melt, fast to burn through
the colors of our arctic rainbow.
I had primed the lamp the last night, before that dawn, before
the ride in which you fell.
The wick trimmed and each
consequential action of the day I placed
hanks of hair
neatly side by side into banks of snow.
Under my cracked tongue is
a bump that rolls
mole like cyst.
Partner of my travels to this cold realm, your self shelved.
Below: Did you hear me whisper? Asking why today
have I become.
The whispered promise of holding
upright against the dark. I thought.
It would be magnificent.
Not even fanfare. Or aurora borealis. Or flight.
Yes dreams of flying.
Yes dreams of ahah so it is after all.
I thought I would recognize the moment of unleashing.
What makes the special now?
If I whisper Abandon I might hear you echo in the ice. I might see your
boot, attached to. A glove alone, unpaired.
The story they lived, the story they tell is one of each husky,
one by one, no longer. Starvation and then there are none.
But we are in the Amazon, and it is a scorching hot day and there is
much to be explored until you fall into the river and get bit.
I take it all back.
You laugh because I add flying monkeys which is
us pretending that we’ve explored
this terrain which looks like a bed
in a room and a chart.
They cannot
stop your bleed, and so we begin again.
Feb 11, 2017
Feb 11, 2017 at 1:04 PM UTC
The lighthouse man doesn't want to know anyone
He sits in solitude
Staring at the swirling seas
Wandering up and down the endless stairs
Fingers and thumbs fat with muscles
Salted sweat on skin
Working on the light fixtures
No word he utters
No visitors today
None scheduled for tomorrow
Steam boils off the kettle
More tinned food in fine fettle
Time stands still here
No interruptions
He meditates on his soul
What there is, he controls
No knowledge he shares
Turning on the light
To ward off danger
To ward off strangers from his world
Dec 8, 2020
Dec 8, 2020 at 12:57 PM UTC
For The Record
The clouds and the stars didn’t wage this war
the brooks gave no information
if the mountain spewed stones of fire into the river
it was not taking sides
the raindrop faintly swaying under the leaf
had no political opinions
and if here or there a house
filled with backed-up raw sewage
or poisoned those who lived there
with slow fumes, over years
the houses were not at war
nor did the tinned-up buildings
intend to refuse shelter
to homeless old women and roaming children
they had no policy to keep them roaming
or dying, no, the cities were not the problem
the bridges were non-partisan
the freeways burned, but not with hatred
Even the miles of barbed-wire
stretched around crouching temporary huts
designed to keep the unwanted
at a safe distance, out of sight
even the boards that had to absorb
year upon year, so many human sounds
so many depths of ***** tears
slow-soaking blood
had not offered themselves for this
The trees didn’t volunteer to be cut into boards
nor the thorns for tearing flesh
Look around at all of it
and ask whose signature
is stamped on the orders, traced
in the corner of the building plans
Ask where the illiterate, big-bellied
women were, the drunks and crazies,
the ones you fear most of all: ask where you were.
May 15, 2015
May 15, 2015 at 9:18 PM UTC
The look in your eyes
hooks me,
taking me back to the days
of my grandfathers, dark
whiskey in hip-flasks kept close
to their chests, eating tinned fruit
and singing to warm themselves up
on cold nights
I remember the sound of their voices,
thick and throaty, as if forty
cigarettes a day had eaten
into their chords
I wear their blazers sometimes,
Over a red dress, imagining myself
before they thought of me
wondering if they felt the rain fall
on their face as blood washed the
souls of their shoes
I know that your green eyes
are searching my face for signs and
similarities, the past threatening to
seep through the open pores
of my skin
I am corrupted
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 12:36 PM UTC
the old dock silent in winters cold embrace
such it would be all day
save for the logistics race
to the moaning of a ship in slow decay
seagulls hover high above on ***** wings
her tumor of rust and fallen pride
they heckle her, the filthy things
on winds of scorn they ride
she should have been allowed to drown
to end her reign with stern held high
but profit must in books be noted down
for her tortured hull, no end is nigh
in her hold now; fresh water, tinned fruit and frozen meat
drums of oil and parts for the engine to spare
to keep this crew, her carers on their tired feet
and make her next long trek easier to bare
alone on the dock he watches her leave
once more, like in times of old, she raises her sail
wishing the sea to offer her reprieve
for a reef to shatter her old tired hull, so frail
Mar 22, 2015
Mar 22, 2015 at 1:21 PM UTC
i say you
take mine for what it is
left aluminum peg
and a bruisey egg of a leg
i say i
love your gummy lips on mine
we chew chew right in synced line
speckled sour and red 40
clunky eggshell whites corrody
i say you
take yours for what it can do
sardine tinned preserved true
meal for three and a seal for me
i say we
root our tongues in the steel pails
cold shallow floor is a wall to wail
by lick and tick of our cursed ***** tether
i say soon soon
soon tethered together
Dec 17, 2016
Dec 17, 2016 at 11:56 PM UTC
White sheets hanging in the wind.
clean fresh waiting to begin,
a new start for all those who sinned,
last bits of hope bottled and tinned.
The noose is around our neck
and our feet are on the deck,
that dope how it does beck
and brings us here to our death,
one by one we drop
clean sheets in slop
the crowd waits for the pop
as progress stops.
we come down to the height of the masses,
numb again to the time that passes,
hope escapes through its glasses
and our sheets meet the grasses.
Dead men hanging in the wind.
Mar 27, 2015
Mar 27, 2015 at 12:52 PM UTC
Concealed sunshine hides her grief as clowns give up their smiles.
As children play with plastic buckets upon the sands of time.
While mothers cook meals that come from tins,
Tinned spuds, tinned corned beef, tinned pea and carrots.
Good grief.
(C) LIVVI
Jun 28, 2016
Jun 28, 2016 at 5:45 PM UTC
it usually takes about 20 hours of fasting,
then this, thing, walks into the kitchen
at 3 in the morning and is like:
i need something to eat...
and there he is standing, hunched,
slobbering over scraps...
he first eats a can of macrkel in tomato
sauce and adds worcestershire sauce
to it thinking it's bolognese spaghetti sauce,
he gets all beavis and butthead
with the fork while he toasts two slices
of bread... then he gets onto tinned
sardines in sunflower oil, which he also
dashes some worcestershire sauce into...
he creates a radish out of tiny plum tomatoes;
and he's standing there growling and frothing
at the mouth... because the cats he owns had
more food than him over the past day...
he's walked a 2.5 liter marathon of 6.6 miles
worth of walk to with the symphony of glugging
down beer, and he's angry like
any anger that might be contained and pacified
by simple pleasures...
so this thing writes a "poem", or rather an ode
to youtube video editing practices...
tinned fish, who would have thought:
apparently it doesn't get much odder than this.
Mar 6, 2017
Mar 6, 2017 at 10:10 PM UTC