"tourniquet" poems
the sun is always shining
i create the rain
drowning in dark water
deluging thunderstorms
i obstruct the view
twisting tourniquet
shutting off the glow
fatality is sure
take flight in hurricanes
live in the twister’s path
cyclone is my choice
whirling to my death
the sun is always shining
afraid it’s far too bright
for me to grasp my power
and know that i am light
©2016janetaylor
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 10:05 AM UTC
It's
bleeding rain,ripping through and
dripping out of the sky again
anyone got a
bandage?
Jan 9, 2014
Jan 9, 2014 at 2:45 AM UTC
My heart bleeds tears
So yours doesn't have to.
It opens right up to every piece of joy
and sadness and injustice and inspiration.
Gushing tears....flood waters for the dramatic.
No use in trying to hold them back.
They burst all barriers and reinforcements.
My heart beats pain....thump thump...thump thump
Louder now. THUMP THUMP....THUMP THUMP
Innocent children destroyed in all corners of society.
Pump. Pump. Pump.
Poisoned by our own government with lies
Imprinted at a young age and we believed them. For a while.
Pump. Pump. Pump.
An aorta so large that tears mainline my existence.
It bleeds for you, your children, me, my children, our animals, our planet.
Some days it stops all together in a moment of silence for the ethereal
shedding their tears as rain on us all.
No tourniquet could stop the strength of my pulsing heart
My forceful, stubborn tears.
As I bleed out
these tears nourish
the ugliness around my shell.
Souls who are born with a heart like mine
encase an ***** strong enough to hold, release and replenish
tears of pain and joy over and over again.
It allows us to not just see beauty but breathe it.
It allows us to feel love so intensely
that our teary reservoirs are life forces beating Universally.
My heart bleeds tears so yours doesn't have to.
Apply pressure with an embrace or your own beaming light so my heart beats in unison with yours.
Jul 21, 2014
Jul 21, 2014 at 8:55 PM UTC
Dear Azi, I'm full of broken thoughts.
My insides are like a box of matches.
The moisture from my sorrow, wont allow combustion.
I get up every morning with a tourniquet in my hand,
seeking the self in the vestibule of my childhood.
Your caveats no longer reach me.
But, the sweet carousel of your laughter still does.
Each loss is a new vulnerability.
A subscript, for a long past bludgeon.
The only whisper that still holds,
is the one that tells of your past love for me.
May 14, 2017
May 14, 2017 at 1:00 PM UTC
The write was written
red ice
twice bitten
his soul a black clot
a faucet for a neck
she fell in a crepuscular fold
odor of tincture fuckubus
red mouth
a snarling kiss
a hot hiss chariot
a black bite
her womb spread wide
for a tongue that didn't end
nail polished *******
like torn cherries
soft gauze tourniquet
a slow yield
milk petals and rivulets
a ghastly confection
leaning over like a spilled ***
her gullet a metropolis of jewels
forced throat bound
on a black cross
she sailed on a magic carpet
like a vampires fizz cocktail
a red ice float
of starvation
his mind a dead sky
a pageant of coiled clouds
he held her down
she levitated
they were in love
Nov 26, 2018
Nov 26, 2018 at 4:29 PM UTC
sitting here but not
my insides
in a twist
my organs blooming,
their flower landscapes
rising in my solar plexus
like poetry expanding
its cellular shapes
into
light frequencies
I need way more.
I need the pulling off
and stripping down
of souls
I need to meet in
a depth of falling
I need to be pushed off
the silent gates of madness
into endless sea
no looking back
senses piqued
from slightest brush
of oral butter pouring
on hot cream
my mouth, a searing
crimson wound
oscillates in
contraction radar pulses
ripe for intense
tongue exploration
aching to be filled up with
your distinct flavor
My essence molecular is
overflowing with fluid
giving me life
in throbbing, raw
electric vibes
whipped organic, in
rolling tides
Somewhere, out there
our volcanic impulses
meet in steamy ebbs
and send energyflow
to a new and ancient universe,
magnetic
and I am
a raging heaven's child
wrapped in
a tight little
tourniquet
blood pumping
through these veins
my longing for
dark stretches
of intimate caresses
to soothe
the spikes
of snaking pain
Give me
those airwaves that
let me breathe freedom
into the fields of our skin
Let me run like wild herds
of the animal within
and as I find myself
hanging off
my
own
edges
my many-braided loops
in zigzag split,
a-fray
my skin rips open,
parting fibers
that expose my
very
DNA
helix swivel
undulation
hips grinding into
soul
reaching in to
pull out
fresh rebirth
from between my folds
O help me to allay
this tender affliction
undo me, already
so I lose control
one little shove
and I am over the cliff
deep into ocean
**** over spliff
I am beyond ready
so grind it to the hilt
Give me your
tender-ripped heart,
spill your honeycomb milk
I am here, ravenous
in the pan
uncooked yet ripe
saliva and breath
steaming my own innards
flushing out strife
I am piquant hot pepper
ready to be broiled
my blood is already
boiling
my tender meat oiled
mull me over
in your oral cavity
like sacred wine
until I drip
through your bones
and down your spine
Just meld with me
and flow
into that light tunnel
of dark time and space
so I can stake out
my rhythms
and claim
my
new
sacred
place
Aug 15, 2017
Aug 15, 2017 at 12:20 AM UTC
I love you
dow
w
n
to your jagged,
dark edges
culling smoke
and twisting tides
your steaming heart
that pulses, in my hands
as you give it-
and the pungent tears
when they fall
from your eyes
I lick up your pain
to soothe it smooth
its rawness catching
velvet ripples of skin
I pull a blanket
of mahogany wine
over your soul
lacerations
that seep out
from the layers within
and in that tender of
nightfall's darkest foliage
I long to calm
your monsters' clawing
as they gnaw at you from
the inside out
I crave to fill
the hollowed-out longing
my own hungers writhing
in obscene
devout
For I am all that is sacred and wild
the spark has been lit
from my innermost rooms
I dance to the drums of
the woman as child
her mystical ways chanting
rhythms in runes
Demons might dance
as you gaze in reflection
in the mirror of time,
of unfiltered space
but I adore all your sides,
your imperfections
discern the divine
in the planes of your face
You are my galaxy
of dark matter
bringing out my
own looking glass
of vantablack
in a feral crown of obsidian
and onyx
as you reach me deep,
there's no going back
For when you love me like that,
plant your tameless,
hot seed
it blossoms within me
a tightly-wrapped tourniquet
for when I bleed
and if my guts
should spill upon
the floor
you will remind me,
in glowing of pores
of who I am
and how I am whole
a lovelight lit in the
storm of my soul
I will push down deeper
until I feel those roots
that connect me to
my center
to my
succulent fruit
So slice me open.
Pull me apart.
Let the juice run down
to heal
your
jagged-edged
heart
Sep 22, 2017
Sep 22, 2017 at 5:59 PM UTC
The white cells,
seemingly not fearful of
oozing,
festering,
metastasizing,
fear black cells,
wearing hijabs or dreads.
The white cells
are fearful of the brown cells
that **** and process their chickens
and mow their lawns for them.
The white cells fear the red cells
though they like moccasins, canoes,
and wild rice soup,
fear yellow cells
may be smarter than them
so they label them
***** and Chinks.
The white cells
don’t seem to mind
asphalt-coating,
starlight-stealing,
convenience store sprawl
devouring healthy green cells--
alfalfa cells,
forest cells,
swampy, boggy cells,
black-eyed susan cells.
The Chamber of Commerce
calls it growth,
progress;
but this town
needs a tourniquet,
maybe chemotherapy.
Feb 13, 2019
Feb 13, 2019 at 3:17 PM UTC
We have souls that are plunging off this planet,
in hopes they will be swallowed by the cosmos-
fearing the hurt is never ending,
leads to renovations of existence.
To silence the beating
of a heart,
to end a life.
Morality is stuck behind
the gates of purgatory
& society is too scared of
what will happen
if we use our mouths for
meaningful conversation.
Indeed.
A tourniquet can stop the bleeding,
but can’t do justice for spread of infection,
or the scar serving as a reminder.
People are dying from depression-
faulty chemistry in the brain.
As well as suicide.
It is the crying of phantoms,
never to be heard-
wanting change,
a re-birth,
of the contorted humanity
we proudly call ”life”
Ache that’s carried lifelong,
but never resolved.
Truthfully,
those vague questions
don’t save lives.
Death knows this,
of course.
He is an omniscient force
lingering in the scenery.
Possessing the inability
to tolerate the teasing
and the wagers.
Coming to collect early
because, we’ve begun
to shatter
every fragment
of light
life reflected.
Now,
Darkness makes him feel welcome
and entitled.
KRM
Jun 10, 2018
Jun 10, 2018 at 2:41 AM UTC
Dragged out screaming, senseless from the hallows of martyrdom
My father's mother's wayward brother
Baptized in propaganda and searing lead
Kamikaze death machine to paranoia fever dream
A noble experiment in utter catastrophe
Half measure, interstellar tourniquet
Stem the free flow of blood like inconvenient statistical evidence
Dripping down born-again ****** America's chin
Vector-like, everything explodes outwards
And on trajectories like these only friction is holy
Murphy's law in ecstatic altercation
A furious life lived under an anachronistic magnifying glass
Truly the only thing worth decaying for
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 3:38 PM UTC
I told you "Happy Birthday,"
You smiled and said, "You remembered."
It took me back.
October 9th of 2009,
Was the day that I first met you.
I was at the Bridge with the girls,
Then up strode this guy that I wished I knew.
Dorky, yet enchanting,
You made me laugh and rant.
It was the best night I'd had in a long time,
And all the way home I danced.
I saw you at school after that,
And I felt myself falling for you.
Our friend's romances started happening,
Maybe we'd happen too.
I played you piano,
You smiled at me,
I caught my breath
And messed up they keys,
But you still thought it was good.
On June 5, of 2010,
You asked to become mine.
How could I say no,
When I wished it all the time?
You told me that I was beautiful,
Then you kissed my face,
In a world of beautiful scenery,
I was in the greatest place.
We danced slowly to Melancholy Hill,
And you watched Titanic with me,
You helped me make Chicken Marsala,
I thought we were meant to be.
You told me that you loved me,
And I felt my heart grow.
That's when I really began,
to let my love show.
On October 5th of 2010,
I gave you my virginity
I understood euphoria
When I saw your eyes on me.
Two years we spent together,
And they were the best in my life,
Even in our fake little wedding,
Where I became your wife.
You really were my medicine,
Making me feel alive,
And every time I looked in your eyes,
I saw a place where angels thrive.
I gave you myself in every way,
And I'll never want it back.
Even after bitter words,
And the moments we attacked.
I never knew a heart like mine,
Could ever love so much.
Imagine the person I would be,
If we never shared that touch.
The hardest day of my life
Was the day you walked away,
I thought that it wasn't for good,
But I couldn't make you stay.
The funny part of the story,
Is that I hadn't let you go.
The girl that you had loved and lost,
Let her true colors show.
And I'm still here waiting for you
Now, as I tell you "Happy Birthday,"
My special little tourniquet,
You smile and say, "You remembered."
But how could I forget?
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 4:55 PM UTC
Get a tourniquet
For your bleeding heart
'fore passion's flames
Give death a start
Apr 22, 2019
Apr 22, 2019 at 8:17 PM UTC
The phone rings:
It doesn't work anymore.
Diazepam, Red wine, 6:30am, hip replacement,
Plunger, television, boxes of photos, carslberg, peroni,
The flush is broken on the toilet.
I've sat for 15 minutes.
Examination, xbox, unemployment, skunk,
Washing machine, dishwasher, dryer.
It's raining, Old towel and bucket
under the hole in the roof
Cat food, cod liver oil, mould, 8:45pm,
3pm, appointments, 12pm.
Laptop, silence, phone calls,
Toilet, bucket, bleach,
Oven cleaner, kitchen roll, dirt, carpet,
Television, Hoover,
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 8:35 AM UTC
I examine your mugshot
in the domestic abuse records
of Palm Beach County.
I find your eyes bloodshot,
red veins bulging with realization.
Your forehead branded with the lineage
of your rabid male ancestry,
now another criminal, wife beater,
another deadbeat drunk slithering
through the dialogue of strangers who now
know your name but will never see you
face to face, perhaps a potential employer
or candidate for your new wife.
The reputation you crafted
so rigidly, tarnished in your naked expression,
the cyanide of your psychosis
summoned with the smack
of a camera flash.
And I cannot help
but break a smile.
Jun 29, 2010
Jun 29, 2010 at 11:26 AM UTC
“What can a poem do?”
—————————-
***”A poem
is a not a tourniquet
when you’re bleeding.
It’s not water when you’re thirsty
or food when you’re hungry.
A poem can’t protect you from an airstrike,
or from abduction, or from hate.
It’s hard to write when our words feel
like they’re not enough—they can’t do
the real, tangible work of saving lives,
or making people safer.”***
(see (1) Maggie Smith)
<~>
as is my wont,
I write,
as is my Natted~inhabited,
retiring to the local watering holes of
Cerebrum & Cerebellum,
them regular haunts,
where all requests are mailed, processed, satisfied & marked;
‘return & render to the sender, who’s on a cerebral ******
and that request?
‘give me the words’ (2)
those ‘to do’ words, floaters, direct to top of list,
those ‘can do’ words, that can effect the affect,
spare the despair, realize the fungible, concretize cures,
soften hard waters, giving a worsening worn life fabric a
curated baby blanket feel, a 4-ply human tissue of
‘words that tell me everything’ (2)
salve solution verbs that bounty-wipe spills in entirety,
vacuum up spillage spoiling of 17 days of terrible nouns,
uncovered-unknown rages caused by inflicting prepositions
released a hatred rising,
safety rebury it deeper, drug & destruct the sleeper agents,
and let me start over again with
‘telling me everything by saying nothing’ (2)
the pausal silence, the quieted spaces tween the heartbeats,
where ‘reflection,’
the noun,
and its world of alternations,
reflection,
the noun,
look inwards, but shining outward,
this, this!
is where the poem goes to do!
enervating & arresting
its contradictory powers
rock you into wild docility,
possessive and submissive,
contradictory interferences,
smoothing the roughness,
closing the gaps it opens,
healing the caused truthful cuts,
with words that tell you
everything and nothing,
open the holes, filling the gaps,
that is what a
poem do,
in and by
the manner it is spoken…
<~>
“Sometimes a poem is the stone you carry in your pocket—the one you rub when you’re worried. Let’s fill our pockets with poems.”
(see (1) Maggie Smith)
Oct 24, 2023
Oct 24, 2023 at 10:10 PM UTC
*there is a tourniquet on his tongue.
he is a risqué bloke
with alkaloid fingers,
they are wearing
yellow asylum jackets
yet he calls me
mad-
emoiselle, his, in between the lines
he cuts with razorblades and mirrors.
i find myself in between legs
of a stanza (not standing),
pale femurs and inner thighs
french-kissing into
surpine ampersands
where the first word
is a proclaimed ugly disease -- perhaps 'love.'
and the other, its escapade -- perhaps 'tuberculosis.'
but i must be the period:
oxidised bones.
within the eyes
of a stanza (still not standing)
abides no fancy lines
no avarice for contemplative meanings
there is but space and void
and i've filled his femur marrows
with metaphors
to the verge of the patella.
he writes poetry for me
with a needle
and an eight-ball.
there is a tourniquet on his tongue
and his spine fits my stocking
seamlessly.*
Dec 9, 2010
Dec 9, 2010 at 5:12 AM UTC
Strike a mark on a sun kissed shrine
Cheek bones, dance within the sand's light -
Lambent spore sprig -Rot - beneath the mine
Lay the tourniquet fused, marble eyes.
Center stark stork - wracked to atomic bliss
Forked tongue minotaur, auric troubadour -
Machinations of bellowed amethyst,
Composed the flowered Aum, raising thy *********
Arachnid's webbing - strung of turquoise beads -
By what are the viscid lines severed clean
That they convolute binaural progeny,
And lure the soul to breathe?
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 7:17 PM UTC
A pounding
seizures and nausea
violence, fountains of cascading
mankind's bleeding, gushing
puncture wounds of wine
Dreamkillers out of their way to wreak
smoldering, rancid havoc
Epilepsy and ******** muscles spasms
Brain-tissue scarring from the rocking
between heavenhell and deathlife
Give me your soul and I'll
twist it into strands with which I
hang myself and make a tourniquet around your
neck
Dancing or slaying be one
I **** and lascerate the remnants of my
skin, my soul stretched across the
traintracks, waiting for pleasure
pleasurepleasure in gore and flesh
and wriggling maggots in the eyesockets
of children
Too bad
we all have to wake up come down
inandout of this horrific flying breathing fantasy
rapture of adulterated movement
Sin in all its glory licks the black flames
ashestoashes and dust into mud
blud across the vacuum
Jul 11, 2012
Jul 11, 2012 at 5:48 PM UTC
dear god of needle ***** and poisoned well
i pray you find my mother
cold and dry and unfeeling
something you can draw no moisture out of
a different god struck a rock with a staff
a long long time ago
and water came to cool his throat
but there are no miracles here
so you can please stop beating her now
dear god of gluttonous apothecary
my mother's body is a mathematical
uncertainty
it is a function with limits
her veins are rolling with their bellies full
of chemicals that burn
her hair runs from the scalp the way
two legs would
from a house going up in flames
my mother's body
is a house going up in flames
i am a child that is terrified of a monster
under the bed
i am helpless to a thing i can feel but
cannot see
dear god of gasoline remedy
your counterintuitive science
your black dream
takes her body like a new land
teaches her it's wretched language
it rapes and pillages
it steals the recognition
that sparks her eyes when she looks in mine
dear god of intravenous dark rider
let her live to see a day
she can wake and not be bound
to her biology
dear god of pink ribbon tourniquet
let her breathe and take it for granted again
dear god of careful rampage
finish what you have started
and lock the door behind you
Aug 23, 2016
Aug 23, 2016 at 11:00 PM UTC
He is everywhere at once, yet a total mystery
He get's through any lock, yet never has a key
No matter where you go, there is nowhere to hide
He'll be there in the snow, he'll search far and wide
He's the shoulder for your tears
He's the blanket for your fears
He's the voice that no one hears
Yet always there all these years
He is sensitive and caters to all your needs
Where the others fail, he always succeeds
Your every hungry urge now finally feeds
He is the tourniquet for thy heart that bleeds
He is always there for you
In each and every single way
Until you find someone new
And you call him Mr. Yesterday
And now you know who this is truly about
But you may not yet know his very name
Yet you've met him without a single doubt
Because in this game we are all the same
So please, without any further delay
It is and always will be to my dismay
Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Everyman
If a girl is in need, he will be there...if he can
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 10:24 PM UTC
Life breathes
Taking breath from laughter smile and embrace
Exhaling sorrow loss and pain
Life shines through
Through overcast sky
Through shaded arbor canopy
Life grows
First by inches
Then by feet
Then after traveling miles
Life dies slowly
Gasping, reaching, bleeding
Life's tourniquet is love
I'm bleeding out
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 5:41 PM UTC
and these waves
of longing
are burning me
into stumbled
desert trances
as I crawl, parched
upon
earth that
sears and spears
my limbs
my inner organs,
once wet
with the fire
of my blood
now only
ashen embers
the very salt
of the sum of
my wounds
lacerated open -
barely held by
a secret tourniquet
wrapped tight, ******* me
in reverse tempest
and I clamor within my being
move in jolts,
like a voodoo dance
zombie girl
stuck in the hell
of no-woman's land
a landscape of spires
piercing me hot
making the sharpened path
dangerous for strangers
As for me,
I can only succumb to
their scalding roast
if I want to somehow
get out alive,
my skin charred
from that branding of insults
my heart scarred
from countless lashes
that your serpent's tongue
has inflicted upon me
This.
is not the pleasure
of being tethered
tender flesh teased
until writhing
This.
is not the grind
of earthen fire
and sky mixed
with underwater lava,
swarming cloistered whispers
into my brain temperatures
This.
is not the conflagration of
love seeds developing
into a ripe field
of the succulence of lustfruit
This.
Is just an
attempt
to wear down
the goddess in me
And to that
I say
No.
I turn the other cheek
to your barbed wire lies.
In the frequencies of the
next universe over,
an echo bursts into flames
rapidly oxidizing,
licking into
nourishment
the rebirth
of my
own
divinity
Dec 18, 2016
Dec 18, 2016 at 6:33 PM UTC
That I know..
You are very much hurting everyday
You feel like you just can't get away
Tears of blood cloud in your eyes till you can't see
Hurting and hurting longing to be free
Tears congregate and form into a puddle
Silently you are masking the pain, the struggle
All these while you are suffering in silence
Quietly resisting the emotional violence
You lift your eyes, but dimmed with grief
Your sorrow lends but only weak relief
You die everyday, you are wearied
It's like you're dressed at the funeral of regret, not yet buried
The stabbing pain you don't wish to bare
Nothing could make you feel better even if you share
You are gathering the strength you have in your soul
To beat the drums, feed the fire with coal
You are dipping your pain in inkwell heart
And scrawling out what you are feeling
Those words becoming the tourniquet
You don't know when your heart will stop bleeding
Jan 17, 2015
Jan 17, 2015 at 6:20 AM UTC