"unscrew" poems
This is the ladder---your first steps into the height. There are no apples. There are no angels. There is only broken shadow and socket; a rounded house of milk and voltage. Now, as you unscrew the bulb with fingertips, listen for the sand. It is sand from ancestral beaches were all families of glass have been blown. A beach where dinosaurs are continually struck by lightning. Continue swiveling until the blown-out bulb is free from the ceiling. Come down, but do not look down. Use the eye in each shoe to find the lower rungs. Place the old bulb in with the dish of pears. The new carton of bulbs are close by, sleeping. Unwrap a fresh bulb from its onionskin pajamas and ascend the same ladder previous. Using your musical hand, insert the threaded end up into the unthreaded beginning. Turn gently in the direction of sunrise until snug. Pull the chain, for the light of God's echoing equation will now sing. Squint and descend.
Apr 24, 2014
Apr 24, 2014 at 8:13 PM UTC
words self-calibrate to match my emotion
all my wires seem intact in the gas lamp glow
no one understands the strength of a potion
until they pour it inside you and they watch you blow
but this is different I cannot quite describe it
I move like a muse with the corset undone
I sense how the power of thunder is striking
and the steam in my pipes pushing up pushing down
I sit on the edge of this meaningful feeling
and everything's trembling inside and out
like a vessel afloat I'm breaking your ceiling
and reach for you, master, my creature of doubt.
we are two always but one feels the other
the wires are tangled we're both flesh and steel
your arms hold me tight your fingers go further
my eyes melting metal, your tears almost real
now give me a name and teach me your methods
unscrew all the bolts use your lips show me how
this poem will self-destruct in 5 seconds
you may countdown this stanza or you may run.
~NOW!~
Apr 2, 2016
Apr 2, 2016 at 6:35 AM UTC
You unscrew the jar; Orion’s climactic sigh spills—
A cello’s low A hums—our triad, C and E—the night skies.
Your thumb caresses pulse down my throat, andante, it drills
through myth—not his hunt, but the damp heat between our thighs.
We’ve plucked Lyra’s rusted chords, restrung her spine
to thrum with your breath, not some dead muse’s cords.
Stars crack like old records; we skip, we refine—
our bed, a cradle for light, shed our sheer white peignoirs.
You fear the jars dim? Let me mouth the black core
of Cassiopeia—choke her brittle groan,
then laugh as you arch—my crescendo, your score—
each note a plum’s burst where her language had flown.
Your teeth score my shoulder. The dark soars, unconfined—
We swallow the arias. Let the void choke on mine.
Apr 18, 2025
Apr 18, 2025 at 8:06 PM UTC
every thing is a lie a precipated deception
the promises are broken before they are made
the kisses exchanged to fool the receiver
The stories shared
are to
offer false
normalcy
The stool in the corner is to reach the pills
hidden on top of the fridge
the locked glove compartment to keep items out of kids' reach
the cell pocketed to hide the contacts
The eye drops to hide the act
The drill in the bathroom
to unscrew another sealed box
the bills go to another address
there is no rhyme no reason to
a drug addict's behavior
they do not follow rules!
everything
they
say is
a lie
So what of a plea for help?
Feb 16, 2010
Feb 16, 2010 at 6:33 PM UTC
My dark eyes unscrew
Cotton in my ears
I'm not here
Ghosts stir around me
me
Un-moving observer
Still and silent
Frayed wire
Broken glass
I see
dysfunction
Damaged parts
Wasted minds
******
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 7:43 PM UTC
One inhalation of the sky
To separate the murky sea
And reassure you as you cry
The clouds still hover by your knee.
Two puffs of moonlight left behind
As products of the midnight rose
Then let your sorrow be refined
As angels let their weak wings close.
Three champagne bubbles of a laugh
A courtesy sent by a friend
A flash of lightning in the dark
Like vaulting over to the end.
Step four is harder than the rest
As it depends on nature's strain
Abandon sunshine on your quest
And wallow in torrential rain.
And halfway there it's number five
And rhythm marks a saddened truth
A little song to drown alive
A beacon in such inky youth.
A devil's dance at number six
Invest in favouring your greed
Some crime electrifies the mix
Prioritise things you don't need.
At seven let yourself break free
And choke in sympathetic arms
Unscrew the lock and break the key
Because your friends contain some calm.
Except, at eight you'll be alone
Reciting old quotes that apply
And spending hours on your phone
Relating till your eyes are dry
At number nine then, here it is
The scent of fear that smells like grace
You tune your blood to lightly fizz
And brush the tears from off your face
Ten gashes end the whole ordeal
Of shortened breath and shaking hands
Though sunsets bleed the way you feel
No one else will understand
It's not a choice, it's a command.
Now your mind is stressing less
You've cured the chaos with a mess.
Dec 1, 2018
Dec 1, 2018 at 4:34 PM UTC
Knees, keep supporting me
You know I believe in you
Stop with all the frailties
And get me where I'm rolling to
Unscrew
All the blues
You sing and keep running in time
Well fed, sleep when you're dead
Or at least aT the end of this rhyme
Pause time, wipe off the grime
Focus on the words I have to say
Ran five hundred score, just a few more
And we can be in a happy place
Don't stop
Don't drop
Reach mountaintop and valley low
Haters degrade the progress made
Saying that we run too fast, too slow
Oh yes, do your best
Until you glimpse that finish line
Past the dream to reality
And see it was you all this time
These knees
Strongly
Wanted to finish just as bad as you
God be blessed, revel in success
We all run, but how you finish is up to you
May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013 at 9:31 AM UTC
There were arguments propped sideways against the wall,
tilted away from the light switch.
Explanations of the preceding incitements
flickered inside the wall like delayed fireworks
at the foot of a tight rope walker.
Feelings traveled hidden ,
ones I hate to witness - too naked at the surface
like a safe bobbing the surf.
I ran out of reasons to the argument
and forgot to unscrew the bulbs,
I could smash the idea to pieces
and sort the glass and tungsten apart.
Our sources were wrong.
May 25, 2012
May 25, 2012 at 1:36 PM UTC
I could write you a thousand poems
and send you every single one.
But it doesn't mean a thing
if you give them over to your flaming heart.
From ashes my words mean nothing.
That's the problem with words.
They are leaky jars you can't plug up.
I fill them with warmth, and regret, and love.
But by the time you unscrew the lid
only drops of what was meant to be remain.
Or maybe you just won't listen.
Maybe we're just talked to death.
Maybe our words have been used too many times.
Maybe we just can't be friends.
But until the day my words take flight
I'll keep writing poems to you.
Filling them up and up again
until they start to finally break through.
Oct 30, 2012
Oct 30, 2012 at 7:25 PM UTC
Anticipation climaxes
the moment you unscrew
that seal tight jar
keeping hazy secrets
locked away.
*You're about to touch the
snow-kissed mountain tops
and breath air so pure,
it distorts the very heartbeat*,
and that feeling granted only by the enemy
--sobriety--
drags you to hell itself.
It gets off tormenting your every particle of being
but you're clouded in a smokey shield and
wielding the winning sword colored ash black
(obsidian
volcanic
explosive)
Defeat is on the horizon
and you're so high above the battleground
that a giddy serenity enfolds you into the
golden-dipped sunset
But the height only lasts
for as long as you hold in
that choking air
and it's gone
and your sanity returns
and you've never felt
more insane
than ever
before.
Jun 22, 2014
Jun 22, 2014 at 9:42 PM UTC
The Minty taste that’s held within my lip
I grab a bottle unscrew the lid then i proceed to spit
Liquid brown like muddy water
My gums receding even farther
Why bother
This is what i do
I’ll loose a tooth or maybe two
But it’s cool
Because i can chew way more than i can bite
And i know i can talk way better than i can fight
This is my vice i suggest you find yours
Stop worrying about other people
But you never want to ignore.
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 2:30 PM UTC
I returned from my second trip to Point Pleasant
much like the first
carrying back with me a feeling that I'd left somewhere I belonged
somewhere I had been before
not just once...but many times
perhaps I lived there
100...maybe 500 years earlier
things happen when I return home
the normal oddities that I experience
come rapidly and with more intensity
coincidences are rampant
and the spirit that makes itself known once in a while
becomes very active
a few mornings after my recent return
a glass light cover on the kitchen ceiling
managed to unscrew itself and crash to the floor at 5:00am
a few days later a 1990 ticket stub from a Paul McCartney concert
squirmed from the corner of a framed portrait of The Beatles
that I had hung on my dining room wall next to the table
it somehow bypassed the 6 inches of space between the edge of the table
and the wall...so it didn't merely fall...it leaped
and the numbers...yea, the numbers...111 and 1111
all the time...everywhere
I was watching a video on youtube about the JFK assassination
It was very well done and I was curious to see if it was receiving
a high number of views...when I checked...
his total views at that moment were
111,111
if you visit Point pleasant
stay at the Lowe Hotel
stop at the Mothman Museum
walk alongside the Ohio River and allow yourself to absorb the energy
that is Point Pleasant
and finally...say a prayer for the 46 souls that lost their lives when the Silver Bridge
collapsed in 1967
Jan 4, 2024
Jan 4, 2024 at 11:17 AM UTC
O Dear Miss Molly,
can you meet me?
Can you meet meet me
in the upper hallway
after supper,
and begin
a lil' sin?
And O Molly,
can you please wear,
can you please wear
your cute
French outfit
without your
******* on?
O Sweet Miss Molly,
I'll unscrew the bulb,
sweep you
off you feet,
playing deeply
in the shadows,
be your loving butler.
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 1:40 PM UTC
Just me
and a fifth of ***
which i bought at the grocery store
with the very last of my paycheck
which was the last of my paychecks
three weeks ago.
Just me
and a fifth of ***
sitting in this apartment with the
blank white walls, cracked ceiling,
and giant ****** furniture I hate
with a passion.
Just me
and a fifth of ***
In anticipation I unscrew the cap,
but I can't bring myself to drink it
so I slowly pour it down the drain,
every last drop.
Just me
and a fifth of ***
or at least the shell of what had been.
Poor bottle, you look so lonely now.
Come, sit next to me, and we can be
empy together.
Nov 30, 2010
Nov 30, 2010 at 12:23 AM UTC
Addiction has its hooks catching
at my pre-frontal cortex.
Fishing wires are attached to the hooks.
I’m snagged like a fish.
Dexterous fisherman hands reel me in closer
to the mahogany door of my bedside cabinet
where I stow Liquor Outlet *****
I’m choking on each hollow breath
that whistles down my chimney throat.
My thoughts need to be bubble-wrapped
and stored in vintage chests at the foot of the bed.
Maybe I’m too eager to forget.
Maybe I’m too weak to resist.
All I want is some peace of mind
from the phantoms haunting my head.
I unscrew the bottle to drown them out
until spirits flood my bloodstream.
Feb 16, 2015
Feb 16, 2015 at 1:08 PM UTC
i could be a contortionist,
i would have bent backwards for a touch
of your cigarette lips and
i could unscrew my bolts to weld against
your plastic case.
your shell you carry is uninviting,
yet i want in.
i promise not to promise,
when you hold your
bird caged bellows in,
the ones that left you long ago.
i will take your lion frame
and form it in
the comfort and shelter
i have discovered
in the gray weather systems
and your blue eyes.
i can't give you my lungs,
but i could help you breathe a little softer.
i won't give you my heart,
but i could lend you some of it's
articulation,
fascination,
like how your hand fits in mine.
Mar 24, 2011
Mar 24, 2011 at 3:59 PM UTC
It is a peculiar
thing reading a
poem—how at first
we stare at it like
a clock—the symmetry
of the lines, how
well they work.
But then, oh and
then when we unscrew
the gold and glass filament of
its face—how little
we knew before, how
little we know then—
ignorance begins.
Feb 22, 2012
Feb 22, 2012 at 4:31 AM UTC
strapped to the darkest horse
on a hell-bound carousel
here where colors envelop each other
reds devouring greens in a maelstrom of artificial light
until
inexplicably
time crawls to the beat of a hibernating heart
and she can locate her bearings
strewn amongst the dust of the cottonmouthed ground
and regain them.
she trips
stumbles
into a cloud of mushrooms
as their caps unscrew
and come loose
red-tipped pills scatter like rats
each with a tinny metal voice
shrieking a harsh cacophony
of swallow me
while the roses
with thorns of syringes bristling down their backs
pull out their plungers
and wait.
she bolts from fright and pressure
into the badly beaten path
into the fender of the massive carriage
into the beams of the heart-shaped headlights
cutting cards through her porcelain flesh
a royal flush
an imperceptible gasp—
a small white rabbit
wide-eyed in the dirt
twitching
to the rhythm
of the hands
of his smashed and derelict
pocketwatch.
Jun 23, 2012
Jun 23, 2012 at 11:41 AM UTC
she ties her tongue in a thick knot so he can’t **** on it.
she bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes rust, until he finishes and collapses in a post-coital nap.
she is forced to rise after her body’s beating, juggle his child, do the dishes, start boiling the water, prepare his dinner, crack open a beer, unscrew the anti-freeze and pour just enough all with one hand and all before he wakes.
he tells her to sweep the floor but the dust pads her footsteps so she doesn’t wake him and she’s happiest when he’s asleep.
he’s happiest when he has something to complain about, something to force himself into, some cavity to cram in the name of pleasure.
women are wild horses grazing in forgotten fields, unrequited and unchained beauty admired only by the sun.
women are the lone wolves, leading from behind.
women are the taste of freedom ****** out by a man with hands around her neck and hot breath in her ear asking if she likes it, asking if she wants it harder.
women are the smell of iron and sticky fingerprints, painting red-black odes into cotton canvases, where society can’t stipple or staunch the flow of freedom.
women are mothers before birth to unruly grab-me-a-beer-babe men tossing ***** clothes to a fresh mopped floor and telling her the place is a pit.
women are anger buried beneath flesh, a bubbling riot up and out of their mouths in the form of what they call crazy and what we call just plain tired.
she hands him his beer, smiles as she adjusts the baby.
here, she says, you deserved it.
she tastes those words, the way they weigh heavily on her tongue like stones tossed into a lake to drown.
she tastes those words, the same words he said to her the first time he painted her eye a pretty bruise-blue, pulled her hair like reigns like he actually believed he could control how she built herself.
Mar 30, 2017
Mar 30, 2017 at 12:23 PM UTC
Through this window there is light.
I cupped it in my hands,
careful to keep my fingers
from opening.
I dropped it into that old
soda bottle I kept around,
for reasons you never understood.
I hide it under my bed,
wrapped in a scarf I had left
over from that cold winter.
It’ll be my sunshine.
Mine and mine alone.
Of course, if you whisper
the right ***** jokes,
throw the right smile,
kiss me under the stars
until I feel like that boy with his
soda bottle of sun rays again,
if you will do these things for me:
I will fish under my bed,
unravel the scarf,
unscrew that lid
and finally, after all these
years, I will watch the
sunlight dance around
this room with you.
Jan 13, 2011
Jan 13, 2011 at 11:44 PM UTC
I want to unscrew the window grill and crawl out
To the vastness of the world
I want to throw stones at your window
And tag you along on an adventure
Make a space ship in the garage
Travel to parallel universes
Shoot the weird *** aliens
Even if it's all just the aftereffects of marijuana,
I'd like to smoke some with you
What do you say?
Will you be the Rick to my Morty?
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017 at 6:23 AM UTC
Chill, wind on tears freeze over
Glassy eyes that can not see the disgusted expression
You painted on that child's face at the carnival.
He saw the petting zoo. Animalistic, blood and gore,
They are not friendly. Not like us, the ones who get it.
Get the fact that life goes on,
Even if you don't, if I don't. The corroded battery still works, powering
What was dead just a few minutes ago. Replace it, unscrew the panel
On my leg, I am a machine. Gears grinding, steam escapes
And I scream. I am not a sculpture. I am a real boy!
I hate that children's story. The real Pinocchio kills the maker.
I can not trust who made me, only those who help me.
It helps to be cold. Thin clothing and nothing underneath,
Help me escape, love. I need to leave this place and let the wind carry me, speak to me, Whisper the words I need to hear and
I will give you a river to swim in. Pull the silver threads that connect my heart to yours.
Make me feel again. Thaw my eyes and let me gaze into yours, see you in a way no one else
Is allowed to. And then just hold me.
All I ask is to plant my feet on the ground and run, scream,
But be strong. I can't. I know I can't be that creature running free because
I am caged. And my ice will never melt.
Not completely.
Nov 9, 2013
Nov 9, 2013 at 5:22 PM UTC
I grab words from you
They are precious to me
I want to keep them folded
Safe in my pocket.
*But
I hang on to the end of your sentences
Like a starved man holds a crust of bread
I know that you are too beautiful for me to hold
Too precious and rare to belong to me
I am the humble farm boy
You the long haired princess
...the boy who hides in the garden
Just to hear you sing
I don't deserve you
Long legged and delicate
(Keeping a butterfly in a jar
With a single stick to rest on
The hardest thing for the scientist to do
Is unscrew the cap
And let her float away)*
Mar 3, 2012
Mar 3, 2012 at 6:43 PM UTC