"tunneled" poems
Thread knuckles into notches of your spine,
you were mine.
Held down as carotid fought hard,
to keep open your eye.
Staring vivid as clouds overtook.
I can taste you through your musk,
hear the quivering in your thigh.
Stomach acids crawled into your nose,
and petals bloom. Belly aflame,
throat bleat with each beat.
As vision tunneled from expanse
to pinhole spindle of our room.
Bared teeth like a wild animal,
eyes wide with excitement.
If you could breathe a word your smile soon'd fade.
Porcelain comtesse *** undress with maroon'd face.
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 4:36 AM UTC
comparable to a parasite
but with a higher mortality rate
it has opened its mouth
and found a way to my insides
it began to multiply
an asexual creature
and slowly I was being consumed
they nested in the linings of my stomach
giving me sudden lurches
which triggered my anxiety
then frolicked in my eyelids
irritating the iris
and I was forced to cry
then such creatures
tunneled their way back to
my flaking epidermis
and for a split second my body remained its shape
but one could soon see
I fell victim to a consumption
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 11:01 PM UTC
If trees be poems by the earth
In avid joy I read each one
Florets writ in fragrant verse
Inked with beams of the morning sun
In shade, a fruit, a whiff of air
I rest beneath wide branches spread
A cavort of emerald canopy
Bestows comfort upon my breath
I lean against the bark, recline
And think of how it stands in time
Through tunneled years it's stoic trunk
Stands proud against frost and rain
Drops it's leaves to nakedness
Till spring dresses in green again
On but an arm, the koel sings
'Tis home to birds that weave a nest
Haven to sojourners ache
Clasp around, hold close to breast
I trace the names of love engraved
Now forgot; asleep in graves
On felled bark my soul I pen
On papyrus the past I feel
The murmured songs of sentiments
In susurrus as branches kneel.
Nymphs would hide or fairies entreat
With fireflies in silver light
Creatures tip toe on their feet
Lithe, in the darkness of the night
In engraved lines meaning I see
What better song, what poetree?
Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky - Gibran
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 9:38 AM UTC
I am a traveler commuting on life's rails,
going station to station.
Disembarking at different destinations,
each time spent differently.
The car can be claustrophobic with passengers,
suffocating me in anxiety.
Other times, just a few of familiar faces,
friends, families, locals, daily riders.
Some talking, of life, nonsense, all or nothing,
each making their way.
There are times of light, above ground and of sun,
the rest tunneled, falsely lit, dark.
The sights of open land, buildings, and of the day,
the faces of love, hurt, hurried and grind.
Day in Day out this cycle goes on,
different,yet the same.
I am part of this mass exodus to get somewhere,
yet my commute is my own.
At times I arrive with many at the platform
bustling towards their tasks.
Trains for life come and go, expresses to locals,
roaring with noise, movements, purpose.
However, there are times i am the only one there,
Occasional train, in silence, alone.
Those are the days that my commute seems fruitless,
leaving me to wonder,
Have I just been passing it all by?
© J.L.Gonzalez75 09/2016
* this is a rough edit... am not a poet, but just write.
Sep 27, 2016
Sep 27, 2016 at 7:28 PM UTC
And I did it once again.
Skin picked and shaven,
Cakey frosted ivory,
Faceless, nameless,
Plasticity contusion.
Littered in the detailed fractures of a swelling stem,
Those skeletal twigs of intangible incestual wings,
splintered in stacks underneath his bed.
Apocalyptic comfort found in the veins of what remains...
Pineal shame,
Puny white me,
Post-karmic, futuristic-retrospective cosmic plan, slowly creeps towards me and offers its long inflaming hand.
Cricket twitch, echoes in the distant introspective glitch of my momentary intuition.
A bitter drip on tongue descends,
Tunneled in an unwanted exploration.
That sour pitched cacophony uncomfortably sung,
Through the ghastly cold touch of a righteous cockroached thumb.
Repugnance,
Spreading the stain of an untouched soul,
Quicksand, morphing me into dust.
Devouring the white and into the red I rust.
Nov 24, 2016
Nov 24, 2016 at 1:40 PM UTC
If I were to send you all the letters I wrote,
the ones where my heart bled out the words
and where my tears painted the borders.
—where I laid out all my pain to rest,
you would know the depths my heart has tunneled,
just so I could make more space for you.
you would know the dreams I tucked away
for the day we reached our promise of forever.
you will find, there, the thousand different ways
I wish I could have said I loved you.
and a thousand
more ways I wished
I could have made you stay.
call them prayers, the way I begged the heavens
if there was a way to save a sinking ship.
or heal all the wounds yet to be inflicted;
or take away the memories yet to be made;
If I had sent them, would you have understood?
that there was no way for me to love you
any less than I did. That is the way that I am.
And there was no way for me to love you
and not lose myself. I’d have given you my soul.
and your glass would never have been empty
because I would have given you my all.
Feb 16, 2019
Feb 16, 2019 at 8:24 AM UTC
I shaved away the edges until there was nothing left, but a dream of what could have been, and so with frustration i accepted the jagged.
A common law of common flaws, as my face morphs into mask.
I still wonder, when it all will collide, building up inside ...
So much.
Too much.
Electrified in the the allure of my ruthless retorts, as i struggle in futile resistance to the inevitable.
The feeling is incredible, when you let all just go.
As it gently flows from the empathy into ecstasy, learning to love thy enemy, even as they are metaphorically stabbing me in the back.
Euphorically to react to the sensations in my lap when shes next to me.
Hexing me in a shellacking smack to my mannerisms
Her summer dress to address my cynicism, as it flows back from whence it came.
Detained in her image.
Restrained, in questioned worth.
Worth a thousand words.
Words never heard but seen in synesthesia.
Synesthesia saving my amnesia from forgotten verbs that be-heave us, in forgetful stumbling of the loving mumblings before the kiss.
The kiss dismissing the winded blue lips from the fumbled wits of love.
Love drown the fires ablaze as it spirals away.
Away from the journey.
Journey of the uninterrupted.
Uninterrupted in the hunting of my comforts.
Comfort in the squiggled lines.
Lines that pack a little comfort.
Comfort in the blinds, as i sacrifice my obedience for a little bit of expedience on the smile that awaits, this toothless face.
Bludgeoned stupid, as i pace at half mass, blinded in the tall grass of empty lands amassed in colors unseen with tunneled eyes that refuse to defy gravity.
Gravity in your roads chosen.
Chosen in the glow of abodes ablaze.
Amazed in starlit eyes.
Eyes to dream.
Dream of better ways.
Ways to clean the bad away.
Away with my wayward words.
Words observed in zero.
Zeros the point in which i met her, blinded in the blur, as im pulled to her.
Sep 2, 2012
Sep 2, 2012 at 6:08 PM UTC
the
fellows
at the beach
waxed surf boards
out they did paddle
some had wipe outs on the crests
others tunneled through barrels
summer time is such a super time
to watch surfers challenging waves
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 7:35 PM UTC
It begins here.
In the percolating silence
that lingers behind gritted teeth--
the loose threads on denim jeans
that only ever gets cut,
the landfall that prays
for minimal casualties
except each body bag
contained pieces of your heart
he could no longer mend --
a slightly-timed confession.
The end begins in the way
the essence of the beginning
becomes foreign.
We know about length measurements
from school,
but kilometers or feet
do not weave the tapestry
in spaces between two people.
Distance,
we forget,
surpasses the cataract-like
tunneled notion of
merely its quantitative value.
I see it in the way you've forgotten
how to make me laugh.
How you've got a grip
on my hand
and yet
I'm still reaching out.
How we walk on eggshells
around each other,
and traded in words
for daggers
or words
that didn't matter
enough to land on ears
that swell to listen.
Ticking bombs,
deep sighs,
feeble temperament
waiting for the softest nudge
to topple the tower,
and you’ve predicted
the catastrophe
long before a tandem
of hot flesh
had turned cold,
and bruised,
and hurting.
The galaxies
in our eyes,
rusty,
no longer colliding
into sweet solace—
you’ll realize that
you’ll always be in the
losing end
where you flaunt your
vulnerability
in plain sight
like a mannequin
on the other side
of the looking glass.
Let me stay for a bit.
Let me mourn what’s passed
and cherish
whatever’s left.
Jul 10, 2018
Jul 10, 2018 at 6:24 PM UTC
Men with picked voices chant the names
of cities in a huge gallery: promises
that pull through descending stairways
to a deep rumbling.
The rubbing feet
of those coming to be carried quicken a
grey pavement into soft light that rocks
to and fro, under the domed ceiling,
across and across from pale
earthcolored walls of bare limestone.
Covertly the hands of a great clock
go round and round! Were they to
move quickly and at once the whole
secret would be out and the shuffling
of all ants be done forever.
A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowing
out at a high window, moves by the clock:
disaccordant hands straining out from
a center: inevitable postures infinitely
repeated—
two—twofour—twoeight!
Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms.
This way ma’am!
—important not to take
the wrong train!
Lights from the concrete
ceiling hang crooked but—
Poised horizontal
on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders
packed with a warm glow—inviting entry—
pull against the hour. But brakes can
hold a fixed posture till—
The whistle!
Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two!
Gliding windows. Colored cooks sweating
in a small kitchen. Taillights—
In time: twofour!
In time: twoeight!
—rivers are tunneled: trestles
cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating
the same gesture remain relatively
stationary: rails forever parallel
return on themselves infinitely.
The dance is sure.
1.9k
He's Uncle John to you, but John to the rest of us
Got a way of telling stories without the fanfare or the fuss
He can jump into any conversation, has a lot of stuff to say
and every bit is interesting 'cause that always been John's way.
There was one about his summer job before 1970,
paid to push a Swan-shaped boat off a dock in Asbury
With a grapple hook on a ten foot pole, or something of that sort
well he'd push 'em out and pull 'em in wasn't doing it for sport~
The same guy who owned the swan boats, tunneled love across the way
twice a week John worked the darkness, but preferred the light of day.
Played rhythm at the Upstage in band called 'Cory' later
workin' Perkins in West Belmar, took the name from the percolator
Around that time he grew his hair out, it was like an Afro-sheen
mistaken for Tinker, a surfboard chinker and drummer with Springsteen.
Cruisin' down around Brookdale in his '39 LaSalle
Met 'Stinky' Tink at Thompson Park, where he was singing with his pal
Hey John, you look like Tinker,
but now you favor Gere
a live ringer for Mike Richards,
and don't forget DeNir-
Oh, if you can't remember anything from 40 years ago
just ask your Uncle John who knows the time in Tokyo.
Oct 5, 2013
Oct 5, 2013 at 5:57 AM UTC
brachiosaurs were tall,
so they got hit by meteorites first.
but ichthyosaurs died slowly in water that
isn't warm anymore, because a blanket
of grey hair (there will be mammals soon)
knocked out the sun in a prize-
fighting match. i took a shard
of space rock in my belly that
tunneled into my backbone (the ancient
arthropods died too) but you got frozen, by
that ashen sky, slowly, while
your ocean got colder.
the sand shivered too.
Mar 10, 2011
Mar 10, 2011 at 11:47 AM UTC
How was it there in Isengard,
Former haven of the proud,
Whose hollowed valley hid the rot
Beneath its treeless hills,
Ancient machinations tunneled far below
The smooth, impervious tower of Saruman,
The Iridescent Dazzler,
Whose quiet words slipped Sauron's thoughts
Inside our weaker minds?
Venom running hot...then changing cold
Within old Saruman on Gandalf's salutation:
"Saruman the White,"
Changing Truth for truths,
Something totally desired.
"I prefer Saruman the White!"
I think old Gandalf said
While he was still "The Gray,"
(Just before his lofty spire stay).
But evil magic has its ends,
Tendrils turn upon themselves,
Vines tangling slow or fast,
Returning to the evil doer's door
While Good climbs steadily to new beginnings
Rooted in the Old and True,
Reaching for the sun.
Old Ents in righteous anger
Broke dams, diverted streams to flood
The war machines of Isengard,
Drove Orcs and Wargs and Trolls to doom,
Drowned the furnaces...
Then, mourning tree-limbed kin,
Greeted Gandalf on his way to greater things,
And pledged themselves to holy war.
Saruman the Proud,
The sooty iridescent,
The abject coward,
Stripped of power,
Fled unrepentant
Into the mists of Middle Earth
While Sauron's eye glared
West and East,
Wraith-seeking
Frodo and
The Ring.
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 9:18 AM UTC
On Monday I bury the last of my dreams
And give up my hopes for tomorrow.
I do what’s required to look in the glass
Resigned to become friends with sorrow.
On Monday I’ll pass over white and wear black
I hear the prediction is rain.
I’ll pray for the sun and prepare for the clouds
And seek out small joys in my pain.
On Monday it all takes a turn for the different
Will it get better or will it get worse
I’ll gamble my future on staggering odds
With nothing to save me but verse.
On Monday my heart will have gone somewhere else
As my will walks me into that room
And my mind searches vainly for some safe escape
From the depths of my self-tunneled tomb.
On Monday I’ll stand up and do what I said
The chips must fall down where they may
I’ll carry it through, though I’ll wish I were dead
It’s a price I can nothing but pay.
lsj
Mar 2, 2018
Mar 2, 2018 at 12:07 PM UTC
Men with picked voices chant the names
of cities in a huge gallery: promises
that pull through descending stairways
to a deep rumbling.
The rubbing feet
of those coming to be carried quicken a
grey pavement into soft light that rocks
to and fro, under the domed ceiling,
across and across from pale
earthcolored walls of bare limestone.
Covertly the hands of a great clock
go round and round! Were they to
move quickly and at once the whole
secret would be out and the shuffling
of all ants be done forever.
A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowing
out at a high window, moves by the clock:
disaccordant hands straining out from
a center: inevitable postures infinitely
repeated—
two—twofour—twoeight!
Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms.
This way ma’am!
—important not to take
the wrong train!
Lights from the concrete
ceiling hang crooked but—
Poised horizontal
on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders
packed with a warm glow—inviting entry—
pull against the hour. But brakes can
hold a fixed posture till—
The whistle!
Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two!
Gliding windows. Colored cooks sweating
in a small kitchen. Taillights—
In time: twofour!
In time: twoeight!
—rivers are tunneled: trestles
cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating
the same gesture remain relatively
stationary: rails forever parallel
return on themselves infinitely.
The dance is sure.
1.6k
I used to loathe when tired, those who erred to disregard the pull of thoughts towards the complexities that make us who we are. Or perhaps the tug they never feel, the stinging ***** within the soul. That scratch that must be raked by nails until one feels they fin'lly "know."
I loathed the hedonist's sweet relief
The gratification and tunneled vision
The scarless frames, the husks they may be,
The innocence of things unseen-
I once would wish that I could be so null to that which mattered most. Its relative, but even still I wished that I was like those folks.
11:36p
8.28.18
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 11:39 PM UTC
My breath comes out in gasps,
my vision is tunneled.
My energy drained.
I wonder,
Is this the way a toy feels
When its batteries run dry?
My heart beat slows,
My pulse is weak.
I wonder,
Is this the way a toy feels
When its batteries run dry?
Everything goes dark,
I am bathed in silence.
Serenity, sanctuary.
I wonder,
Is this the way a toy feels
When its batteries run dry?
My heart stops beating.
My last breath escapes.
I am a toy
My batteries just ran dry
Nov 5, 2012
Nov 5, 2012 at 8:30 AM UTC
from the castle ruins
to the stacked pipes
and tunneled waters
of metropolis
we alone
—family in darkness
layers of india ink
hide useless machines
pressing country skin city bone
into amalgamation
hotwired airfield wings
hovering over abandoned
fairgrounds
covered in chains
and cotton candy
enslaved
sweetened
—so the pill goes down with ease
this is our home
this is where we live
life is zenith
future is chaos
Jan 9, 2020
Jan 9, 2020 at 2:16 PM UTC
She lay in the bath, half asleep or half awake she wasn't sure, but the warm water floated gently around her infinitely. And just like the memories in her mind the water lapped aimlessly at nonexistent edges, spilling over, as if wandering off the edge of the world.
She moved her hand carelessly to tuck an escaped strand of hair behind one ear as the water hugged the creases and crevasses of her body, all contained in a white bowl of serenity with the only disruption in her mind. She starred absentmindedly into the reflection in the water, a distorted and watery version of her blue eyes and curly hair, although somewhere inside her she knew she was beginning to feel more like her reflection every day. Her tear stained eyes stared back at her, the makeup smudges making her look skillfully tired and worn as though an artist himself had hand crafted her very face and in the process aged her 5 years. Inside she lulled away, wanting to melt into the water and never care about anything more than was necessary. The soft, happy, carefree side temporarily locked away, with a combination that even she did not yet know. Instead an emotional whirlwind of feelings, angry and powerful tunneled out, amplified by so much as a word or a thought. It was these moments that almost took her by surprise, as if it was someone else pushing these people out, in an attempt to avoid explaining. This was accompanied by feeling as though the world had given her everything to live for and everything to lose in one breath. Her ragged breathing had eventually softened to an emotional sigh of trembling lips as she reimbursed herself with more hot water. Feeling it burn on her leg she watched pink ovals appear, stinging with regrets and pain, a constant wishing to go back and re do and apologies and pause and rewind and forward.
With a click of her heel she snapped the plug away, maybe in some attempt to also drain herself of her tribulations that had almost enveloped her entire bath. Watching the water disappear quickly, she was entranced at the waters escape, loving how eager it was to run away from her. And with this she felt relief, as though she could finally breathe.
Sep 20, 2015
Sep 20, 2015 at 9:19 AM UTC
My heart has risen from it’s dormant winter
No longer blanketed by clouded skies
It’s cold comfort no longer appealing
And can no longer cover my shadows, my footprints, my pride
They parted like window drapes
To a view so intimidating and sublime
Of all the possibilities
For a future- to myself- I denied
During this season
It took too much effort to bade off
The allure of such a melancholy dream
It took a strength I did not possess
A truth I could not confess
But now I have found the courage to find the warmth inside of me
To brighten my tunneled vision
To see my own faults
But realize things happen for a reason
As if warmth gives to warmth
And misery feeds into misery
But no one has to be the villain
Feb 16, 2021
Feb 16, 2021 at 8:38 PM UTC
The effortless leaf fluttered in the wind, its premature disconnection being the cause of sadness for the caterpillar.
The shadow of the old cottonwood had lengthened, and its roots tunneled ceaselessly in the obscured grass.
A bird summoned forth the air, and filtered her back out, having her carry the daily song.
The dog’s ear lifted slightly as the whir of a bike chain became audible for a short time.
Sleep rediscovered him swiftly.
The field slowly absorbed the flooded acequia water.
Ducks discovered a temporary haven.
She sat in the shade, the dog panting by her side. The soft light caressed her exposed skin in the loose summer dress. She squinted up at the blur of a bicyclist, smiling.
The earth swiveled slightly. The leaf had found the ground. The caterpillar had long been pecked by a cheery, singing bird. The shadow of the tree, now extending in the acequia grove, faded with the dying light. The dog now slept inside the old house, abandoning his domain at the fence corner. The ducks found new water, as the field sighed with relief. She walked her dog back to her yard, wishing the bicycle had not been moving quite so fast.
Oct 11, 2011
Oct 11, 2011 at 10:13 PM UTC
The car was running smoothly.
Rattling
Underneath me
Were waves of jades and phosphorous
Blues tickling my imagination,
Urging me to forget the day spent toiling.
Pushing memories away from myself,
A mustard stained cloud
Shouted rays of white down through my windshield.
Fluttering eyelash wings shook
Hastily over blood-shot pupils hot from a knot
Deep in my stomach, my back, my thighs.
Below me, the bridge continued to rattle.
Off over and through the tunneled vision of commerce,
Questions arose in me that I could not answer.
Answers are remedies to an illness called "Why?"
Being free to live is a very hard thing to come by
Leaves only achieve freedom for a moment:
The stem thins
The stem breaks
The leaf drifts in
Angelic joy and indifference,
Plummeting towards a destination
They know not of or care.
Lo', the leaf, soon enough,
Reaches the place
They were always destined to be
I turn into the driveway
The lights are off inside
I sit in the car a moment
And push the memories farther way
To say to do or to lean on say
Is a very dangerous game to play
People expect what they pay for
And even after that
They will, the next time, be expecting more
Our flesh has been on this Earth a long time
Being our home, we are surrounded by our own kind
I play in the mazes of unbalanced theories of truth
Cheeks bleeding with mother Theresa searching for her tooth
And here, in the pit of all this time and space
My age tells me that living is not a race
The finish line is there and has been there
For every man and woman of every age
I swallow a bitter bite of the thin cold air
Reading through the mist:
Life is far harder when forced to care
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 2:49 AM UTC
The Gopher was born
Underground. He spent so much
Of his life there. His eyes never adjusted
To the lack of light, he simply
Tunneled in the dark, half-blind.
He never knew the color
Of his fur (it was brown, the same color
As the dirt he lived in (whose color
He never knew either)), but he assumed
It was black. While ambling through
The black (brown) soil, it so happened
That the plump and innocent Gopher
Unwittingly clawed his way to
The surface. His dwarfish eyes scanned the fairway
Laid out beneath him. It was in that brief moment
That he witnessed the difference
Between rough and fairway, saw white sand traps
Scoop out the sides of hills, and first watched
Red and yellow oak leaves
Drift to the ground.
And for this short while the Gopher was awestruck,
Riveted to the spot. As the lawnmower’s blades
Swept closer, the Gopher could not move at all; and in
An instant, he returned to
The endless black he had come from.
Dec 4, 2010
Dec 4, 2010 at 5:05 AM UTC
Hard-hitting;
Slowly it courses through me,
Burning, bit by bit;
Heightening feelings, numbing inhibitions.
Light headed, heavy hearted, I sway;
Every step unsure.
Blurred thoughts, tunneled vision.
It helps, escaping.
For just a few hours maybe.
Escaping,
The neverending chaos that life presents,
My current reality.
Helps forgetting,
Emotions I cannot comprehend,
A world so baffling.
A few (many) shots of neat green apple *****
Oct 16, 2016
Oct 16, 2016 at 3:27 PM UTC