"trapdoor" poems
Today, suddenly, I reached an absurd but unerring conclusion. In a moment of enlightenment, I realized that I'm nobody, absolutely nobody. When the lightning flashed, I saw that what I had thought to be a city was in fact a deserted plain and, in the same sinister light that revealed me to myself, there seemed to be no sky above it. I was robbed of any possibility of having existed before the world. If I was ever reincarnated, I must have done so without myself, without a self to reincarnate.
I am the outskirts of some non-existent town, the long-winded prologue to an unwritten book. I'm nobody, nobody. I don't know how to feel or think or love. I'm a character in a novel as yet unwritten, hovering in the air and undone before I've even existed, amongst the dreams of someone who never quite managed to breathe life into me.
I'm always thinking, always feeling, but my thoughts lack all reason, my emotions all feeling. I'm falling through a trapdoor, through infinite, infinitous space, in a directionless, empty fall. My soul is a black maelstrom, a great madness spinning about a vacuum, the swirling of a vast ocean around a hole in the void, and in the waters, more like whirlwinds than waters, float images of all I ever saw or heard in the world: houses, faces, books, boxes, snatches of music and fragments of voices, all caught up in a sinister, bottomless whirlpool.
And I, I myself, am the centre that exists only because the geometry of the abyss demands it; I am the nothing around which all this spins, I exist so that it can spin, I am a centre that exists only because every circle has one. I, I myself, am the well in which the walls have fallen away to leave only viscous slime. I am the centre of everything surrounded by the great nothing.
And it is as if hell itself were laughing within me but, instead of the human touch of diabolical laughter, there's the mad croak of the dead universe, the circling cadaver of physical space, the end of all worlds drifting blackly in the wind, misshapen, anachronistic, without the God who created it, without God himself who spins in the dark of darks, impossible, unique, everything.
If only I could think! If only I could feel!
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 9:58 PM UTC
I give the rat my dollhouse at night. our basement has a disease. my brother brings a flashlight to dinner. mother says poor devil to the poor devil she can’t stop eating. I have my own language that in hindsight is an age gap. I am so heavy. I jump and water gets out of my way. between you and me, sister sees me coming and throws herself on the trapdoor we’ve made a game of rolling eggs over. father shares a hat with god like there’ll be something in it.
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 9:54 AM UTC
~
*if you're feeling sinister tonight, come inside the darkroom. picture yourself pouring over mental images of a demure young botanist, loitering around the trapdoor of nostalgia, kissing someone new for the first time.
now imagine she is conscious and clustered in titillating blur, her smile beachy and airborne, with only the slightest suggestion that something troublesome is lurking underneath.
can you see her double exposure? totally tranquil, she poses with an arsenal of poisonous plants, as if she’s already slipped their venom into your tea.*
~
Apr 5, 2023
Apr 5, 2023 at 12:17 PM UTC
Movie ticket,
cinema stub,
two halves torn apart
by the fickle fingers of the screen attendant:
he looked up at me with a smile-
one learnt from a handbook compiled by the words of some corporate type,
who dislikes his job, you can tell from his vibe.
“The receipt's in the bag”,
I requested it to be in my hand,
customer service fingers are always painted a day-glow green,
hideous talons of the fake queen,
traced from the princesses of the TV-silver-shitty-fake-TV screen:
she looked up at me with a smile-
one learnt from a magazine of ink,
nothing more than lies disguised within the wholesome typography imprint.
Carrying nothing but a wallet,
“would you like a bag sir?”
I am carrying nothing but a wallet, of course I would like a bag,
what do you take me for:
she looked up at me with a smile-
Wait.
Her intriguing trapdoor smile concealed
perfectly straight teeth that,
through the gap in her mouth,
spat out the shop floor script,
as if a Shakespearean soliloquy
equipped for the stage,
not this retail trade.
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 5:10 PM UTC
"I can tell you that Dada was a leftist,
anti-bourgeois, non-Art birthed from WWI
and not some aleatory root to postmodernism
off-shot from a lurid acid rain.
I know that diffraction can be seen
on horizons in the early morning hours
of summer along smooth or dentate curvatures
and that it can have hues of blue, purple and
a soft-handed massage of orange that gingerly
applies pressure to your retinas with sugar-water.
If only eyes had lips that opened and closed.
"It is said that action is the birth of Manyness
and that non-action brings one's soul back to the Sage Mind,
the universe of Oneness, the cup longing to be fulfilled and how
upon brim overflow it longs to be empty once again
because of the relationship between Yin and Yang
and how one cannot Be without the other
and why perspective can change "full" to "empty"
so that the vicious cycle can never truly, truly end.
The difference between French Vanilla ice cream
and plain Vanilla is the degree of creaminess.
Fill up a bathtub and let it soak into my skin.
"There is no way for me to avoid being prolix about the things
I speak about in normal, day-to-day conversation. Science and reason
have accursed me to traverse this reality with the utmost care and precision
of language and society has forced pseudo-logic down my throat like
a bird screeching as it is forced past my pharynx and larynx.
Its sounds are amplified, beak-blared from my nostrils, and its wings are violent,
stretched against my neck skin, creating a pale-skinned, ship anchor image from my shoulders up.
I'll try to sing for you when you reach my trapdoor, I don't wish to eat you.
"I do not believe in anything because with everything comes a something,
a reason for its being. They are, 'from reason,' 'in reason,' and/or, 'for reason.'
There is no escaping this thought.
There is no escaping criticism.
I will find the Truth, mathematically calculated to infinity
from knowable circumstance and perception.
I will know everything and I will believe nothing."
Mar 1, 2013
Mar 1, 2013 at 9:02 AM UTC
Prohibition came, but not to Whiskey Hill.
A man has got to eat; a drunk must have his fill.
Old Abner dug a basement before fall
Beneath the milking barn at night;
Dug down and mortared up a wall;
Bought copper sheets and hammer-fit 'em tight,
Disguised his vent holes in the stall
By countersinking posts to keep them out of sight.
Set down a trapdoor and a sturdy stair,
Strawed the lot and penned up his old mare.
In all he did, he didn't tell his wife a thing;
He reasoned there was money to be made...
More than the crops would ever bring,
More than the eggs the chickens laid,
He'd be enriched by moonshine in the spring.
He learned to ferment mash from an old book,
Soaked down a bag of corn and let it sprout,
Waited twelve full days before he took a look,
Cracked kernels, poured on water, boiling hot,
Then pitched the yeast and left his hidden nook,
And all the while kept his mouth shut;
Seven days and Sunday passing by,
Old Ab could wait no more;
Ate supper quick and told his wife
He'd one more feeding chore...
Stole to the barn and shoo'ed the mare aside,
Pulled up the vent posts from the floor,
Climbed down and lit a fire inside
Beneath the still to let the vapors soar.
A thrill began as drops began to fill the jug;
The fore-shot blended in as Ab forgot
That methanol would poison off the slug,
So when a shot he took, his breathing stopped.
Above, impatient Molly stamped, then paced
Hungrily in her pen, shoved to reach her hay
And dropped the standards in their place,
Plugged tight the vents, above where Abner lay.
When Hildy woke, her husband still was out;
She walked down to the barn, no sign to see;
And thought it odd the horse was out...
The cattle lowing hungrily for feed.
The sheriff came to have a look;
No luck had he,
Old Hildy sold the place and moved away.
Where she went and how remains a mystery.
A cousin bought the place: house and barn and still (unseen).
His sons, exploring, found old Abner in the spring
Beneath the horse's paddock where he lay.
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 1:40 AM UTC
Each day, we carry our names through urban terrain.
For every letter laid out and shining atop the cityscape,
a thousand more become garbage scattered in darkness.
Yet I'm courted into thinking I'm on the right street
by algorithms selling dopamine down Sideways Alley.
Too soon after bearing my soul on the infinite scroll,
tourists flock and flap to get at the itch on my back.
Their words cut deep like plastic knives at a banquet.
Their hearts warm like the walls of an empty fridge.
Breadcrumbs left behind only lead to the trapdoor.
Those in luxury estates who threw paint on a throne -
their patches of land fertile and thriving up to the gates -
offer tips on organic growth that can build into empires,
while those packed in high-rise blocks act like bandits,
egos painted loud on knock-off flags hung to balconies.
What am I in this black hole of corrupted competition?
Views above the skyline only provide anxious thoughts.
Occasionally, I find answers in unseen neighbourhoods.
An outstretched hand holds a glass of chilled apple juice.
Now we go round each other's house to share fresh fruit.
Sep 12, 2020
Sep 12, 2020 at 11:59 AM UTC
In the eye where I am
where there's peace,(so to speak)
I take out the album which I carry in a telegram and in those few stunted phrases,
my heart again blazes with desire,full of fire and of want.
This is punishment for me and I see retribution in these lines,
times though be far are near as I wear out my eyeglass making pass after pass at the words on the clipped sheet in my hand,
telegram and the full of memory man and the eye carries me on to the storm that levels all in its path,
I shall weep for this no more,bring the winds and let them bore through me and the rains to swallow my tears unshed.
I am led like the goat to the pipers of Pan.
I am the telegram becoming the man and the album's a plan to destroy me,though the Devil employs many vices it seems that nothing is fixed and there's a swirling of voices which melt into one,(am i to be that one?)
This saxophonic cacophony within which I am caught teaches me, what once before I was taught,
I'm a prisoner in the dock and the black cap is on and the 'beak' up ahead says,'you're going to swing John'
And the beggars and tramps and those bums that you meet on the islands of midnight where the ne'er do well greets you with,'lend me a dime' all make some time to come to the show where I swing to and fro and...look at my face all bloated and blue,
(it's only make up,but what can I do,poor ******* I am)
and the eye winks at me,winks at me as if I could see the joke in this,it is funny though, that one feels so tall as the trapdoor opens and you begin the fall
but then it's snap, crackle and pop
full stop
dead end.
telegram sent,
I'm going home.
stop.
end.
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 7:10 AM UTC
I’m blowing smoke out of the chimney in my lungs
My tongue’s an ashtray for songs that have never been sung
My head’s a duel flame of a battle yet to be won
My heart’s a furnace in the trapdoor in the sun
All that has to be done
All that has to be fun
My fingers run, this is the smoking gun
Trapped like a nun, in a hustler’s pun
Flesh weighs a ton, this is the smoking gun
Jun 29, 2012
Jun 29, 2012 at 12:56 PM UTC
You're here for my pleasure
In all kinds of weather
Floated down from above
Like peace in a mechanical dove
Goes through the trapdoor
Jan 7, 2020
Jan 7, 2020 at 1:46 PM UTC
You place a finger to my lips
To signify some change;
The wind outside the building shifts,
The curtains rearrange.
Questioning I glance at you:
Your eyes take in the problem
And deem that something is askew,
From top until the bottom.
And then they strike! the serpents
Who guarded tombs of old
Had sneakéd through the curtain
And crept across the floor.
We dash up to the rooftop
But this is in the desert;
Our path of flight, it must stop
That we may end this hurt.
You draw your saber, slowly
All others they gather round
Ev'ry wedding guest holding
To their host's every word
You tell them of the valor
That awaits a man alive
And that it's your desire
That everyone survive.
They arm themselves, bravely
And descend through the floor
To the storey down below me
And shutter the trapdoor.
The plan is simple: find one
And **** the serpent dead
As soon as youve slain it,
Deliver here its head.
The many serpents saw us
And, hissing, took their aim
But not a one escaped us
For our leader, host, the same
He led them without falter
Guiding without doubt
And when the last was severed
We gave a triumphant shout.
The feast continued, slowly
Just as it was before
But none thought little of the man
Who secured their lives once more.
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 12:42 PM UTC
I’d rented out the basement of
A house I used to own,
I hated renting places
I preferred to live alone,
I wasn’t good at choosing all
The tenants I would get,
And this guy was a doozy
The most eccentric of them yet.
But I must admit, the money
Paid the mortgage, right on time,
And I looked toward the future
When the house, it would be mine,
So I put up with his foibles
And his funny little ways,
He would sit down in his basement
And would disappear for days.
He had a little doctors bag
He wouldn’t be without,
With signs both astrological
And Druid runes, no doubt,
He always took it with him
When he wandered down the street,
Come skulking back, and talk about
The weirdo’s that he’d meet.
I knew something was going on,
I heard both screams and moans,
Seep up from out the basement
With the creak of drying bones,
At night they used to wake me up
And I’d lie there in dread,
And wonder what that movement was
Beneath my poster bed.
One night I crept on down and stood
Outside the basement door,
And heard strange voices muttering
Not one, but three or four,
I heard him raise his voice and say
In tones both harsh and grim,
‘I didn’t say you’d have your way,
But you can enter him!’
A peal of ghoulish laughter then
Rang out behind that door,
I bounded up those steps, ran like
I’d never run before,
Then lowered down the steel trapdoor
That sealed off that stair,
And laid the carpet over it,
You’d not know it was there.
I put up with a week of thumps
And cries of ‘let me out!’
But put my face close to the floor
And whispered, ‘Hey, don’t shout!
You keep those demons that you raised
Locked in your doctor’s bag,
Or maybe they will enter you,
And then, if so, that’s sad!’
I waited for those sounds to die
For upwards of a year,
Then poured a ton of concrete in
To seal that basement stair,
The house has sold, a Mr. Bould
Paid not enough, no doubt,
But said, ‘there’s not a basement there,
I’ll have to dig one out!’
David Lewis Paget
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 2:51 AM UTC
once
my daddy took me to a clearing,
a shrouded cedar and pine
hideaway,
overlooking the distant mountain range,
sticking up like morning hair.
it was sunny,
flowers sprung out of the ground at our feet and
fought their way through the
grass.
he led me to a stump,
"this is where i write when i cant think."
i nodded and took it all in
with open eyes and a
wide mouth, hanging like a trapdoor.
it was beautiful;
the mountains in the distance creating in my
wild imagination
castles like the ones where giants lived,
in the stories that spilled from his lips.
he opened his arms wide like wings
at the highest part of the arching hill,
he closed his eyes and the breeze tousled
his wheat hair, flowers softly caressing his
ankles.
the scruff above his lip and laying on his chin
shined gold in the drifting daylight sun.
he took a deep breath
a humongous breath;
deeper than any i could ever take.
*"this is where i go when i cant
breathe."*
you could hear the echoes of swift trains,
screaming past in the valley
from
Truckee,
carrying chills along with it
every time i heard them.
i never liked that sound.
it was a cacophony of shrieks.
he held my hand
with fingers ten thousand oceans larger than
mine,
and took me into the thickest, deepest part of the woods
where it was dark
and the smell of pine viciously attacked your nostrils,
like a rabid dog.
he let go of my hand,
i let it fall dejectedly to my side.
he slumped down into a pile near the roots of the tree,
a different man:
tired and trying.
he sighed.
*"this is where i go to sleep,
when your mother has had enough of
me."*
Jan 27, 2014
Jan 27, 2014 at 1:51 AM UTC
Personally, I think we Australians and Guests
Have lost the War against the Terror of Coffeeism -->
The sheer, unadulterated Facts on the Ground
Indicate to me a whole new Generation of
Spoilt little brats and bratettes immune to Reflection -->
A Generation of "Can-Doers" and "Will-Doers" and, my favourite:
The "F**K-you-I'm-going-to-try-to-do-it-4-myselfers."
Bully Beware ==>
I may have stuffed up when I wrote the
"Poem" about nothing leaving the 20th Century -->
What I meant was that WAR (my God-given special
assignment/atonement) needed to be contained
within the struggles of MCM - MCMLXXXXIX.
All the Great Inspirations and Fundamental Studies
Had/Have/Will Have already been scrutinized -
Only the Fine-Tooth'd comb was needed to untangle
The knotty issues and remove the well-hidden
Vermin infecting our consciousness through the
Trapdoor of the sub-conscious -->
Eventually - and I certainly didn't think it would take so long -
Not only should we by now have Tagged and ID'd
The Parasitic TICKS, but also rid ourselves of the more
Communicable LICE at the end of the School yard.
Mar 4, 2014
Mar 4, 2014 at 5:06 AM UTC
I fell for you
but you were
already gone
as soon as
I got up again,
like a magician
through a trapdoor.
That was the time
I began to believe
in magic.
Mar 18, 2019
Mar 18, 2019 at 6:33 PM UTC
Her mouth: the trap door.
It pulls you in and screams for more
and now she's flirting with disaster,
playing with fire and burning faster.
Her latch is weak and opens easy.
You'll always lose when she gets greedy.
Also stemmed from her abyss:
the self -respect of a dying fish.
Oh, it comes and goes, but here it comes.
We better latch the door and ******* run.
Jul 20, 2010
Jul 20, 2010 at 1:52 AM UTC
Handclaps, trapped, you are another clapped out hasbeen fading on the subtle regret of a haunted dancefloor,that echoes to a trapdoor of your reflection ,deep on a stained echo of a fatigued stand up romance fall at the feet of saints part time actors on shadows of downbeat sadness ,that chance meeting fall out from insight to quicksand that pours on a sinking fragrence of pitiful sadness and tide tiredness of desert slipstream and fragile happiness to upturned madness ,undressed to a ****** round of applause that maps teach us to follow to a statue frozen and silent .
Dec 19, 2012
Dec 19, 2012 at 4:22 PM UTC
To shake dust from my pretty
child
i must mystify minds while, molding
pre-paved tile patios:
give the sheep’s pen a four wall construct
A-RISE above the morphic
and bellow, to comfort the feet.
Im stabbing quarters into my activation plate’s extra exhaust
to ignite something.
Spit some carbon –
Manic moments, move a myles like me to the metaphysical mirror.
And it is not this one that reflects,
but to the duties my appendages embody i –
lack expects.
Do due – Respect.
to this Chthonian carriages; my dermis quite the copy cat.
to say the body is made in the images
of a cosmic titan is overly abstract.
The big bang was an aftermath of a flatline,
“so whatchur telling me is that even the void gets tired?” (it says)
my guilt was relieved of its cage and given
new duties.
Project itself on a man with open eyes
searching for answers.
Close that third mind and let them
truths seep from the almost always
clogged sinuses.
Snore even.
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 11:51 PM UTC
Mistress seems strange,
Taught to read lines,
A voice, practiced, undermines
A mistake, replaced, small change,
Out of Their pockets into silver sockets that
Shine when it Rains.
She's under a roof,
Need not,
want not,
the handful of proof,
That when the crowd gets loud,
They paint her Red,
But the Stage paints her White.
Mistress seems different,
Trained to believe, to perform,
Playing the part was significant.
Ignore the cracks,
a pleased crowd comes back and
She'll get her pay, so long as
She sticks to the way she was raised.
She found the trapdoor.
It led to the boy whose fingers
Were scored from
Scripts he'd never written.
He spoke off cue,
though she thought him kind,
There was salt in his wounds.
He capsized the boat.
A stage that'd been sailing,
but barely afloat.
Mistress is gone.
Her life turned around,
As she took the hand of the boy,
who promised she wouldn't drown.
Jan 10, 2014
Jan 10, 2014 at 4:55 PM UTC
Fragments of a trapdoor world
A mystery bird
The song he sings of the absurd
My dream driller
Reality killer
Made of smoke and mirror
Corridors with endless doors
Each door hides something new
A secret or two
My dream driller
Reality killer
Made of smoke and mirror
A kiss from the abyss
I'm awake,
Mind twisting like a snake
Please remember all of this
But only fragments remain
Always the same
My dream driller
Reality killer
Made of smoke and mirror
Mar 13, 2013
Mar 13, 2013 at 1:50 PM UTC
I am alright
is what I say even when I have flashbacks everyday of the intimidating looking paramedic carrying me into the ambulance car as if I’m shattered porcelain.
We’re alright
is what my mom says even when she leaves the house she constantly calls and when we aren’t in the same room she repeats “Kelly? Just making sure you’re alright”.
I am alright
is what I say even when I have to look away when the clock strikes 9:27 am because that’s when everything suddenly went black and then spotted white.
We’re alright
is what my mom says, a single parent paying MRI scans, emergency room bills, antiseizure medication, the neurologist, the neurosurgeon, the epileptic neurosurgeon, without a cent from my father, and her worry lines are piercingly more clear to me.
Does anyone really wanna hear the truth?
I rub my fingers across my head imagining ripping out the millions of neurons lighting paths across my brain. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to worry anymore.
I’ve kept my mouth shut because it’s polite but I want to tell everyone who’s pretending to be my friend because they feel sorry for me to **** off because my health is none of their business.
It all catches up to me when I sit in the hallway at Cincinnati Children’s and I watch kids with tubes down their noses and needles in their arms and think to myself:
I can’t be one of them, can I?
This can’t be real, can it?
But I guess I’m alright.
The meds make me feel foggy, like I’m somewhere between awake and asleep.
Where my mind feels like it fell through a trapdoor and into a vacuum.
If it was up to me I wouldn’t leave the house. The only places I feel safe are in the nurses office or in between the 4 walls of a hospital with my mom holding my hand.
That’s what seizures do. Turn an 18 year old girl into a 5 year old, wanting to run in a closet and slam the door so nobody has to see it happen again.
No going down stairs alone, no locking the door when showering, no getting drunk at parties, no driving, no living your life.
So you wonder if I’m alright? If alright means seeing my mom cry for the first time in years, if alright means sleeping 3 hours a night, if alright means having to rely on others because I can’t do anything by myself..
Maybe I’m tired of lying.
Maybe I’m not alright.
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 3:48 PM UTC
I died once,
just to see what it was like
(it doesn’t matter how,
so I won’t bother saying)
my curiosity had bested me
and so I did what I had to
in order to see
Like Thomas,
my dying eyes were flooded
by white mice and roses,
all in constant motion as my
eyelids finally shut
although the darkness had
embraced me absolutely,
a kind of clairvoyance
unknown to me picked me
up and swept me away
still blind, I found my footing
and I waited
and waited
Silently, a light broke above me,
falling thickly onto my shoulders
like condensed milk
and then, from somewhere
a voice spoke, tragic and booming:
“YOU’RE EARLY.”
I winced at the reverberations
echoing into nothingness
I couldn’t muster any reply
beyond a half-trembling shrug
There was a quick snap,
and the peculiar feeling of standing
on a trapdoor that’s about to drop
and, at last, I was back;
returned to my mortal coil,
gulping breaths of air
cold and deep and new
Feb 16, 2011
Feb 16, 2011 at 7:12 PM UTC
i once had a teacher say to the class "use this free time to space out"
and i couldn't help but laugh and wonder
the dangers of that activity once i ventured into the depths of my mind.
see, a good idea that was not for me.
i've spent enough countless moments and wasted time in my own head to memorise how skipping away into it went.
you do not skip, first off; a tightening rope bounds your legs and demands you to stumble into an endless pit.
rain plummets like bombs upon your unfeeling grey skin,
and a dark shadow's sharp nails dig into your chest
and leave a gaping hole, unwilling to be fulfilled.
your throat closes like the door behind you, so there's not escape,
no screams ready to echo off your prison cells walls,
no hands steady enough to reach out for an exit,
just the blind mistake of opening up a trapdoor,
like an alleyway where you live in fear of each corner you turn into,
and falling into the arms of laughing silhouettes of embodied tears,
whispering lies of how you'll be safe with them,
dimming the light and muting all sounds until
only your thoughts can keep you company,
burning static and fuzzy against your aching brain,
and handing you the long list of reasons
why a smile shouldn't be on your face.
so teacher, may i laugh again at the suggestion,
and shake my head in disagreement,
because believe me,
i do not want to live through that
again.
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 9:16 AM UTC
The river’s still up in the park,
and brown, drowning the swingset,
eddying around the bottom of the slide,
like a trapdoor out of childhood.
I never needed one. I used to dream
of the waters sweeping over my head
and now I remember the way blood looked
circling the drain, fainter and fainter
pink and then gone, lost forever.
I wonder how it would have felt,
to never know the deeper pools,
to never be dragged down into the darkness
that lies beneath the surface,
the unending roiling of the sea inside.
I bite my tongue, turn the saliva red,
so that even my mouth is full of dark water,
and I keep the words to myself,
trapped behind the blades of my teeth,
locked in the viscous fluid behind my eyes.
Nov 28, 2012
Nov 28, 2012 at 3:23 PM UTC