"torpid" poems
#
*Poetry comes back to me
where long there had been none.
Lyrical, the imagery, once shared
and then was done.
Thoughts of such sincerity
in words that grace the page,
Race across the span of time
that bridge the gap of age.
Trusting in the ardor that
has cooled and healed with time,
I read again the tender lines
of kindred souls, in rhyme.
Oh spirit of another age,
reach out from time and space.
Fan the embers turned to ash
and torpid ruin replace.*
#
May 18, 2018
May 18, 2018 at 10:53 AM UTC
Sequacious demonstrative mongrel fantastication
Overt fantasias and monstrance clarification
Rhetorical rote of empirical justification
Whimsical enervations elicit ramification
Incite legendary fables of rectification
Tempestuous mendacious erudite personifications
Endemic epistemological semantics of edification
Evocative illuminism engenders mortification
Judicious spontaneous phantasms of gratification
Numinous salutatory statutes of ratification
Heuristic existentializing empiricisms alleviate confusion
Adamant machismo machinations eliminate delusion
Eulogizing enigma entity’s illustrious illusion
Torridly allusive revelries of reverie effusion
Educing morose maniacal moribundity’s inclusion
Epitomizing empathetic revulsions to corroborate elusion
Probitous erudite solicitations evade contusion
Raunchy riotous accoutrements appreciate exclusion
Optimizing subjunctively torpid recalcitrant collusion
Scenario syntactics of mythically epic allusion
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 9:23 PM UTC
When winter's glaze is lifted from the greens,
And cups are freshly cut, and birdies sing,
Triumphantly the stifled golfer preens
In cleats and slacks once more, and checks his swing.
This year, he vows, his head will steady be,
His weight-shift smooth, his grip and stance ideal;
And so they are, until upon the tee
Befall the old contortions of the real.
So, too, the tennis-player, torpid from
Hibernal months of television sports,
Perfects his serve and feels his knees become
Sheer muscle in their unaccustomed shorts.
Right arm relaxed, the left controls the toss,
Which shall be high, so that the racket face
Shall at a certain angle sweep across
The floated sphere with gutty strings--an ace!
The mind's eye sees it all until upon
The courts of life the faulty way we played
In other summers rolls back with the sun.
Hope springs eternally, but spring hopes fade.
5.7k
I sat on the dentist’s chair
With an aching tooth, feeling hell
The dentist seemed quite pleased
As he opened my mouth and surveyed
‘There are holes to be filled
And the plaque to be removed
It needs a few sittings
At the end, you’ll have a set of fine teeth’!
His gentle assurance was so comforting
And I thought my jaws no more have to suffer
The pangs and torments of an aching tooth!
He then, in a narrow syringe
Injected something into my gum
I knew a numbness creeping in
Until at last I felt a hard rock within
Now, like an expert work man
He began his rigorous craft
Loud machines began to boom
The chair got flattened
From 'verticality'
I got changed into 'horizontality'
And the overhead apparatus came down
Like an eagle swooping down on its prey.
With blaring lights blinding my vision,
I lay torpid as if my body was strapped
The doctor took out his steel and hammer
And started tapping and chipping
Drilling and boring
Though numb, I could still feel the pull and tug
The crooked forceps and pliers
Made all the nerves in my head irk
My mouth was filled with saliva
And I felt a sprout of blood inside
He stuffed some gauze and resumed his work
I wanted to yell, ask him to stop
But being gagged, I couldn’t utter a word
My pupils dilated
My lips quivered
My tongue got parched
I gasped for breath
With a mix of cement and sand (?)
He began filling and plastering
Scrubbing and polishing
Helplessly lying on the dentist’s chair,
I wondered
What whips and stings one has to endure
To end the pain and give the teeth a shine!
Jul 24, 2016
Jul 24, 2016 at 7:53 AM UTC
Desire and dreams,
lofty clouds casting distant shadows.
Momentary shades of calm,
convert to blinding flame.
-
Torpid question marks rearrange
exclamation points.
Hues of commas and periods,
vibrant adjectives and adverbs.
Grunts and growls of wildered existence.
Perpetual noise.
Such picturesque nonsense.
-
Belief of charging knights
and moonwalks
decay to disappointed waistlines
shaky hands,
confused with living.
What beautiful strangeness,
the prospect of becoming.
-
Do we chase the shadows or create our own;
flourish roots
with ardent fingers?
Imagine with ferocity
enriching curiosity?
-
Dig deep, my child, and know you're real.
Or don't
We are substance and shadow,
words of florescence.
Or won't
Disheartened by cruelty
unfamiliar reflections,
resigned to naked truth.
Or can't
Do we accept,
or will we refuse?
Inhaling why,
exhaling when.
-
Blooming breaths
Horizons anew
Warmth of sun,
serenity of shade.
Jun 27, 2023
Jun 27, 2023 at 12:19 PM UTC
When the buds began to burst,
Long ago, with Rose the First
I was walking; joyous then
Far above all other men,
Till before us up there stood
Britonferry's oaken wood,
Whispering, "Happy as thou art,
Happiness and thou must part."
Many summers have gone by
Since a Second Rose and I
(Rose from the same stem) have told
This and other tales of old.
She upon her wedding day
Carried home my tenderest lay:
From her lap I now have heard
Gleeful, chirping, Rose the Third.
Not for her this hand of mine
Rhyme with nuptial wreath shall twine;
Cold and torpid it must lie,
Mute the tongue, and closed the eye.
2.1k
She sits silently
Shellacked, superglued sans sound.
Cornered, Christine clenches
Claws covering cowardice
Comfort.
Taut tongue tangibly taciturn
Turns, transforms til truly torpid.
Silence caused transformation.
She is now an armchair.
Jun 16, 2010
Jun 16, 2010 at 5:27 PM UTC
Getting farther
and farther away
from the shore.
Past the coral shelf,
Where a young boy
absorbs the warmth
of a peach cobbler sky.
With small feet kicking,
tiny bronzed toes momentarily
meet the tangerine sky-line;
Until the horizon cools
to a blueberry hue,
dusted by drops
of indigo dew.
Below the surface,
rocks, boneless creatures,
and bacteria seem so simple,
lining the bottom of a
soundless cerulean world;
They need only hydrogen
sulfide to survive.
Inside, mute and alive, these
parallel forms of symbiosis lie,
in a microcosm and macrocosm
of biorhythms which might never
be fully discovered, or recovered.
A nature of smooth,
yet callous motions
swirl and calm.
Too infinite to know
compassion, this place;
Where one predator strikes
through a layer of dark at its prey,
while another chokes on a piece of plastic.
At times, it’s difficult for the boy to see,
through the veil of the deep blue drink,
where a gulp of air and a gasp in brine,
leaves him floating amid the liquid line.
Still, he seeks – the constant baptism within his reach,
And with the torpid flow of the tide to teach – he knows,
Evolution and Being exist together, at his sandy feet.
Aug 31, 2011
Aug 31, 2011 at 1:57 AM UTC
This morning
as i was washing you off my face
i realized something.
i was thinking about everything
everything we ever said to each other
every thing we've done
or haven't done
since mid-december
and i stumbled upon the startling fact
that the variable i have been allowing
to dictate my happiness for almost three solid months
is not 6'0,
no.
he
is
2 inches tall.
that our torpid relationship
which was mostly just
torpid
(considering it was always sometime after
3am)
was just this little piece of dust
i'd gotten up my nose
that tickled for a bit.
i don't mean to be rude
(well....maybe)
but as my mother used to say
to a particularly
stubborn loose tooth
a young, wiggly thing
that was causing more pain
than it was worth:
out
you
come.
Feb 25, 2013
Feb 25, 2013 at 9:37 AM UTC
Draw your foul tongue
out of the depths of your sleep.
The day has fermented
on your breath.
Draw your torpid mind
to the surface of your skin
and feel my
electricity.
It’s late, and you *****
your words.
So you close your eyes and
heave out the day.
But in the morning,
when your tongue is light,
when your breath is easy,
you will touch your lips to my ear
and whisper something warm
and weary.
Jul 1, 2010
Jul 1, 2010 at 2:31 PM UTC
iv 5-2-18
wrest the black tang the cosmic vacuum of background static and an ungainly dream of walking down a mountain path with my father we descend the silent belly of campus seats filled with mounted bodies lolling the inside stench anna walks ahead of me her voice cuts the waking body of midnight shuttles a hydroponic plant and the sparse parking lot of a supermarket radiating cold.
the fright, the nervous flesh, the stuttered pace of cars, the empty lot, the empty hour, the empty admission of make-belief, collapsing into precession at the peak of worthlessness.
ii 22-1-18
An endless stream, the back of an apartment block, fingers twine across the powder red of brick and sunlight.
I try to catch a glimpse of myself in her eyes, but beyond recognition there is nothing.
I see my father behind a sliding door. He moves further into the kitchen to take pictures from a tripod.
Clothes litter the ground. Nothing fits.
iii 4-2-18
the cracked linen STOP the momentary arrogance STOP the surfacing violence STOP the weathering STOP
A YELL torpid stultifying CRASH cruel ******* trace of the same
and all i can do is shrink as green tea soaks the tablecloth.
i 31-1-17
The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human.
Feb 4, 2018
Feb 4, 2018 at 12:38 PM UTC
This is to provoke your eardrums beating to secrete the excessive cerumen of your lies which flow from your venomous mouth repeatedly bragging that it knows all things.
This is to provoke your eye that is not shut yet only desires to see itself, deliriously worshipping the face, so beautiful and thin that when pinched, a pig slop gushes out.
This is to provoke your feet that have long been wanting to stand up, numbed by their prolonged cross-legged pose, cursing the *** that is comfortably seated on the velvety coconut pulp.
This is plainly to provoke your hands that we're supposed to rely on but have no strength, torpid, and only lusting to **********
This is to provoke you who claim to have been moved but in the end choose to remain still. Numb.
Impotent.
Oct 19, 2020
Oct 19, 2020 at 9:55 AM UTC
Stuck in a rut
of fear.
Guck, through I cut,
now clear.
Shuck, here's a nut;
no beer.
Pluck until ****
then jeer.
Struck at the glut.
New sheers
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 6:52 AM UTC
Women who sleep on stones are like
brick houses that squat alone in cornfields.
They look weatherworn, solid, dusty,
torn screens sloughing from the window frames.
But at dusk a second-story light is always burning.
Used to be I liked nothing more
than spreading my blanket on high granite ledges
that collect good water in their hollows.
Stars came close without the trees
staring and rustling like damp underthings.
But doesn't the body foil what it loves best?
Now my hips creak and their blades are tender.
I can't rest on my back for fear of exposing
my gut to night creatures who might come along
and rip it open with a beak or hoof.
And if I sleep on my belly, pinning it down,
my ******* start puling like baby pigs
trapped under their slab of torpid mother.
Dark passes as I shift from side to side
to side, the blood pooling just above the bone.
Women who sleep on stones don't sleep.
They see the stars moving, the sunrise, the gnats
rising like a hairnet lifted from a waitress's head.
The next day they're sore all over and glad
for the ache: that's how stubborn they are.
Feb 10, 2016
Feb 10, 2016 at 11:05 PM UTC
I was meanders over this land;
Bring essence of life,
Spreading blessing of earth
to make your land fertile!
Kings were traveled through my torso,
Solders moved through us,
to defend your land!
Once you feel that I am liable
for your sorrow and tears!
You wedge our thoroughfare,
I am becoming torpid!
You were becoming proud,
That you can able to controlled me
and limit your struggle!
In reality you are trying hard till date to **** me!
But still now, I am waiting,
To meet my soul mate and my sister!
I am trying hard to gather energy
to reach my adored waiting there!
This time,
When I will start my journey,
Whatever there on my way,
I will conquer it!
This time,
You can’t stop me!!
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 2:35 PM UTC
Beginning to remember
How it had just started
Now it's gone
I was gone for two weeks
And the river is now frozen
It was an inchoate group
Laying the bricks
One by one
But they departed so soon
Like the ignoramus men on the sidewalks
Herding like sheep to make a living
Like some old fat lady sitting by her children
With a half filled cup of happiness
Afraid of losing herself
Like those water drops on cold winter mornings
Forcing life to stay torpid
Pragmatism collapsed into my veins and
I heard the cat door slam and immediately looked at the clock
It was dead
Feb 16, 2014
Feb 16, 2014 at 4:01 AM UTC
I was meanders over this land;
Bring essence of life,
Spreading blessing of earth
to make your land fertile!
Kings travelled through my torso,
Solders moved through us,
to defend your land!
Once you feel that I am liable
for your sorrow and tears!
You wedge our thoroughfare,
I am becoming torpid!
You were becoming proud,
That you were able to control me
and limit your struggle!
In reality you are trying hard to **** me!
But still, I am waiting,
To meet my soul mate and my sister!
I am trying hard to gather energy
to reach my adored waiting there!
This time,
When I will start my journey,
Whatever there on my way,
I will conquer it!
This time,
You can’t stop me!!
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 2:38 PM UTC
When, torpid, the sun begins to grey
In the outlines of clouds on the move
But in no hurry, autumn reaches for its full potential.
What leaves there could have been
Were shot away, we’d have paid them no mind, anyway.
There is a roughness tangled in your hair,
It’s best, I think, to let it be
And, instead, to view the wide expanse of beach,
Which marches into the frigid sea,
Debating with itself and at last achieving a landscape
Pure enough to match the temperature: 40 degrees F.
I can feel your hand stiffen and I
Too sense the tension in the afternoon,
A resistance to our huddled, timid presence; we’re nearly frozen in the process.
Drawing closer, hoods, tightening our jackets
Won’t do much to prevent the
Days from shortening and the hours’ agonizing stretching-
Out. It’s not time enough
To take in the red and white display
Which umbrella shades act out tiredly before us.
Then the waves, mischievous as ever,
Creep up the sand to ****** at our shoes
Before they swagger back to the sea. Love
Is lounging in the break, sopping wet
And fully-clothed—boots and all.
In the brief moments when our thoughts and talk collide, hours fit for memory
Flit us by. Hairy swathes of weedy dunegrass
Wilt with hindsight.
Please, slow. A rushed gaze and a blink are futility
At the shore; looking, here,
Is tenderer than you’d imagine.
Finalized versions of the day are worth one short glance,
But no more than that; you see
Too many things are
Strewn about these days; it is unclear who is
At fault for these mysteries, only that today,
At the boardwalk there are many brooding melancholies.
Silently, a hard wind licks the sand.
Feb 5, 2010
Feb 5, 2010 at 12:15 PM UTC
The wine-drinkers sit on the porte cochère in the sun.
Their lack of success in love has made them torpid.
They move their fans with a motion that stirs no feather,
the glare of the sun has darkened their complexions.
Let us commend them on their conversations.
One says “oh” and the other says “indeed.”
The afternoon must be prolonged forever, because the night
will be impossible for them.
They know that the bright and very delicate needles
inserted beneath the surfaces of their skins
will work after dark--at present are drugged, are dormant.
Nobody dares to make any sudden disturbance.
One says “no," the other one murmurs “why?”
The cousins pause: tumescent.
What do they dream of? ******
They dream of lust and they long for violent action
but none occurs.
Their quarrels perpetually die from a lack of momentum
The light is empty: the sun forestalls reflection.
Mar 13, 2015
Mar 13, 2015 at 7:01 PM UTC
Cocooned in groggy haze
swamped with torpid emptiness
jaded sea of inert vacuum
laden with muzzy loneliness
sharp tick-tock of the weary wall clock
I lie awake with my eyes shut tight
striving in vain to dream dreams
caged in a mute indifferent night
inertia of stodgy listless being
wait is long… no sight of dawn
Exhausted ceiling-fan rotates
loose rusty rod, old dusty blades
creaking & groaning every two rounds
lazily it swings & sways
just like fan & the clock
I too am a mechanical zombie
wobbling thru’ the night... barely alive
Feb 3, 2021
Feb 3, 2021 at 7:45 AM UTC
He wanted to drown
Not in liquid, but in sound
Raucous rapture bellowing beneath
Hands too heavy to hold his own
Heartbreak.
These lions labeled ladies
Making ****** hearts sing.
The candid caucus of cartographers
With eyes too cold to cry
Mapping and marring,
Partitioning paradox with every stroke
Witless wizardry without
Love and longing.
In a circus tent he found
That circuitous catharsis
Amid tremulous trapeze swinging
Watched by the sloughed skin of sinners
Vice and virtue muddied by malice.
Exploratory tongues
Giving preface to loneliness
Too tranquil to be twisted
Too torpid to be tangible
Romance recondite,
Sold to us by our world
Leaving us with nothing but
Fantasy and
Broken bones
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 9:47 AM UTC
Can we jam, brothers and sisters?
Dare we meet at the impalpable chat room
that exists beyond our third heaven?
Dare we to speak in tongues and timbres,
our skin taut across hollow shells,
our veins strung across cadaverous bodies?
I'll grab my drumsticks if you grab the guitars,
and there's somebody on the bongos
slappin' the skins with zealous fervor--
where my tambourine girls at?
Don't worry, I haven't forgotten our forlorn hero
sitting behind the keyboards--
Tickle me those ivories with pious hands and aching fingers,
shake em down sweet Jerry Lee!
And so we begin--
I lay down the drum beat that bops heads and scatters feet,
and the bassman always on top of things
slaps and slides and skips and sizzles
hot diggity dog!
I hear that sweet guitar scream and moan,
praying for death under hazy lights
and we all coast with eyes rolled back into our skulls
and torpid lips drooped open over slack jaws.
Not a word is said from a human voice,
we speak through hands and feet,
basking in colors eking from every kick drum stomp
and the desperate wail bleeding from amplifiers.
Feedback sings and screams, fighting the silence we taunt
and hold at bay.
Around every corner the colors trail
coursing through our vesselious bodies
propelled along the dizzying venture.
We somehow spot every pothole and take detours,
embarking down backroads and backalleys--
We can turn the wheel,
but don't think for a moment we know where it's going.
And the mirror's have all vanished,
we know not from where we came.
Someone shouts from the discovery
as we exit a phrase to enter serendipity,
toying with destiny, clay in our hands,
stretching out the ****** perennially--
We laugh as the gods try to remind us we are Man.
And the screams and the moans
sensing the ****** is getting close
so there's a crescendo I ramp up the tempo
ahhhhhhhHHHhhhHhHhHhHHHHHhhhETERNITY IS NOW AND WE HOLD THE KEY TO HEAVENS GATES AND TIME STANDS STILL AT HIGH NOON IN THE TOWN'S SQUARE WHERE TRIGGER FINGERS TREMOR AND WE SPEAK TO GOD ON HIS PRIVATE CHANNEL COMING THROUGH WORN SPEAKERS CELESTIAL CREATURES IT WOULD BE SACRILEGE IF WE WEREN'T SUDDENLY SO HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY
So I say again, brothers and sisters,
can we jam?
SO I SAY AGAIN, BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
CAN WE JAM?
SO I SAY AGAIN, BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
CAN WE JAM?
So I say again,
brothers and sisters,
can we jam?
Jul 10, 2016
Jul 10, 2016 at 12:39 AM UTC
No words could be spoken
Wrapped around in a beret
Nothing could be sensed
Cats lay torpid
He jingled the coins in his pocket
There's not much he had
There was nothing he spoke
A cold wall of dissociative amnesia
A blustery day
Driving all those fears
Into the wild
Covering all those scars
With ice cakes.
Jan 19, 2014
Jan 19, 2014 at 3:14 AM UTC
The fallow flags lull in a languid sway at half-staff
flaccid reminders for those who quickly forget
limp in the wind as faint as that day
commemoration of anniversaries' memorization's
plaintive anguished lamentations jeering at
the stuffy affected and tired testimonials
torpid, dense and listless as the President's third rehearsed
recited repeated languorous speech of the day
Apr 27, 2013
Apr 27, 2013 at 9:06 PM UTC