"tremens" poems
Staring at the ceiling,
what the hell is this feeling?
I can’t make up my mind,
of what’s real and what’s fake.
If I’m not dreaming,
then who is that screaming?
No one seems to hear it,
so that’s a mistake.
In front of the mirror,
and all I see is me,
but the me that I see,
is not who he seems to be.
Something’s not right,
in the little details,
in the colors and smells,
this is not re-al-i-ty.
I can see movement,
in the corner of my eyes,
something alive,
that’s not there when I look.
It’s like I’m in between worlds,
where time doesn’t exist,
the soundless abyss,
being dragged down by a hook.
This detox is different,
something is wrong,
I knew all along,
but that brings no relief.
This panic, is manic,
now I’m feeling frantic,
how can a person,
forget to breathe?
It’s feels like the weight,
on my shoulders has lifted,
but it’s only shifted,
and been placed on my chest.
My mind has grown muddy,
and I got nothing left,
fighting and struggling,
for every breath.
Clutching at myself,
as the tremors start.
Is it my heart?
Bring in the crash cart.
I hear someone say,
“place this under your tongue,
let it dissolve and don’t chew”,
but my tongue has gone numb.
I watch the walls bend,
and then I start to scream.
I’d like to believe it’s a dream,
but I’m not that dumb.
I can hear ambulance sirens,
so distant, and close,
but I’ve gone morose,
all I feel is the pain.
Houston, are you there?
All connections are down,
I can’t hear a sound,
I think I’ve gone insane.
Oct 24, 2018
Oct 24, 2018 at 4:24 PM UTC
White girl in the room , are you cognizant of the epilogue prior to it's revelation ? Do people lose their minds when they see their grave ?
Will peanut butter **** my craving tonight , orange sunshine , scraped out of the *** , put in the corner of your eye ? Delirium tremens , psychotic cravings , tantric *** , after shave poured through a loaf of bread ! Shoot my arm , legs , collapsed vein in my neck ? Shoot every one till there's not anyone left ! Your head held high ? You'd run your fingers through dog **** for a piece of her tonight !
Oct 30, 2015
Oct 30, 2015 at 9:26 PM UTC
HANGING WITH THE GALLO(W) BROS.
Coked out
Strung out
Flipped out
Had my share of friends
Blow their brains out
But still I went back out
And hung out with the Gallo brothers
And the drunks and the druggies and the homeless and the insane
Downtown at two in the morning.
Little did I know,
The Gallo Brothers were leading me to the gallows
Dead woman walking
Hanging out with them,
I was killing myself slowly
Too cowardly to flat out pull the trigger and get it done with,
I just squeezed it a bit
With two, three, four visits a day
From the dynamic dastardly duo.
Sometimes we hung out at Sutter Home
I remember the plastic thunk of bottles
In my purse on the way there.
The glass-laden Gallo Brothers sometimes made a bit too much noise
When stealth was called for,
So no one else would catch on to what I was doing.
So no one would catch onto the feelings I tried burying,
The demons I tried to drown,
Who were squeezing the life out of me
Feeling horrible, unworthy
Always going back on my misery.
Tremors, delirious
Delirium tremens
So shaking I can’t even double-fist
A single can of soda
I reached for the only help I’ll accept
I grabbed on tight to their hands
Even though my body turned it down
Rejecting, ejecting
Spewing, spitting their help
Back in their faces
“I wish I knew how to quit you”
My body told them
But the Brothers were a violent lot
Beating me into submission
When my mind was under their influence
Sometimes I’d do the craziest ****
For friends who didn’t know better,
Didn’t have my best interests at heart
Were -bent on my personal destruction.
Talk about peer pressure!
Doing, saying things I normally wouldn’t!
They made me go against the grain of everything decent and good about me.
Some friends just aren’t worth having
I learned that lesson the hard way
Cutting ties with the Gallo Brothers...
The hardest thing I ever did!
But... the only way to keep Dead Woman Walking
From becoming Dead Woman Hanging around
at the morgue instead of the Gallo Brothers’ house.
Aug 15, 2011
Aug 15, 2011 at 12:32 PM UTC
Delirium Tremens
Off the wall my feverish demons jump
And skirt about the edges of the room
Mocking my sleeplessness with levity
While I coil like a snake in a fiendish tomb
Cold sweat like clear lava bubbles
On my brow and down my spine
Muffled thumps or shrieking wails
Discernable sounds of an evil kind
Half in sleep or haphazard flight
Malevolent tentacles cleave me down
Tormented by these Hellish frights
In catacombs black, stuffy underground
I flail my limbs in futile dispute
At luminous eyes of a Satanic hound
May 21, 2012
May 21, 2012 at 10:00 PM UTC
Libera me, Domine,
de morte aeterna
in die illa tremenda
quando coeli movendi sunt et terra
dum veneris judicare
saeculum per ignem.
Tremens factus sum
ego et timeo,
dum discussion venerit atque venture ira:
quando coeli movendi sunt et terra.
November 21, 1976. 11:00 P.M.
With nothing
he packs his suitcase, turns
to his own personal prophet
and watches and waits
and waits, he will wait
for an hour.
And finally
the prophet speaks
in monotone, three short syllables.
He opens the door, careful
not to wake dad.
Turning the corner,
the suitcase jars the door ajar.
A stirring from upstairs.
Remembering the face of madness
behind the pulpit
behind the door,
he races out, fearful
of footsteps drawing louder
and with them, promises
of pain.
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 12:10 AM UTC
Homeward headed, I was driving my way
Down I-95 past the Old Mill Way in a yawn,
Turning the radio on and looking to play
Something to keep my consciousness on.
Few cars out at 1:00; it had been a long day;
I'd stopped off at Charlie's to sit with a friend
To blow out the kinks and let myself say
What a **** the company minion had been.
Four hours burned off like the late morning haze;
When I'd sobered back steady, was able to drive,
I paid off my tab, left my friends in a daze,
Headed the Jeep to the feed ramp for old 95.
At one in the morning, the traffic was thin;
When I heard Harleys roaring behind,
I scoped the mirror for the lanes they were in,
Double-blinked then to see if I was road-blind.
No bikers behind, no bikers beside, but sound
Like a squadron blared loud, and I felt a cold chill,
Thought better of having the last couple rounds,
Wished I'd stayed an hour before I'd settled my bill.
I glanced to the side, though the sound was all 'round,
Saw a glimmer of green glowing chrome in the dark,
And fire ethereal from pipes blooming sound,
From a Shovelhead, barely visible, flat black and stark.
But the rider's appearance emptied my chest:
Dark goggles, full beard and a gray flowing mane,
Black leather with signs on his tattery vest
And a number embroidered below the man's name:
"Rider 88" glowed red through the gloom,
A ******** burned on the withering arm:
"We rise again!" I heard a voice of doom,
"We're meeting at the old red barn!"
He wasn't alone, though I couldn't see
The posse he rode with, the pack he was in;
I felt a squadron of hellions run through me,
Concussive, incessant, their rattling din.
And then, except pavement beneath the Jeep's tires,
The howling of wind and crackling "Cotton-eyed Joe,"
Nothing but the road after midnight, no sirens or fires,
And me, shaking hands on the wheel, alone.
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 10:09 AM UTC
1.
Diaphanous dragons disgorge a deluge of diamonds
into the shadowed crevices of cumulus clouds.
Ruby-red sapphires overpopulate the glistening sky
like carbon-hardened locust: gorgeous messengers of the gods.
The Earth wears a crimson helmet, shielded from
the odious absence of ozone above the North and South poles.
Near Minneapolis, John Berryman's wizened body shatters
on the frozen riverbed below the Washington Avenue Bridge.
Angels weep to see him jump, as he waves a vaudevillian goodbye.
The sapphires blanch, then turn an angry, violent violet. Black holes ahead.
2.
Shakespeare and Mr. Bones **** on mortality's skimpy
skeleton of life. Will this broken body be resurrected?
Does it deserve such distinction? Better yet, does its daring,
drunken destroyer? Four hundred Dream Songs nod yes.
Berryman toddled ticklishly toward the last traces of transcendence.
Love & Fame broadcast how terribly his faith failed to trade
daily delirium tremens for the mysterium tremendum.
The God he prayed to demanded a syntax pure, plain.and perfect.
With jolts of jest, He jimmied paradoxes into koans. Berryman
howls for the sound of one diamond scratching the outline of his body on ice.
3.
He left a legacy broader than liquor, lechery and the love-struck ladies.
Lust seeded his fallow lacunae and lazily broke his wife's heart.
Scholarship scooted him to the squeamish, secluded top
of his Shakespearean class: Signal student turns trusted teacher.
Poetry cloned the Oklahoma clown in him. No successors,
no schools, no savvy peers, save Lowell. his fellow manic-depressive.
He dreamed songs of hilarity, humility, history, dehumanization.
Poetry proved serious business until it learned to laugh at itself.
Sapphires crackle under the weight of the creaking sun. They spin a kaleidoscopic rainbow of colors onto Berryman's obituary. Somehow, he has won:
An irreplaceable jewel of the sky.
Jul 23, 2019
Jul 23, 2019 at 4:01 PM UTC
Delirium tremens the lemons
Lost love and yellow
Cast of eye
Two twos the sevens
And what for those
In Heaven
Rancid liver the Shivers
Something wrong here
The Believers
Window dark no window
Splintered break to make
Betwixt between
Spinning colliding the Hiding
On a wall
The Shadows
Break of Day
Sep 16, 2010
Sep 16, 2010 at 10:59 AM UTC
drink away the days,
drink away the laundry,
drink away the pegs that
break as you put your
lacy lingerie on the washing line for all to see
drink drink drink
until the one with their
nails dug deep into your
heart remembers
you exist
drink away the slow internet,
the bills, the speeding fines,
drink away the withdrawals
and then stop
let your brain suffer,
let your hallucinations **** the
juice from your cerebral cortex,
let the seizures take the wheel,
spasm and choke
then finally lay yourself to a
psychotic rest as the
delirium tremens
set in because
death is just the physical manifestation of the metaphorical ghost you were in life
Feb 21, 2014
Feb 21, 2014 at 7:07 PM UTC
This teetotaler turns to tea
torquing temptation
towards tippling
thankfully, though
that tremendous tugging
teasing tendency thirst *******
thru teaching this totally tubular
toothless titular Texan thuggish tyrant
(titled Tsar Terry Troutman)
transcendental theology
tenets taught transferring
torpedoing, taming threatening
titanic tsunami tempest
tastefully tickling temperance
testing trying taut tenacity
together teaming (troika)
triumvirate torchbearers
*********** therapist
(Tony the tiger)
tough trailblazer theoretician
toady treacly Tory
(Tommy Two Tone),
thence thirdly Theodore
"Tornado" Tornetta)
themselves trained to tamp
twerking tremens triggers,
their tripartite treatment told
tattooing thorny transforming
took this then truant teenage turtle
through time traveling
to those truant tumultuous tragic,
toxic, tipsy twitchy, touchy, tetchy
typhoon terrible two times two
times two times two tantrum
throwing, thieving, threatening
taxing textured teen tinder times -
tossing, tilting, taking tankful tolled
throaty, thoroughly,
thickly telltale temblor
toured terrible tournament
testing taupe tumbling termagant (Thaddeus)
tangling (Tangoing) tiny Timothy,
the treacherous tarantula
tying tussling travail – tata!
May 16, 2018
May 16, 2018 at 6:31 PM UTC
winter
lumberjack.
six four.
too tall
for the trees.
scared them so
silly they'd
shake.
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 3:56 PM UTC
Si te despiertas a las dos, ahogándote con tu propia saliva, y das un brinco en la angustia y jalas aire desesperadamente, mortalmente, y vuelves a la vida, no al sueño, porque ya
no puedes dormir, y te quedas pensando como una hoja que piensa en el viento, y te acuerdas de Poe, que dicen que murió de su propio vómito en una borrachera, en una madrugada, en una calle, solo,
ahogándose, el pobre de Edgar Alían Tremens, agarrándose el cuello, crispándose todito, dando el zapotazo con la cabeza sobre el pavimento; te levantas, te sientas a la orilla de la cama, sientes frío,
te cierras bien el suéter, te vas a la cocina, haces café, estás agradecido.
Sobre el refrigerador la pecera vacía ya no tiene al príncipe encantado, o la princesa, que dormía con los ojos abiertos en el agua. Recuerdas cómo abría su boca para pedirte alimento
o para contarte su silenciosa historia. Amaneció flotando un día, como un pez de colores, y fue depositado bajo las yerbas del jardín para que lenta, verde agua, se evaporara.
Sólo «Pujitos» y las moscas, el perrito lanudo mueve la cola, se despereza, se aproxima, te pide su salida a la calle, pero comprende que es de noche y vuelve a echarse.
El gato no molesta y sigue durmiendo con sus tres niños de pecho que la semana pasada,
de pronto lo hicieron gata.
Se asoman las mujeres que perdiste, las que te engañaron, aquella que te dijo «yo soy tu harén».
Habías visto en la oscuridad los dos féretros en la misma tumba, el rostro quebrado de tu hijo, y ahora, la reciente, ¿cómo se estará cocinando en su cajón la dulce, la pensativa Rosario?
Las elecciones, la televisión, los poetas, los macheteros de la fábrica, la operación de Julio, habrá tiempo para dormir, las palabras, las imágenes.
Un coche escandaliza, pasa, ladran, dejan limpio el silencio. ¡Al abordaje, pues: las sábanas!
706
I would hug bones,
small fossils, to my chest
as if they,
like an errant breeze,
contained lost gods.
So many silent, semi-potent ghosts
melted away like
salted ice
on the long road
past my door.
In keeping their sands and secrets,
the feast of their tombs,
I search frantically beneath
palms, and dates, and acacias
for the last morsels of antiquity.
An anchor, perhaps, to
the vainglorious fictions
written by bloodied generals
and sunken eyed conquerors.
The chain rope of skepticism
pulling me deep into
and old- old river.
Sand rises; silt and watery dust,
filled to the brim with
old oil drums and drangon bones,
becomes the last venue
in which I find the
pitiful and incomprehesible demoralization
of my alcoholic fever dream
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 3:59 AM UTC
Words and lines flowed into my mind last night,
On the precipice of sleep, delirium tremens in full flight,
The sweats, the wicked dreams and the ****** paranoia,
Hard on the heels of the previous night’s dreamless collapse,
Holding onto a sliver of reality as the impending dawn slams my head into the pillow.
Again and again, sleep, wake, sleep if you dare and awaken.
The beloved, accursed alcoholic frolic is taking its revenge.
A killing curse hurled at me from a mystery on horseback,
My heartbeat lost its rhythm at the edge of my sanity.
Then the unforgiving morning comes after a fitful, broken rest,
Fleeting memories of Epic, guilty ballads of Kings and sinners,
Of beautiful prose and perfect rhymes.
All lost to me, and the world because of my horrible, loving vice.
Aug 9, 2016
Aug 9, 2016 at 4:38 AM UTC
Llegaron mis amigos de colegio
Y absortos vieron mi cadáver frío;
«¡Pobre!» exclamaron, y salieron todos...
Ninguno de ellos un adiós me dijo.
Todos me abandonaron. En silencio
Fui conducido al último recinto;
Ninguno dio un suspiro al que partía,
Ninguno al cementerio fue conmigo.
¡Cerró el sepulturero mi sepulcro...
Me quejé, tuve miedo y sentí frío,
Y gritar quise en mi cruel angustia,
Pero en los labios espiró mi grito!
El aire me faltaba, y luché en vano
Por destrozar mi féretro sombrío.
Y en tanto.., los gusanos devoraban,
Cual suntuoso festín, mis miembros rígidos.
¡Oh mi amor! dije al fin, ¿y me abandonas?
Pero al llegar su voz a mis oídos
Sentí latir el corazón de nuevo,
Y volví al triste mundo de los vivos.
Me alcé y abrí los ojos. ¡Cómo hervían
Las copas de licor sobre los libros!
El cuarto daba vueltas, y dichosos
Bebían y cantaban mis amigos.
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